Six FBS conferences still are trying to play the 2020 season, even after Mark Emmert called off all NCAA fall sports championships amid the coronavirus pandemic

Amid the rising seas of pandemic postponements, Football Island now is the only thing left.

That eroding strip of land is where the final battle for college athletics in an endless summer of angst will be fought. Part passion, part politics and part pay checks, this squabble comes down to two remaining outcomes: six of the 10 Football Bowl Subdivision conferences (three superpowers, three tag-alongs) defend the island and keep trying to play; or the last holdouts submit to the tides and submerge until 2021.

The rest of the college athletics archipelago disappeared Thursday. Someone bearing a strong resemblance to Mark Emmert (remember him?) popped his head out of the fortress of solitude in Indianapolis and called off all NCAA fall sports championships—all of them except the