Forever Plagued

 So now the Bastard Plague has put college football's marquee-est name in lockdown, and a powerhouse Wisconsin team has run out of undiseased (or at least un-carrier) quarterbacks, and we see the cost, don't we? We see what going ahead and playing football in the middle of a resurgent pandemic will do, unavoidably.

What it will do is alter the landscape of autumn, unavoidably. Shape it in ways it would never have otherwise been shaped, unavoidably. 

Let's consider Clemson, for instance.

The word came down the other day that quarterback Trevor Lawrence, the leader in the clubhouse for this year's Heisman Trophy, has shown red for Covid-19, which means he's on the shelf for the Boston College game tomorrow. It also means the No. 1 Tigers might be headed to South Bend for the big Nov. 7 showdown against No. 4 Notre Dame without him. 

That wouldn't be happening if not for the Plague. And so the dynamics of the next two weeks are changed because of it.

For Wisconsin, too. We're only a week into the truncated Big Ten season, and the Badgers are on the sidelines. An outbreak on the team sidelined 16 players and left Wisky with the prospect of starting its fourth-string quarterback against Nebraska this week, until the school said to hell with it and canceled the game. And that, of course, changes the landscape of the Big Ten, too.

The Badgers, after all, poleaxed Illinois 45-7 last week and looked ready to shoulder their way into the Ohio State-Penn State-Michigan power nexus, and now ... well, who knows. A potential Big Four will remain the Big Three, more than likely. And what of the Illini, who spent three-and-a-half hours last week getting breathed on by the Badgers?

Maybe down the road they'll be compelled to drop a game, too. Or maybe Purdue will, having already played its opener with head coach Jeff  Brohm sidelined by a positive test. And on and on it goes, the dominoes tumbling, the season's geography shifting with every outbreak.

The Let 'Em Play crowd wanted their football, and they got it. But that doesn't mean they beat the 'Rona.

One way or another, subtly and otherwise, it's still working its will. It's still, and always will be,  the Season of the Plague.

And the warping of its contours has just begun.