It’s Watch List Season. Let’s hope it can be a precursor to an actual season.

In a normal year, we would have just concluded the dog and pony show that is SEC Media Days, and would be counting down the mere days until players reported for fall practice. But thanks to COVID-19, SEC Media Days didn’t happen, and the season itself is in serious doubt, with the Ivy League canceling all fall sports and several other conferences moving to a schedule that includes only conference games.

But at least one season seems to be going off without a hitch, and that’s Watch List Season. That may be a small victory, but in a year when virtually nothing has been normal, and everything normal has been virtual, you have to take what you can get. With A&M returning the most production in the SEC, and a significantly easier schedule, most have high hopes for the 2020 season, that these players will have a major role in living up to those high expectations.

• Biletnikoff Award Watch List (best wide receiver): Jhamon Ausbon
• Bronco Nagurski Award Watch List (Defensive Player of the Year): Buddy Johnson
• Butkus Award Watch List (best linebacker): Anthony Hines and Buddy Johnson
• Davey O’Brien Award Watch List (best quarterback): Kellen Mond
• Doak Walker Award Watch List (best running back): Isaiah Spiller
• John Mackey Award Watch List (best tight end): Jalen Wydermyer
• Maxwell Award Watch List (player of the year): Kellen Mond
• Outland Trophy Watch List (best offensive lineman): Kenyon Green and Dan Moore, Jr.
• Paul Hornung Award Watch List (most versatile player: Ainias Smith
• Wuerffel Trophy Watch List (players who serve others, celebrate their positive impact on society, and inspire greater service in the world): Kellen Mond

There are still so many unknowns regarding the status of college football. Will games get played? If so, do we play 12 games? When will those games be played? Will fans be in the stands? Will we have conference title games? Bowls? I’m sure a lot of discussion and preparation has been done behind the scenes, but with a little more than a month until the first games are scheduled to be played, it’s terrifying as a fan to have so few answers about what the college football season will look like.

Obviously in the broad scheme of things, college football isn’t that important. It isn’t as important as the essential workers helping our society go, it isn’t important as the millions of people suffering from COVID-19 or the countless others just trying to weather the storm of this worldwide pandemic. But that doesn’t mean we won’t miss it dearly if it doesn’t happen. Here’s hoping actual games are a part of our watch lists on Saturdays this fall.