After weeks and weeks of speculation, much of it negative, the good news is the outlook for the 2020 college football season continues to be promising. In the coming days, athletes from across the nation are set to return to their respective campuses in anticipation of the coming season.

However, despite all the positive momentum, there is a big question looming over the sport that remains unanswered — what happens if an athlete, or a number of athletes, tests positive for the coronavirus during the season?

That’s something SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey has been asked directly but has yet to reveal the protocol his conference will handle in that event. Instead of outlining the SEC’s current plan, Sankey has said he continues to discuss this hypothetical with other leagues in addition to monitoring the protocols that will be set forth by the professional leagues.

During a recent interview with ESPN show “Outside The Lines,” SEC Network host Paul Finebaum was asked how high of a priority student safety is as college leagues discuss a return to action.

While Finebaum trusts that college administrators are doing what they can to ensure the safety of athletes across the country, the SEC Network host doesn’t express much confidence in anyone having the perfect answer on how to properly handle a potential coronavirus outbreak at this time.

“Well, it’s always the first thing they mentioned, but Jeremy, you do have to wonder sometimes because they seem like they are in a rush to get this thing off and running,” Finebaum said on the show. “But the responsible commissioners that I speak with, the responsible ADs, and there are many out there, talk about safety but even when they talk about it, I’m not sure they really know what they’re talking about.

“And I don’t mean to be demeaning them, they’ve spent the last two and a half to three months every day on Zoom meetings talking about these very topics. So they’re conversing on the subject, but it’s one thing to talk about it in theory, it’s another thing to execute it. And even more delicately, what happens if they get a positive test or even worse, an outbreak?”

With organized team sports remaining sidelined in America for the time being, we likely won’t have the answer to Finebaum’s question until an active athlete in a sport tests positive. In the meantime, administrators from around college football will be monitoring the situation like the rest of us.