By Andy Walter

We knew this was going to be an uncertain college football season when it started.

Anybody paying attention to the major-college schedule in the fall, knows that — during a pandemic — games get canceled, postponed and sometimes rescheduled without any notice.

Sometimes it feels like you can’t be 100-percent certain that a game is going to be played until the two teams actually take the field.

This weekend is a pretty good example.

A week ago, if you looked at the local schedule for this weekend, you’d have seen that Delaware was hosting Albany on Saturday and that both Delaware State and Wesley College were off.

So, of course, none of that ended up being true.

The Wolverines ended up playing at Christopher Newport on Friday night after the game was postponed last Sunday for various reasons — none of which had anything to do with COVID-19 issues.

The Hornets, meanwhile, are slated to face MEAC rival Howard Saturday at 1 p.m. That contest was originally postponed on March 27 — with no sign that it would be made up.

And the Blue Hens aren’t playing anybody on Saturday. Albany decided to cancel the rest of its season — not necessarily because of COVID-19 issues but because it had too many injuries.

Delaware coach Danny Rocco was asked a couple weeks ago about the guidelines CAA programs were using for canceling games. At the time, the Hens had just had a game at New Hampshire called off.

Rocco said there was an agreement within the league as to how many players a team had to have available at each position to play a game.

“It was a pretty bare-bones kind of a model,” he said. “And we all signed off on it as to what we would adhere to.”

But the last clause of the agreement also stipulated that schools could also cancel a game if they felt it was not in their best interest to play.

“It’s so hard to assess where someone is short,” said Rocco. “Is a school short at a certain position? Is it just a position’s been depleted? Is it a random (virus) outbreak?

“There’s really more unknowns than knowns. That information isn’t necessarily shared. I have spoken to no one from New Hampshire, to be quite frank. After I got the information (about the cancellation) I tried to quickly move forward. Spending time trying to figure out what’s going on up there doesn’t really help our cause.”

Back to the drawing board

Delaware State is ready to try again to find someone who can get its men’s basketball program on track.

It’s a job that a number of men have tried but where very few have ever found success.

Since 1979, the Hornets have had a dozen head coaches. Only one — Jeff Jones, who went 78-72 from 1988-94 — finished with a winning record.

Greg Jackson (2000-14) was clearly successful. His 200 victories, highlighted by the program’s only NCAA Tournament, make him far and away the Hornets’ winningest coach.

But, with 216 losses, even he ended up with a losing record.

The Hornets’ latest coach, Eric Skeeters, finished just 15-67 in three seasons.

So DSU will find someone new to try to beat the odds. Any NCAA Division I head coaching job will draw a certain level of interest.

“These changes have and will continue to require a healthy debate — nothing great happens without it,” DSU president Dr. Tony Allen said in a letter to the school community. “What we know for sure is that our rich tradition, storied history, and proud alumni have made Delaware State University a North Star for tens of thousands of students and will continue to attract the kind of talented professionals who can motivate them to find their highest aspirations and follow their dreams.”

Smyrna’s Thuer honored

Former Smyrna High softball standout Julia Thuer is off to a good start at Monmouth.

The freshman first baseman was named both the Player and Rookie of the Week in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. Thuer went 8-for-14 in the Hawks’ four wins over Quinnipiac with six RBI, five runs, and four walks.

In eight games this season, Thuer is batting .481 with 10 RBI, nine runs and six walks.

Notes

After hitting two homeruns this week, Lake Forest High grad Brooke Glanden now has 15 in her Delaware softball career. That puts the sophomore fifth on the school’s all-time list. ... Smyrna’s Lexi Moore is batting .368 for as a freshman for the Blue Hens with 12 runs and six stolen bases. ... The Delaware football team (3-0) came in at No. 7 in a Top 10 ranking released by the NCAA Division I Football Championship Committee on Thursday. ... The Delaware State women’s golf team finished eighth out of 11 teams in at the William & Mary tourney with a three-day total of 981. ... Cape Henlopen High grad Zach Gelof is batting only .250 for the Virginia baseball team right now but has an on-base percentage of .384 because he’s been walked 17 times in 25 games. He also leads the Cavaliers with 34 total bases.