It was fair to question whether or not the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga wrestling program would be able to get a season off the ground this year.
Between program shutdowns due to COVID-19, which also resulted in tournament cancellations - as well as just an overall perception of the sport in the midst of a national pandemic - wondering if wrestling as a sport would happen this season would ever happen.
But here we are, and here UTC is, getting ready to wrestle.
The Mocs start their abbreviated 2021 season Saturday afternoon with a home match against Emmanuel College, a Division II program in Franklin Springs, Ga.
Last season started the first week of November, which gave the Mocs time to build up to the Southern Scuffle, a national tournament hosted yearly at McKenzie Arena. The pandemic forced a delay to the start of the year and the cancellation of the two-day tournament, which hosts some of the best programs in the country.
"The most difficult part was trying to plan around (NCAA nationals) and (the Southern Conference tournament) because that's what everybody wants to see," UTC head coach Kyle Ruschell said on the "Mocs on the Mic" podcast recently. "They want to see your national champions, All-Americans and conference champions, and so (in scheduling) we wanted to protect those things."
After Saturday's match, the Mocs compete in the Oklahoma State quad meet with the Cowboys, Arkansas-Little Rock and Oregon State before four tri-meets against Southern Conference competition. The conference tournament is going to be held at Appalachian State on Feb. 28.
UTC enters the season with six returning starters and eight of the 10 positions locked up, led by 125-pounder Fabian Gutierrez and 184-pounder Matthew Waddell, both preseason all-SoCon selections and ranked top-20 in the country according to FloWrestling.com.
Those two, along with Tanner Smith at 149, were NCAA tournament qualifiers prior to the shutdown last March.
Saturday's match will just be a pre-cursor to everything that lies ahead. But there will be a season.
"I was really concerned," Gutierrez said about the prospects of no wrestling this school year. "It's hard to stay motivated when the future is unseeable, but now there's something to look forward to.
"This year, it's definitely going to be hard to visualize a tournament setting when it's just duals going into SoCon and nationals, but I think coach Ruschell set us up good with a couple of duals that we have and I think we're going to be prepared."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.