If you picked up Sunday's Virginian-Pilot sports section, your first instinct might have been to double check the date.
Yes, it's still April, only a week after the Masters. You didn't sleep through Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. Our nearly wall-to-wall front-page football coverage just gave the appearance that autumn was pending.
A photo of the Norfolk State squad warming up for its glorified scrimmage Saturday night - and another of two Virginia Tech players fighting for a pass during a split-squad game in Blacksburg - dominated the page.
Football, like pollen, is in the air this time of year.
A slow news weekend had something to do with our front page, I'm guessing. Still, the so-called offseason is a bigger deal than it used to be, as fans suffering through a long drought between games try to wet their beaks with dressed-up practices.
While they wait for fall football, they happily settle for faux football.
Interest in spring games, once an acquired taste for all but the hardiest boosters and something of a forgettable joke to the rest of us, is on the upswing.
Football, you may have heard, is America's favorite sport. The NFL rules, with the NCAA product finishing second in most popularity polls.
Average attendance for college games has increased every year for more than a decade. As the popularity of the sport broadens, more and more people want to keep abreast of the minutia concerning their favorite schools. Access to information and rumors on the Internet - and those creepy message boards - fuel passions.
Interest in spring games is one manifestation of this trend. Either that, or some people just can't stand the thought of spending another Saturday pulling dandelions.
An April outing is a novel concept at Norfolk State, which may explain why only about 2,500 showed up. A week ago, approximately 5,000 witnessed Virginia's spring fling, while a crowd in the neighborhood of 30,000 turned out at Virginia Tech.
For years, it's been said of the Deep South and Southwest that the two biggest sports are football and spring football. It might have come to that by now in Blacksburg if Seth Greenberg hadn't arrived to resuscitate basketball.
I'd like to think Hokies fans get into basketball season almost as much as they enjoy a good argument over whether Sean Glennon or Tyrod Taylor should be the No. 1 quarterback. But I could be wrong about that.
Obviously, spring football at Tech creates more of a stir than anywhere else in the commonwealth, but the size of the Lane Stadium audience paled in comparison with the 80,149 that showed up at Nebraska for the first spring game under coach Bo Pelini.
Some tickets, it was reported, sold for about $100 earlier in the week.
That level of fervor and commitment from Cornhuskers fans is impressive. Or frightening. Isn't there something better to do in Nebraska on a fine spring day?
Isn't there some corn that needs husking?
Serious cases of spring fever have been identified elsewhere. More than 60,000 watched Florida run through a dress rehearsal that was televised last weekend by ESPN, while 78,200 turned out at Alabama a year after the Crimson Tide's scrimmage was witnessed by 92,138, the largest ever for a spring game anywhere.
Besides getting a jump on tailgating, what do some fans really get out of these flimsy football exhibitions? Perhaps bragging rights.
Take Ohio State, where there appears to be some discrepancy over the actual size of the crowd Saturday, as if it should matter in April. The school announced 76,346, but the Columbus Dispatch reported that the figure "appeared about 15,000 or 20,000 high."
Out of vanity or some misplaced insecurity, could it be that the Buckeyes actually padded their attendance figures for a practice game? Has it come to that?
Unlike pollen, spring football at some schools is nothing to sneeze at.
Bob Molinaro, (757) 446-2373, bob.molinaro@pilotonline.com