George Ferguson Column: Searching for silver linings on what would have been Cat-Griz week

It's Griz-Cat Week. It's Cat-Griz Week. It's the 120th Brawl of the Wild.

Only it isn't.

No, come Saturday, Washington-Grizzly Stadium in Missoula will be dead quiet. For the first time since 1945, when the world was at war, there will be no clash between the Bobcats and Grizzlies. That's right, someday, when we look back at the annals of one of the most unique and intense rivalries in all of college football, 2020 won't have a Cat-Griz score. Or a dramatic story to tell.

And that my friends, sucks. But, as they say, that's 2020, and that's the world in a global pandemic.

I haven't been able to find too many positives either, but while the last eight months have created a plethora of disappointments, there are a couple silver linings surrounding the fact that, there's no Brawl Saturday in Missoula.

The first of those is, if all goes according to plan, there's going to be two Cat-Griz games in 2021. Imagine that? Playing the rivalry twice in the same year, that's a Bobcat or Griz fan's dream come true.

Just think of the possibilities. That's twice the chance to hate each other, twice the chance to treat each other like crap for a couple of weeks. Twice the chance to laugh, brag, cry and throw temper tantrums. Beause after all, that's what our two fan bases do best.

Obviously, I'm sort of kidding. Everyone knows I love to make fun of how Griz and Cat fans behave toward each other. It reminds me a little of two other "bases" we've been talking a lot about lately.

No in actuality, the idea of a spring Cat-Griz game, followed by a regularly scheduled fall 2021 game scheduled for Bozeman next November, that would be pretty cool.

The other silver lining, and again, there aren't many, to the fact that there will be no Brawl this Saturday is that at least it won't be, and college football in Montana hasn't been, a contributing factor to the horrific rise in coronavirus cases and deaths in our state. That's right, there's a lot of contributing factors to it, but Griz and Bobcat football haven't been one of them. And for that I'm thankful.

Selfishly, I absolutely miss Big Sky football. Selfishly, I feel left out when I wake up every Saturday and there's college football that doesn't involve my beloved Griz, or the Bobcats, or the Big Sky. For me, and many more people I know, it hasn't even felt like college football season because the Griz and Cats aren't playing.

And yet, when I watch some of those games, when I see more and more fans being allowed into college stadiums at the exact same time multiple games are being canceled, at the exact same time as COVID-19 cases are rising to heights we'd never though we'd see, and at the exact same time as people are dying all over this country because of COVID, it just astonishes me. It really frightens me to see these stadiums with all these people in them, and it makes me damn glad the stadiums in Montana aren't contributing to that.

Now, does it suck for the players and coaches? Absolutely. Is it absolutely horrible the kind of financial losses that the UM and MSU athletic departments are taking, and the devastating effects no college football Saturday's have had on the economies in the cities of Bozeman and Missoula, there's no doubt and I hate it. And it's even trickled down to me. Because I don't have Frontier Conference, or Big Sky football to cover, and that's a bread and butter beat for me normally.

So, again, not having college football in Montana this fall is bad all the way around.

But I do know this: We'll be able to look back on the lack of a 2020 someday and at least know, Cat-Griz football didn't contribute to the out-of-control spread of COVID-19 in Montana. Cat-Griz football didn't send anyone to the hospital. And to me, that matters. Maybe I'm in the minority on that, but I don't care. I care about people not getting sick, and I truly believe not having Cat-Griz this weekend will have stopped many more people from getting sick in this great state, and so, I'll be OK without the game Saturday.

I also know that, better days are coming. I know, right now, it's hard to see that light at the end of the tunnel, but it is coming, and with it Cat-Griz football will be back. I don't know about the game this spring, scheduled for March 27. That might be too soon to be a normal Cat-Griz game. Well, obviously it won't be normal because it's going to be in March. But I do know, there will be normal Cat-Griz games again. I do know both Washington-Grizzly Stadium and Bobcat Stadium will be packed again someday. I know because it's happened before. Because of World War II, there were no Cat-Griz games from 1942-1945, and yet, the rivalry lived on. It made it through those tough times.

That's right, nothing can stop this rivalry. Sure, it can be postponed, moved, put off, and fan capacity might have to be limited for the next couple of Cat-Griz games, but, at the end of the day, it won't ever stop, it won't ever go away, and that's why I know better days for this rivalry, for Montana, and for humanity are coming.

"No matter how dark the winter days are, there's always a springtime ahead." That's a lyric from my favorite band in the world, and I try to live by that. But it especially holds true for the Cat-Griz rivalry. Yes, it sucks now, it sucks this week, and Saturday, when there's no game to be played, it will be awfully depressing. I'm sure I will be in a funk come that morning.

But, there is a springtime ahead, and that means there will be Cat-Griz games to look forward to again.