ASU makes it to start line but major COVID challenges still ahead

Arizona State is finally at the start line for the 2020-21 athletic year, 11 weeks later than for the first competition in 2019-20.

Saturday's football opener at USC will be the first for ASU in any sport since a softball game March 10, an eight-month hiatus due to the coronavirus pandemic. That gap in a non-COVID scenario could have been as short as 9-10 weeks had the ASU baseball team advanced to the College World Series.

"Everybody started saying unprecedented times," ASU deputy athletic director Jean Boyd said. "A couple of months ago, I started saying unfathomable."

It is also sobering that all of the testing work and expense put in to date guarantees nothing more than one game in one…