THE FRONT ROW with MARK NELKE: Have a followup question? Never mind

Thursday and Friday will feature a bizarre Big Sky Conference football media event where all the questions were asked in advance, by media and by fans.

And, apparently all have been answered in advance, by coaches and players.

So hopefully, the question everybody wants to know during this COVID-19 uncertainty was asked — and answered.

“Do you really think we will be playing college football this fall? Or should we try to play in the spring?”

Trying to avoid large gatherings of folks, conferences across the country long ago switched their football media days from in-person to virtual gatherings.

And even since then some leagues, including the Pac-12 and Mountain West, have already postponed their virtual days, due to uncertainty over when they will actually play their football seasons. The count is up to five for conferences now planning to play football in the spring.

The Big Sky did the opposite, moving its UP five days because it already had all the virtual responses from its coaches and players.

If you have access to Pluto TV, Channel 531, you can watch along with us media types — though good luck, as Pluto TV’s stream is sometimes a bit sketchy.

SKETCHY STREAMS were not a problem the past two Big Sky football media days, which were held in Spokane — where this one was also originally scheduled for early next week.

However, this won’t even be a normal virtual media days, which should feature several media members on a group video chat with the coach or player, asking questions

Not here.

That was the fun part of Big Sky football media days — jumping around from table to table, possibly getting a few minutes by yourself (or with another media member) with a coach or the players, and maybe getting to ask them off-the-wall stuff. Or, at least not just the typical Xs and Os stuff you might get from group pressers.

Like Eastern Washington football coach Aaron Best talking about heading to his family’s North Idaho lake house to decompress after an Eagles football game.

Like Cal Poly coach Dan Hawkins, the former Boise State coach, talking about helping Paul Petrino become acclimated to the state when he was named Idaho football coach. Or Hawkins telling the story leading up to his “It’s Division I football!” rant while he was coaching at Colorado.

Like asking Kody Graves of Idaho State, who played at Fruitland and later at Skyview, what it was like coming up to North Idaho to play Timberlake — and what was going through his mind on the field when Lakeland’s Cade Coffey — now an Idaho Vandal — was lining up to try a 57-yard field goal (which he made, to Graves’ amazement).

Like catching up with Montana State coach Jeff Choate, the former Post Falls High football coach and athletic director, as well as former St. Maries High standout, who after his media obligations were over with in Spokane, was looking forward to spending a few days at the family’s lake home on Lake Coeur d’Alene.

THIS ONE, if held in-person, would have been a little different.

The past two years, most of the media attention was showered on the two local teams, Idaho and Eastern Washington. A few Montana media folks wandered over for the event, so Montana and Montana State got their share of attention, as did Idaho State.

But with few media members making the long trek from California and Arizona for the event, players and coaches from those teams — Northern Arizona, Sacramento State, Southern Utah, etc. — attracted only a few visitors. Fortunately, they were there to do more than watch us talk to other teams — there were promos for Root Sports to tape, along with other obligations.

With Beau Baldwin, who led Eastern Washington to the FCS championship in 2010, back in the Big Sky, the new Cal Poly coach would have received way more media attention than the Cal Poly coach did the last two years.

We think.

We’ll never know — until hopefully next year, if the football media days return to an in-person format, and if they return to Spokane.

So many questions ...

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter@CdAPressSports.