Will the upcoming college football season be played?

That’s the million-dollar question in the South at the moment but if you caught the latest episode of “College Football Live” on ESPN, which was focused on the uncertainty surrounding the upcoming season, every analyst on the show issued their belief that the season will be played.

When it comes to optimism, former Georgia defender turned ESPN analyst David Pollack offered up the most encouraging thoughts on the subject.

“I’m very optimistic,” Pollack said on the show. “I know there’s a lot of pessimism going on, Rece, and you’re gonna find plenty of negativity – all you got to do is look for it about football not coming back and the reasons not to. But I do feel optimistic. I think that all the people that have so much involvement, so much say, I think they can find a way to continue to make this work.

“Rece, I’m not saying carelessly, I’m saying that we continue to implement rules, we continue to use masks, we continue to use testing, we continue to look at the NBA as it continues. Look at MLB as it starts and continue to grow and learn about the virus and learn ways to do it. But I am optimistic. I think we have enough smart people involved in football that I do think we will be able to have a football season.”

Those sentiments were echoed by Joey Galloway, who also shared his belief that the college football season will be played.

“I like it, I go with you, David. I think we’re going to have a football season,” Galloway said following Pollack’s comments. “It may not be on time, it’s gonna look different, but I think you have to prepare. You hear every coach say that they’re preparing as if we are going to play, and that’s the same thing I’m doing. I’m preparing as if we were going to play because you can’t do it the other way. You can’t, you know, not prepare for it and then all of a sudden, have a season.

“I think there’s a lot of smart people, making a lot of good decisions. The problem is, we just don’t know week to week, month to month, what’s going to happen. But I do know that everyone has given their best effort to get this done and have a season, in some way shape or form. And I believe that they will get it done and we will have a season.”

Former Alabama quarterback Greg McElroy also shared his opinion that the season would be played but he noted that he doesn’t believe there’s much hope that the season starts on schedule. The former Tide signal-caller could see the start of the season pushed back to early October.

“I’m going to echo with both those guys said, I anticipate a fall season,” McElroy added. “However, I don’t know if I anticipate a game being played on September 5, which is exactly when the regular season is really supposed to get underway. I think they’re going to take as much time as humanly possible to make an educated decision.

“We’ve talked a lot about uniformity, can we find it in college football in regards to testing, with regards to protocols? How long are guys going to quarantine? What are schedules going to look like? Those are all questions that need to be answered here in the next few weeks and to assume that we’re going to get kicked off on Week 1, on September 5 with a whole slate of games with everybody, following proper protocols, it’s very difficult for me to assume. I do anticipate a season starting early October, maybe late September.”