LSU quarterback Joe Burrow

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — I love baseball as much as anybody, but I recognize I’m traveling in the slow lane. We’re going to miss at least 63% of the MLB season, and seldom is heard a discouraging word.

The NBA should be back within two weeks at its bubble in Orlando, Florida. Thumbs up to commissioner Adam Silver and his players for giving it a shot.

As much as I watch basketball, I don’t think I’m going to be gaga about it in August and September.

But everything will change in the next three weeks. Football guarantees that.

America will not shrug if there is no football — college or NFL. People will not wait patiently and thankfully for 3½ months the way baseball fans have waited.

No basketball in July or August does not seem strange. No football in September, October, November and beyond will not seem strange. It will seem outrageous.

No football will make people upset.

Annoyed.

Irritated.

Perturbed

Angry.

Confusion reigns today. I saw evidence of that in my Twitter poll on Friday.

There are other signs of the confusion surrounding the game. On Friday, three days after head coach Tom Allen announced he was optimistic Indiana’s 2020 season would begin as scheduled Sept. 4 at Wisconsin, the Hoosiers suspended voluntary workouts in Bloomington after six players tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

You don’t need an advanced degree in unlocking the secrets of the Cover-2 defense to ask the first follow-up question: What would Indiana do if six players, all from the quarterback room, tested positive during the week of the Wisconsin game? Play? Forfeit?

Scream that Antwaan Randle El or Trent Green had another season of eligibility?

There’s considerable screaming as the start of practice inches closer.

Harsh words are flying. Mack Brown expects to have a team that will contend for the Atlantic Division title of the Atlantic Coast Conference at North Carolina. Brown has certified Mr. Nice Guy credentials.

Brown left his Mr. Nice Guy Uniform in the closet when he spoke on Paul Finebaum’s radio show this week. He aired the most grievances I have heard since Festivus.

"I really wish we’d have a commissioner of college football," Brown said. "We wouldn’t have different leagues doing different things and so much uncertainty. If we were more uniform and all on the same page ... then we wouldn’t be in the position we are in right now."

Did I mention Brown appeared with Finebaum, the face of Southeastern Conference fans?

I like Paul, but Finebaum did not become a media star reading from the same playbook as Brown. Finebaum believes every day is Festivus. Grievances are his calling card.

Finebaum called for regime change — at the NCAA.

He said what a number of people have said this summer: There is nobody in charge of college football. In fact, I said it here at WDRB.com eight days ago, when I wondered if an empty chair was running the show.

Finebaum, who has the benefit of a national radio and TV show, said it with more hot sauce. Finebaum has been spectacularly unimpressed by the job president Mart Emmert has done leading the NCAA.

He said Emmert should be fired as quickly as Alabama would fire a 7-5 football coach.

"They say that Mark Emmert is a complete failure at leadership," Finebaum said on the show. "First of all, it was nice of Mark Emmert to come out of the witness protection program yesterday to let us know what we should all know about the college football season.

"He is the president of the NCAA. He makes three and a half million dollars a year and him telling us there’s a problem is like a meteorologist telling us during a hurricane that it’s raining outside.

"He is a complete, abject failure at leadership. He’s been derelict in his duty, and quite frankly, I think he should be fired. We might wait (until) this storm passes to get rid of him, but he has no use whatsoever except taking up the airwaves with idiotic, inane and unimportant statements."

Would anybody else like the microphone before I return to worrying about whether Major League Baseball will actually start Thursday?

My friend and former newspaper teammate Pat Forde made certain that he was recognized at Sports Illustrated. If college football is not played this fall, Forde will not blame Emmert, the conference commissioners, Mike Gundy, Rob Manfred, the Kardashians or Last Chance U.

Forde will blame President Donald Trump for fumbling the national response to COVID-19. Here is the column link, as well as a segment of what Pat wrote:

"If the season dies, we know who had the biggest hand in killing any chance of it happening: Donald Trump.

"When he inevitably gets around to Twitter-ranting about what has happened to the sport, Trump should instead do what he never does—accept some accountability for the state of affairs. By blowing the summer he’s jeopardized the fall, doing more to endanger the college football season than anyone in America.

"Slow to respond, quick to downplay the risk, unwilling to create a national strategy, quite willing to attack governors who took the pandemic seriously, pushing for premature openings of states, flaunting a no-mask stance for months and turning that into a belligerent political statement, Trump and his ideologues are now marinating in a midsummer mess of their own creation. What an epic failure of leadership, one that will deprive Trump of his cherished autumn fealty festivals at a packed football stadium."

No football this fall will not translate into more shrugs or furrowed brows the way it has for baseball and basketball.

No football this fall will translate into frustration, finger-pointing, anger and a demand that somebody shows leadership. It already has.

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