To play, or not to play. Is that a question?

Football is canceled this fall at Big Ten and Pac-12 schools but, by golly, the SEC, Big 12 and the ACC are going to play and there will be (maybe, hopefully) a national championship game.

A day after the NCAA announced it was calling off fall championship events, the Ohio Valley Conference announced it was postponing fall athletic events, but allowing schools to compete in up to four non-conference contests that have been scheduled.

What in the wide, wide world of sports is a-goin’ on here?

“Some conferences will say, we’ll go forward. It’s a very narrow path, hopefully there’ll be no infections and if there are infections we’ll be able to detect them, and we’ll be able to stop them and we won’t have an outbreak,” Dr. Carlos Del Rio, executive associate dean at Emory University and a member of the NCAA’s COVID-19 advisory panel, told the Associated Press.

“But other conferences say, no. Our tolerance is for zero risk and therefore we will not have it. It’s exactly the same data just being looked at in different ways.”

Meanwhile, high school athletes in Missouri are practicing and looking to start contests in two weeks.

For those schools that have yet to practice due to local restrictions or outbreaks, MSHSAA provided an alternative option this week. The Board of Directors approved a plan to hold fall sports in the spring “in the event a school is not able to participate partially or in whole.”

There could be two championship seasons for all fall sports this school year, or in the case of softball, three.

Don’t worry. Everything is still a go for the fall season (MSHSAA calls it the traditional fall season).

But, let’s say a school or team is shut down due to an outbreak and cannot compete in the traditional fall season. If that school declares by Sept. 11 that it wishes to compete in the “alternate fall season” then it may do so from March 12 to May 1 and then compete in an “alternate spring season” from May 14 to July 10.

Under the plan, winter sports are still set to start with the first practice on Nov. 2.

Most likely this is MSHSAA’s back-up plan they didn’t have last spring in a worst-case scenario.

Meanwhile on Friday, the Arkansas Department of Health actually did something to protect students and fans by releasing requirements for schools to host athletic events.

They include having fans keep 6 feet of physical distancing from each other at all times, while allowing family groups to sit together; Bleacher seating that restricts every other row to reduce the capacity between 25% to 50%; Face coverings are required for all fans over the age of 10; Frequently touched surfaces should be cleaned and disinfected periodically during the event; The use of live-streaming or other forms of broadcasting should be used.

“We would expect the athletic directors or the superintendents would have people that would be there, not to be heavy-handed, but to remind people that excited in the game, ‘hey, spread apart, you've got to be six feet apart,' or ‘wear your mask,'" said. Gov. Asa Hutchinson according to the Associated Press.

Arkansas reported 626 new confirmed cases of the coronavirus and five deaths, bringing the total number of deaths associated with the virus to 587.

Missouri has reported 1,335 deaths, including 10 on Friday when the state saw 1,473 new cases, more than double that of Arkansas.

MSHSAA is leaving it up to the local health departments and school districts to set policy.

So what’s the right answer?

Maybe we should listen to our doctors, like Del Rio.

“I feel like the Titanic,” Del Rio told the Associated Press. “We have hit the iceberg, and we’re trying to make decisions of what time should we have the band play.

“We need to focus on what’s important. What’s important right now is we need to control this virus. Not having fall sports this year, in controlling this virus, would be to me the No. 1 priority.”

Or at the very least, put on a life preserver.