It was a typical college football Saturday. Two teams going through warm-ups. Hype music blasting through stadium speakers. Graduate assistants running around to make sure things were set up properly for the coaching staff and players, radio and television broadcasts ready to go at the appointed moment.

Except.

The emptiness.

We were fortunate enough to have fans two weeks ago in Montgomery, Alabama for the season-opener against Central Arkansas, but with a no-fans edict for ACC events until at least October, the Pitt contest was Austin Peay's first without a spectator presence and the cheering, booing, screaming and every other -ing a fan is expected to do.

And it was weird. It was expected, of course, because everyone's COVID-19 procedures vary and, as guests of the ACC for around 36 hours, the league should be commended for its efforts to keep its student-athletes and staffers safe. And maybe if this game hadn't been played at Heinz Field, which doubles as the home of the Pittsburgh Steelers, the emptiness would not have felt so profound. We're quite used to seeing empty seats on the road against some of our league brethren (zing). But being greeted by 68,400 empty seats was downright eerie.

"It was definitely a unique experience," said quarterback Jeremiah Oatsvall. "The fans are what make the atmosphere electric. Once the game started, I tried not to think much of it."

The whole scene was off. When the bus rolls up into hostile territory, there is an expectation that the natives won't welcome our presence; yet there was no tailgating, no fans lining the avenues for this one, so the trip in was almost spooky in its silence. Pigeons would never feel comfortable perching in sections on a normal gameday—but there were no fans to disturb their repose, so the birds had the run of the place. Normally, working press is in a large, elongated room together, making it easier to streamline number changes, pass along tidbits to the media members present or answer questions about anything from notes to positions to who on the roster is a kid local to the area. Saturday afternoon, our radio, media relations and digital staff were essentially sequestered; a trip to the main press area required a chaperone and a very good reason.

When we talk about college football, one of the things that comes up a lot is atmosphere—the pageantry, the pomp and circumstance, the traditions of old and the new innovations looking to catch on. Football is a game, but going to a college football game is about, in large part, the experience. Believe me, when we do the preseason planning meetings to start building a gameday, nobody is hoping the first word that comes to anyone's mind about their gameday experience would be weird.

What I described above is no one's fault (well, that part is a matter of some debate in much higher-browed forums than this one), but it is reality, and a reality the Governors had to navigate on Saturday. The piped-in crowd noise was nice, but no substitute for the real thing. It had the feel of a spring scrimmage with the importance of… well, a regular-season game against a high-major opponent with a dominant defense on an NFL field.

"It was different, not playing in front of family or friends or an away crowd," said center Blake Mitchell. "Playing in that stadium was incredible, but it felt very weird without a single fan in the stands. No student section, no parents section, just football… I liked that there were zero distractions."

Look, 2020 hasn't had much space for normal since early March and so this weekend being no different in that regard is hardly news; it would almost be uninteresting if it weren't for how hard so many people had to work to make it a reality. Marriott City Center Pittsburgh basically shut down for us. Dozens of stadium workers streamlined the entire entry and exit process so seamlessly that there could be no possible confusion about when to be where. Our administrators and the Pitt administrators had three weeks to pull this thing together and pulled it off. That's borderline amazing, especially if (fingers crossed) we can make it to Cincinnati next week without a spate of positives and the contact tracing and isolating that (rightfully) comes with it.

Saturday, we had a football game in front of no people, which we scheduled 19 days ago, and lost by a pretty significant margin. And this was a huge step forward in a return to what we hope is normal. Hopefully, we'll soon be doing this again in front of fans.

Hopefully, that eerie silence and yawning emptiness won't last forever.