The Florida State basketball team hasn't played a game in two weeks.

The Miami football team just had to pull out of the Sun Bowl, leaving that committee scrambling for a replacement. Fantasy football teams all over this great land have been blown up with star quarterbacks, running backs and receivers being forced to miss crucial late-season contests. The NBA is about a week away from essentially having Legends games, with 50-year-old Hall of Famers being signed to 10-day contracts to replace players on the protocol list.

That would actually be pretty great. Who wouldn't want to see Barkley and Shaq playing high-level basketball again? Other than their joints and organs?

Yes, it's become apparent, even though we're almost in 2022, the sports world is still very much being impacted by COVID-19.

And I think it's fair to ask: How is this ever going to truly end?

College football went virtually all of the 2021 regular season without a cancelation due to COVID, now there have been five bowl games canceled and two others (the Gator and the Sun Bowl) trying to move on with last-minute replacements.

College basketball has been demolished in December. And who knows if it will have a normal March Madness in 2022?

Two years ago, the most talented team in Florida State history didn't get a chance to chase a championship. Last year, Scottie Barnes -- who might end up being the best player not named Cowens to ever lace 'em up at FSU -- never got to truly experience the Tucker Center with a full crowd. Or the feel of a real NCAA Tournament atmosphere.

And now this year, Leonard Hamilton's team is ... well, who knows?

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The Orange Bowl Classic game against UCF was canceled because of COVID within the program. The following game against North Florida was postponed. The Seminoles are scheduled to play at Boston College on Wednesday, but who can have any real clue if that game will be played?

UPDATE: FSU basketball game at Boston College postponed due to COVID

Seemingly every other college basketball game in the last week has been canceled because of COVID. It's gotten to the point where I'm legitimately surprised if I see a game listed on my TV guide and it's actually being played when I click over to the channel.

Here's my issue with all this. Well, I don't even know if "issue" is the right word because that implies that I disagree with what's happening in the sports world, with all of these safety measures. I think the better word is "concern."

I'm concerned that other than the NFL, and perhaps the NBA here soon, no other sporting governing bodies are going to alter the way they view COVID even though COVID has so drastically altered its original form.

So is College Football bowl executive director Nick Carparelli.

"Health and safety will always be the most important concern," he told ESPN's Adam Rittenberg. "However, I think the frustrating part is while the virus has evolved and weakened, the protocols in college athletics have not changed. There are other sports organizations, most notably the NFL, that have evolved and are functioning just fine."

I might take issue with the "just fine" descriptor there from Carparelli in regards to the NFL -- playoff races are being decided by practice squad quarterbacks -- but I don't disagree with his overall sentiment.

It wouldn't appear this thing will be going away anytime soon. If ever. So, in 2022 or 2023 or 2029, are we going to still be isolating players and canceling bowl games because of a virus that (presumably) is much weaker than the nightmare we dealt with back in 2020 and early 2021?

I thought it was truly ironic that on Christmas Day the Atlanta Hawks played the New York Knicks in Madison Square Garden. The Hawks were down nine players, including the asymptomatic Trae Young, because of COVID protocols. And yet, there were 19,812 fans in the Garden, breathing all over each other, high-fiving, hugging and screaming obscenities (hey, it's New York) for two and a half hours.

There's a disconnect here.

It's unsafe for Trae Young to play a basketball game. But it's not unsafe for 20,000 mostly unmasked New Yorkers to gather in an indoor space, elbow to elbow, watching that basketball game?

Let's bring a hypothetical closer to home.

Let's say FSU does resume its basketball season here very soon, and let's say the Seminoles go on a winning streak, and let's say when they welcome Duke into the Tucker Center it's a battle of the top two teams in the ACC.

But before the game, FSU has to sit two starters and a key bench player because of COVID protocols. And yet, thousands of untested and unmasked students will pour into the Tucker Center that afternoon to cheer on the Seminoles. They'll basically be on top of each other for three hours.

This is a serious question: What is more unsafe? A student-athlete with no symptoms (or very mild ones) playing 20 minutes in a basketball game? Or dozens of asymptomatic -- or heck, symptomatic -- students packed into a standing-room only section screaming their lungs out for 180 minutes?

This was a rhetorical question! Don't email me your answers, please!

Now, here is where I qualify all of what I just wrote. I'm not arguing that COVID-positive players should just be playing whenever they want willy-nilly. I'm also not arguing that some protections shouldn't be in place for teammates and coaches. In fact, I'm not really arguing anything at all.

I guess I'm just pointing out how bizarre these last two weeks have been.

Games are getting canceled like its 2020 again. NFL teams are losing playoff bids because of COVID. Fantasy football owners are losing gobs of money. NBA teams are losing players every other minute, and college basketball teams are again losing multiple games.

And yet the rest of the country is plowing on.

People are still going to work in offices.

Music fans are still going to concerts in indoor venues.

Movie fans just set an all-time box-office record by going out to watch the new Spiderman movie in actual indoor theaters.

All of these activities, it would seem, are at least AS likely and probably more likely to infect your fellow man than an athlete playing with no symptoms.

Again, though, I'm not a doctor. So, take that opinion for what it's worth.

What I am is a sports fan. And I just hope that this can be figured out very, very soon.

First and foremost, it would appear by all indications that this new variant isn't nearly as deadly as the previous ones. That is, BY FAR, the most important element in all this. That's the only reason I'm even writing this column and asking these questions. Because if you are vaccinated (like presumably the vast majority of college athletes) and you are boostered, then it is apparently a mathematical certainty that you'll survive Omicron.

We are living in a different world than we were 20 months ago.

At what point, though, does the sports world - particularly the NCAA - come up with a plan that takes that into account so another college basketball season isn't completely wrecked?

And, more to the point, what would that plan even be? Stop testing? Stop testing asymptomatic people? Cut down quarantine time? Mandate boosters and vaccinations for everyone on the team? Only allow teams to play very passive zone defense? You can't be within three feet of an opponent and if you touch another player - on either team - it's an automatic ejection?

I'm not smart enough to know what the answer is. Clearly.

I am smart enough to know there has to be one out there.

Hopefully they’ll go find it.

Contact senior writer Corey Clark at corey@warchant.com and follow @Corey_Clark on Twitter.

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Talk about this story with other Florida State football fans in the Tribal Council