The Ivy League delayed fall sports until at least Jan. 1.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The Big Ten and Pac-12 eschewed non-conference games; the ACC is pondering doing the same.

Tick. Tick. Tick

College football players who were hurried back to campus to get ready for a season that was 50/50 to begin with have come down with COVID-19. Maryland just shut down its workouts after nine players tested positive for the coronavirus Saturday.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

It doesn’t look good for college football — or any college sports for that matter — in the fall.

What does that mean for high school fall sports?

Well, it ain’t good.

The boom may be coming soon — the PIAA is set to meet Wednesday and has scheduled another Zoom meeting for Aug. 5.

That may be “Decision Day.”

It may be another dark one.

Perhaps it doesn’t have to be.

The coronavirus is still raging in many parts of the country. This wave has been a tsunami in places like Florida.

I think, though, there is a way to save some — if not all — high school sports this year.

I could be way off base with this. I don’t know — I’m not sure anyone is sure about anything anymore.

That’s because any plan could be moot five minutes from now. That’s perhaps the most frustrating part: the uncertainty of life under the cloud of COVID-19.

Maybe there is no saving sports in this kind of pandemic climate — it’s all just wishful thinking. Maybe no plan will work.

This could at least give sports a fighting chance:

Step 1: play the “low-risk” sports first.

The National Federation of State High School Associations has deemed golf and tennis as low risk in spreading the virus.

Those sports could go on as scheduled.

Cross country is a bit of a gray area. Starting lines are packed with runners and staggered starts may not be fair on bad weather days when the course gets chewed up. But I think a cross country season could be pulled off this fall.

Step 2: Play baseball and softball this fall and move football, soccer and volleyball to the spring.

Baseball and softball leagues are already going full-tilt right now, so it seems logical to just transition into high school seasons in those sports.

Football, soccer and volleyball carry big risks in the fall. Football, for obvious reasons: it’s difficult to social distance while trying to tackle someone (unless you are the Bengals). Soccer is also a physical sport (just ask the team in WPIAL. And volleyball is played inside with the volleyball touching multiple sweaty hands on each play — not a good recipe for avoiding contagion.

Moving those three sports to the spring give them the best chance to be played, even though PIAA Executive Director Bob Lombardi has been a staunchly against that kind of swap.

This plan also comes at a big risk to baseball and softball, which has already lost one season.

Should the PIAA decide to shutter all sports again, say in mid-September, baseball and softball athletes would lose yet another season.

Sports like lacrosse would also be negatively impacted.

(See, there’s no perfect solution.)

Step 3: Pray. Pray that this is enough to salvage sports.

I know. A lot of maybes and perhapses and buts.

Here’s another but: But it needs to be done safely. If it can’t, then maybe the best decision is to have no sports.

Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle