The 2020 college football season began in earnest Saturday with multiple Power Five programs in action.

Notre Dame took care of business at home against Duke in a just-this-year ACC matchup. Louisiana won for the first time on the road against a ranked opponent, downing No. 23 Iowa State in an empty Jack Trice Stadium.

Illinois and the Big Ten were relegated to spectators, their own fall season put on hold a month earlier in response to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

“Like … we’re watching it be done, but we don’t know if it can be done???” Illini sophomore wide receiver Casey Washington tweeted Saturday afternoon while sending up an SOS for good measure.

“Watching football and not playing; I don’t like that,” senior defensive tackle Jamal Woods also tweeted, along with multiple crying emojis.

Saturday’s serious return of college football, though, also might have delivered promising news for Illinois and the rest of the Big Ten. The conference’s Return to Competition Task Force presented its case Saturday to the steering committee of league presidents. Yahoo was the first of multiple outlets to report that presentation a success.

The next step? A full meeting of the Big Ten council of presidents and chancellors today for a repeat of the task force’s presentation. A vote to return to competition isn’t a guarantee today, Yahoo reported, but would likely come in the next 72 hours.

Saturday’s reports were the most positive news out of the Big Ten in the last month-plus after its decision to forgo football in the fall.

The Pac-12 made a similar move the same day, releasing a 12-page document detailing its reasoning behind no football this fall. The Big Ten presidents and chancellors, who did not vote unanimously to postpone the season, left Commissioner Kevin Warren to twist in the wind on his own.

It was a decision that has fractured the conference. Nebraska players filed a lawsuit against the Big Ten seeking all of the reasoning behind the postponement. Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh marched alongside protesting parents and fans in Ann Arbor. And Ohio State coach Ryan Day called out the conference last week, asking just why the Big Ten teams couldn’t play.

Any immediate return to competition in the Big Ten, though, would begin without at least Wisconsin and Maryland. Both universities recently put all athletics on hold because of positive COVID-19 cases.

Health officials in East Lansing, Mich., on Saturday strongly recommended Michigan State students living on or near campus self quarantine because of a coronavirus outbreak.

A Big Ten vote to return to competition isn’t a guarantee of a smooth-sailing season, either.

Multiple games have already been postponed across the country, including one scheduled to happen Saturday in Waco, Texas. That Baylor home game was called off after Louisiana Tech had 38 positive cases in the wake of Hurricane Laura.

Saturday also saw Georgia Southern list 33 players as inactive for its game against Campbell without a reason given.

{p class=”card-about”}Scott Richey is a reporter covering college basketball at The News-Gazette. His email is srichey@news-gazette.com, and you can follow him on Twitter (@srrichey).