Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Dox Aitken, Jared Bernhardt and JT Giles-Harris each had a plan — or at least some semblance of one.

The All-American lacrosse players were to finish their senior seasons at Virginia, Maryland and Duke, respectively, before trying their hand at collegiate football as graduate students next fall. Multi-sport athletes in high school who excelled on the gridiron, each of the trio had the athletic chops to pursue such a dream.

But the coronavirus has put an unexpected wrinkle in their intentions — and each player seems to be handling it differently.

Aitken, a USILA first-team preseason All-American midfielder, will play football in the fall at Villanova. A wide receiver, defensive back and punter at the Haverford School, he set the single-season school record for receiving yards (858) and touchdowns (11) as a senior.

But this isn’t the end of his career at Virginia. Thanks to a rather unique precedent, Aitken plans to utilize an NCAA waiver to return to Virginia in the spring to end his collegiate lacrosse career on his own terms.

“There is a 20-year-old rule, not a rule we invented here in Charlottesville, Va.,” Cavaliers coach Lars Tiffany said. “We were stunned when we discovered this 20-year-old statute. It was created in 2000 and reaffirmed in 2018.

“I haven’t spent the time understanding why it’s in there. There’s probably some good justification. To tell you we were surprised is an understatement. We had been talking with our compliance staff and their initial reaction was, ‘Lars, this isn’t going to work.’ It’s like they found this big gold nugget.”

Aitken was admitted to Villanova’s School of Business and will begin his Master’s degree in the fall. The plan, Tiffany said, is for him to return to Charlottesville in January 2021 and study at UVA. In an ideal world, the credits he earns at Virginia will transfer to Villanova’s Master’s program.

Giles-Harris, another standout high school football player whose brother, Joe, plays for the Jacksonville Jaguars, will reportedly put his football plans on hold. A source told US Lacrosse Magazine that Giles-Harris is expected to return to Duke next season to play lacrosse, and it’s not anticipated that he will play football for the Blue Devils.

It’s unclear if he’ll pursue football after that.

Bernhardt, however, has yet to decide what he’ll do moving forward. He said he was content with his initial plan of graduating from Maryland and then tackling the challenge of playing college football at Division II powerhouse Ferris State.

Now, he’s not sure if he’s done with lacrosse. He called it “a possibility” but refrained from saying which way he was leaning.

“One is, I’m not sure if I want to go back,” Bernhardt said. “It wouldn’t be a full school year. To go back and do that, I could instead do two seasons here and play football with the Division II rules. It goes by 10 semesters, and I finished Maryland with eight. I could play football in the fall, be part-time or take off in the spring, and then do it again the next fall.”

There are other hang-ups, too. Bowdoin College announced Monday that there will be no fall or winter sports competing during the fall season, and it’s likely more schools will make similar decisions. So what happens if Ferris State doesn’t play football in September?

“The camp date is usually the beginning of August, but I haven’t heard too much about the season,” he said.

Luckily for Maryland coach John Tillman, there doesn’t appear to be a clear timeframe for when he’ll need to know Bernhardt’s intentions. In an interview with 247Sports, Tillman said, “This isn’t something we have to do right now.”

“I knew there were weird rules,” Bernhardt said. “I actually found out about this when I was just getting ready to leave Maryland and go back home. I was talking to my coach at Ferris State, and he mentioned it to me.”

And while Bernhardt remains fully committed to football — he relishes the “tiring” two-a-day, voluntary workouts in Big Rapids, Mich., with his new teammates — he knows there’s a possibility he’ll regret not finishing his college lacrosse career on his own terms.

Bernhardt was a Tewaaraton finalist last year and a USILA All-American from 2017-18. Even if he plays football, Bernhardt could potentially find a home in the pro league of his choice when he’s ready.

“It was very surreal, and it’s a little weird,” Bernhardt said. “I think about it every day, back to when we found out and going back to the memories at school. The way it ended, I just don’t know. I’m not entirely sure what I’m going to do.

“I’ve talked to a lot of the alumni. They wish they could come back to school and do it again. I don’t want to look back and say, ‘I should have done that.’ That’d definitely irritate me.”

That does leave the door open for a return, and Maryland would certainly love to have him back. He’d add to a team that’s added impact transfers in former Yale defensemen BJ Burlace, former Colgate midfielder Griffin Brown and former Hobart attackmen Eric Holden.

Tillman has checked in, Bernhardt said, and has kept him abreast of what’s going on with the team. “He’s not the guy who’s going to push anything on me,” Bernhardt said.

Whatever the decision is, it’s not something he’s going to put off.

“It’ll probably be better to do it earlier than later,” Bernhardt said. “It won’t be a last-minute thing, for sure.”