Discussing Week 1 and college football’s Power Five kickoff: A Blitz Podcast
By Zach Bigalke
College football started play over Labor Day weekend, but the 2020 season truly begins in Week 2 when the ACC and Big 12 open the Power Five schedule.
We wondered all offseason whether this moment would actually come. Locked down at home, working remotely when we could, a nation of football fans wondered whether any FBS teams would take the field this fall. When the Big Ten and Pac-12 called off games, it looked for a fleeting moment like the entire Power Five might collapse like so many dominoes.
Instead, the SEC, ACC, and Big 12 redoubled their efforts to make sure football didn’t vanish completely this fall. That encouraged the American Athletic Conference, the Sun Belt, and Conference USA to keep playing. It inspired teams like BYU to scramble to piece together a new schedule out of the ashes of their original plan.
Now we are officially here, with 2020 football games already in the books and the Power Five preparing to take the field beginning on Thursday night with Miami’s showdown against UAB.
This week in the Saturday Blitz Podcast, we open the episode with a look the big stories that evolved out of Labor Day weekend and the first FBS contests of the year. After the first break, we return to talk about the start of Power Five play and acknowledge the games already being canceled around the country due to COVID-19 outbreaks.
In the final segment, we turn toward the impact of a 2020 football season on fans whose teams will not be playing this fall. How does one maintain an identity built on college football if there is no partisan interest to drive that identity formation?
Football might be back now, but 2020 feels as weird as ever. Ultimately, how this season is remembered decades from now depends on all of us and how much legitimacy we are willing to ascribe to what does happen on the field. This year depends not just on players and coaches, broadcast crews and stadium staff, but all of us fans — including those of us without anything to root for this year.
The Saturday Blitz Podcast is part of the FanSided Radio Network at Spreaker. The show goes live every Wednesday morning. You can reach John Mitchell at @jlmitchell93 and Zach Bigalke at @zbigalke on Twitter.