There’s no hiding how much damage could occur in college athletics if the upcoming football season isn’t played.

Many schools rely on their football programs to carry their entire athletics budget and without money flowing in this fall, the collateral damage could be felt all around the nation.

That’s something Paul Finebaum believes college power brokers are already discussing behind closed doors.

During his most recent appearance on Birmingham-based WJOX 94.5 FM program “The RoundTable,” the SEC Network host was asked to respond to recent comments made by Florida AD Scott Stricklin regarding how damaging losing the football season could be for college athletics.

“I believe they’re very concerned, Jim, and I think there’s a hope that the season will get underway, I just don’t know in what shape or form,” Finebaum said during his appearance on the show. “And you’ve heard, as we’ve all heard, that the athletic directors, communicate with Commissioner Sankey every day and I think they’re just, I’m sure they’re probably going over a list of possibilities — what if (possibilities). And I thought Scott was about as buttoned-down as anyone we talked to date, because you know he is that type of organizer and facilitator and right now it just kind of like everything else, we don’t know.

“Obviously the audience that we all talk to every day is probably most concerned. Yeah, I hate to lose basketball. But you know what’s interesting about college basketball is, you know, two weeks from tonight, would be the final game. I mean, it goes. Once you get it going, it’s like a freight train going downhill.

“Football is, you know, is April, it’s March and April, it’s July, it’s every month, really, under the sun. And I think that’s what, from a sports standpoint, I think that’s really what we’re focusing on. And I just think it’s impossible to tell. And the reason why I think that is, whenever this whole thing starts to flatten out, and I’m not going to go, you know, Tony Falchi on you, will get a clearer picture of what we all look like. All these athletic departments are prepared for difficulty, but none of them are prepared for a shortening of the football season or a collapse of the football season. And I mean the trickle-down of that would be catastrophic.”

Finebaum makes a valid point there as we’ve already seen reports of the NCAA blowing through reserve funds after losing out on the 2020 NCAA Tournament but that month-long event would be nothing compared to losing several months of the most talked about sport in college and in many parts of the country.