The Light At The End Of The Sports Tunnel Is Getting Dim

March Madness -- CANCELED!, NBA and NHL Playoffs -- CANCELED! Major and Minor League Baseball -- POSTPONED INDEFINITELY!

As a sports fan, your only light has been looking ahead to college and pro football. And that that light just got dim.

The funny thing about a pandemic is it's really hard to determine when things are well enough to start up again.

And as we deal with rising case numbers and the peak seems weeks away, it's time to have an honest talk about what's important.

Football is without a doubt America's new pastime, and now it appears things are getting dangerously close to encroaching on it.

Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly this week admitted there's a hard line for him to have his team ready for the 2020 season, and that date is just 97 days away -- July 1.

In an interview with ESPN's Scott Van Pelt, Kelly said you have to be real about what can be done in a short period of time.

“There’s going to be a date where we all, as college football administrators and coaches, come up with a date from a player safety standpoint — we have to say this is the date that we can live with to get these young men physically conditioned and ready to go into camp...If you can’t start training your football team by July 1, you’re going to need at least four weeks.”

To be sure, Kelly's being cautious, but even if given a later start date, you're at the very least looking at a college football season where the quality of play would be greatly diminished.

ESPN's college football expert Kirk Herbstreit is also very pessimistic about a football season. According to TMZ Sports, Herbstreit went on ESPN Radio and cast a pall on the season.