THOMASVILLE — The Georgia High School Association (GHSA) voted Monday to delay the start of the 2020 football season to Sept. 4.

Whether any fans will be in the stands to watch the games will be left up to the local communities hosting those events, according to Robin Hines, executive director of the GHSA.

“Our guidance will be in conjunction with the local healthcare professionals and public health, county boards of health, to come up with a way that they feel is going to best serve that community,” Hines said.

Georgia high school football fans were excited to learn that the GHSA voted unanimously to begin the season, just two weeks later than previously scheduled. Concerns about the coronavirus pandemic sparked questions whether a season would even take place.

“I don’t think there’s any question that anybody at the state office or at the Board of Trustees or the member schools wanted to have a football season,” Hines said. “I think the majority of schools wanted to keep the calendar as it was but there was some issues that some of the trustees had with that. It was some metro systems that had experienced a lot of screenouts due to COVID.

“What happened was, and I agree with this, and it was brought up in the meeting, I was concerned about the condition level of those schools; when you have such a large number, like one school had 170 kids that had to be quarantined because there was a positive test. Those kids had to go home. By giving them two weeks more, it gives them an opportunity to get those kids back, get them in condition and get a safe return.”

Conditioning will continue with an acclimation period set to begin Monday, July 27. Scrimmages have been pushed back to Aug. 21 and Aug. 28. There are still other factors that need to be ironed out, including how to handle teams’ schedules that include opponents from Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, South Carolina and the GISA.

“You’ve got these things that we’re going to have to work out, but all in all, I view it as a positive thing that the bottom line is, everybody in the organization wants to play,” Hines said.