Here are some of the COVID-19-related changes being made to the 2021 season, apparently aimed at reducing air travel and large gatherings of teams. I don't claim this list to be comprehensive; if there are other changes you know of, please e-mail me via my faculty website in the links section and I will add them. The Mary Nutter Classic has been cancelled .  The Judi Garman Classic has been scaled back to include only four teams, all from California (Loyola Marymount, Fresno State, San Jose State, and the host, Cal State Fullerton). Teams in the B1G (Big 10) will (a) play only conference games and (b) will go down to Leesburg, Florida to escape the late-February/early-March cold of the Midwest and play intensive stretches of games. For example, Michigan will play a doubleheader with Purdue on February 26, a doubleheader with Iowa on February 27, and yet another twin-bill, on February 28, with Illinois.

Welcome back! The 2021 college softball season gets off to a limited start today, with Cal State Fullerton hosting Oregon State and Utah State in the Easton Invitational . [UPDATE: There are some other scheduled tournaments , as well, but some of these have been cancelled due to the cold snap covering a large segment of the country.] College sports have seen a lot of chaos during the 2020-21 academic year due to COVID-19. As one example, the CBS Sports website has compiled a list of nearly 200 "notable" men's college basketball games that have been postponed or cancelled so far this season. Whether softball will experience a similar situation remains to be seen, but clearly many athletic departments have had difficulty controlling Coronavirus transmission within some of their sports teams. I'll be keeping an eye on things and will report on major college softball games if/when they take place.