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This unique college football season that almost wasn’t in Ohio and in much of Saturday’s America has turned nearly as dark as it began. Even the rich National Football League has its troubles, not the least of which in Northeast Ohio was Baker Mayfield’s recent presence in a limbo referred to as the reserve/COVID-19 list.

Mayfield, Cleveland’s quarterback, achieved this dubious distinction by coming into contact with a “non-coaching Browns staff member who tested positive for the virus.” After that contact occurred this past Saturday (November 7), Mayfield was barred from the team’s Berea facility until Wednesday. After a series of tests over five days proved negative, Mayfield was permitted to rejoin his teammates as they prepare to play host on Sunday to the Houston Texans. The House of Sadness is not the only place where this happens. Like Mayfield, Pittsburgh quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was sidelined for a time after he too had come into contact with someone who has the virus.

If unintended consequences can fell—at least temporarily—denizens of the exclusive country that is the NFL, it should be no surprise that less isolated college teams also find themselves victims of the nation’s most recent coronavirus surge. The situation has become so dire that Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has threatened, if cases continue to rise, to again shut down bars, restaurants, and other recognized COVID-19 spreaders.

Ohio State University’s football team won’t be traveling to Maryland to test whether the Terrapins are as improved as they seem. Because eight Maryland players tested positive in a span of seven days, the game has been canceled. Because it will not be made up there could be ramifications not only for the Buckeyes national playoff aspirations but also for individual awards, not the least of which is the Heisman Trophy. OSU quarterback Justin Fields is making a run at favorite Trevor Lawrence, the Clemson quarterback who has had to sit out the past two games after being infected.

In a world turned insane and deadly by pandemic, how could we have expected to march blithely through a football season without fits and starts or worse? The Big Ten Conference began by canceling its nonconference schedule, a decision that all but killed the Mid-American Conference, which depends on Big Ten money-games to help its thin bottom line. The MAC responded by canceling its season, only to reverse its decision when the Southeastern and Big 12 conferences and others proved it possible to play, if cautiously. Now, caution seems to have been thrown to the sick wind.

Four SEC games scheduled for Saturday have been postponed due to positive COVID-19 tests, and one of the premier conference’s coaches, Arkansas’s Sam Pittman, has been quarantined following a positive test. Pittman, with no mask, gave a victory speech in the Razorbacks crowded locker room. Did one lead to the other? Draw your own conclusions but do your homework, as any good college student would.

The mostly mask-less White House celebration for new Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett resulted in a number of attendees testing positive for the virus afterward. (Thank you, Mr. President.) And even some followers of The Unmasked Man-in-Chief, including Chris Christie, former governor of New Jersey, admitted after this fiasco that they should have worn masks. Perhaps Arkansas Coach Pittman should have as well. He will not be coaching the Razorbacks Saturday when they play Florida.

Likewise, the coronavirus has gotten the attention of SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey, whom USA TODAYcolumnist Dan Wolken, describes as circumspect, “college football’s most disciplined careful messenger,” a man whose “answers to most questions are meant to be as satisfying as 50-calorie beer.” This week he began to shout the equivalent of fire in a crowded theater (though there is no such theater now).

Wolken has launched a righteous campaign to nudge the powers that run the College Football Playoff to create for the four teams selected to compete for the national championship a “bubble” similar to that which Major League Baseball (not to mention the National Basketball Association) used for its playoffs. So far, no go. “There hasn’t been any discussion of a single-site bubble,” CFP Executive Director Bill Hancock told Wolken via a text.

Hancock is as responsible a person as I ever knew in sports. I’ve known him for years. We met when he was a young assistant in the University of Oklahoma Sports Information office and I was almost as young a sports columnist for the Tulsa Tribune. Our paths crossed through the years as he climbed high on the NCAA ladder. He came from an Oklahoma newspaper family before the days when newspaper was a dirty word. Bill was always a good listener, and I hope he and the CFP committee listen now.

Otherwise, the problems involved in making the changes necessary to plans for the College Football Playoff January 1 semifinals in Pasadena, California, and New Orleans—winners advancing to the championship game in Miami—will be the least of the CFP’s worries. It might even have to invite a Group-of-Five upstart or sharp-looking independent (Brigham Young University) to fill out the field.

How about upstart University of Cincinnati? Open up what coronavirus is closing down.