IN 2014 HE CAN BE THE QUEEN HE'S ALWAYS WANTED TO BE

With Ryan and Jason. Sing along with this:

The light glows white on the snow tonight
A Lincoln summer's night for me
A kingdom made of cut-off sweats
And Capital One Bowl tees
Couldn't keep it in, can't wring my hands
Not to be myself, no "fuck the fans"
Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know
Well now they knowwwwww

Let it Bo, Let it Bo
Gonna love my nine and four
Let it Bo, let it Bo
Bring my cat right through that dooooor
I don't care what they're going to saaaaay
Let the corn rage ooonnnnnnnn
At least I don't coach in Piscataway

It's funny how some distance
Makes life seem so funny
Like when they fired Solich
For going nine and three
And how I used to worry
About them firing me
It's time to see what I can do
We'll beat Iowa but not Purdue
I'll have you know I've got a plan:
"Don't Be Callahan"

Let it Bo, Let it Bo
Show the world I can really da-ah-aaance
Let it Bo, Let it Bo
Thought my ass looked great in those paaaants
Here I stand
With balls in hand
Let the corn rage oooooooonnnnnnn

My power grows with each fuck that I don't give
Grew up in Youngstown so you know I tote a shiv
Like the sea inside a shell, press an ear up to my ass
Haters I don't care about, I fart them out like gaaaaassssssss

Let it Bo, let it Bo
Fire me, I'll go pet some cats
Let it Bo, let it Bo
Go to Culver's, eat some fats
Here I stand, with balls in hand
Let the corn rage ooooonnnnnnnnn---

I'll go to ESPN and work Saturdays

THAT'S ABOUT ALL THEY HAVE, BUT THEY DEFINITELY HAVE DRAGONS

There's a graph somewhere in the world that shows the intersection between football teams of bad quality and helmets of high quality. Other teams may be close-- The Kansas Jayhawks Blood-Raven unis are riiiiiight there-- but there, at the nexus of football misery and sartorial wonder, sit UAB's new helmets. Behold their majesty; respect the fire they vomit on the opposition; nod in appreciation at the fine dragon's scales in the background.

The helmets may be the best reason to watch UAB football this year. You might remember them losing their head coach, Garrick McGee, to Louisville. Normally this kind of move would involve becoming a head coach, but nothing about UAB as a football entity is normal. McGee left to take a nominal step down and take the position that got him the UAB job in the first place: being Bobby Petrino's offensive coordinator. He will then leave Louisville for UAB in a year, and leave room for Paul Petrino to return after he is fired from the Idaho job. (Petrino coordinators should be loaned like developing soccer players and not hired, basically.)

In conclusion. UAB's new helmets are fantastic, one time recent national title holder Jimbo Fisher almost took the job, and none of this is too tragic because Houston Nutt's going to get this program back on track in 2016 whether they offer him the job or not.

P.S. Do you know who their current head coach is without looking? You don't. Shut up. It's Bill Clark, a high school football demigod in the state who may actually be pretty good at things like football, provided the University System of Alabama's Trustees don't keep him in their back pocket just in case Alabama needs him as their 87th "quality control" coach.

NOPE, NOTHING TO SEE HERE

1. The 2002 Peach Bowl: Maryland 30, Tennessee 3

2. 2007: UL-Monroe 21, Alabama 14

3. 2010: Colorado 29, Georgia 27

4. The 2010 Liberty Bowl: UCF 10, Georgia 6

5. 1999: Louisiana Tech 29, Alabama 28

6. 2000: UCF 40, Alabama 38

7. 2008: Wyoming 13, Tennessee 7

8. 2004: Maine 9, Mississsippi State 7

9. 2010: Jacksonville State 49, Ole Miss 48

10. 1992: Citadel 10, Arkansas 3

11. 2010 PapaJohns.com Bowl: UConn 20, South Carolina 7

12. 2013: Oregon 59, Tennessee 14

13. 2000: Southern Mississippi 21, Alabama 0

14. 2010: Oregon 48, Tennessee 13

15. 1990: Post-death penalty SMU 44, Vanderbilt 7

16. 1992: Colorado State 17, LSU 14

17. 2000: UAB 13, LSU 10

18. 2012: ULM 34, Arkansas 31

19. 2005: USC 70, Arkansas 17

20. 1982: Kansas State 23, Kentucky 9*

*A note: this requires some explanation. Yes, this is a 6-5-1 Kansas State team, but it is still a pre-Bill Snyder Wildcats team and thus the equivalent of running into a doorjamb and killing yourself accidentally. That doorjamb is covered in flashing gumball lights, police tape, and has a protective walkway built around it, but you still managed to do the unimaginable, Kentucky. The Wildcats' QB that year, Randy Jenkins, had two passing TDs on the year AND THREW TWENTY INTERCEPTIONS IN JUST 187 ATTEMPTS.

P.S. There are no Florida losses on here. The SEC Network will show all of them weekly, along with Georgia Southern twice on Sundays. Kiss our asses, Birmingham, and Roll Tide.

GO FOR IT, NICK JAMES

If Mississippi State Nick James wants to give it a shot, go ahead. Just change footwear first: horse hooves are no joke when they land on your tender human feet, even if you are a bombproof 325 pounds of Mississippi manhood. Related: that horse looks more worried than even your average, totally worried horse. (via Bob Carskadon)

ASK YOUR BRAIN, AND THEN ASK THE SUPERSTITIOUS PEASANT IN YOUR SOUL

An extremely quick look at whether you're doomed or not (You probably are)

Venric Mark may ring some bells for you: 2012 All-American running back from Northwestern, fast, mean, agile, and capable of racking up record numbers out of the backfield and in the return game. (A school record 2,166 of them, to be precise.)

Last week Mark announced his transfer from Northwestern to be closer to his family in Texas. That's the transfer of Northwestern's major skill player just two weeks prior to their opener at Cal, and in combination with the season-ending injury to Northwestern's other major offensive threat, wide receiver Christian Jones.  The Northwestern offensive depth chart is a picture of damnation and angry divine judgment. Those aren't our words: they're what Northwestern bloggers are saying about their own team.

If you're into being fair, it should be noted that Northwestern had some incredibly horrible luck last year---biblically bad luck, as in Old Testament hellfire spun from the hands of Ron Kellogg the III. (When the form of the destroyer is Nebraska's backup quarterback, you're some special kind of double-bonus coupon boned.) The schedule seems favorable, but it looks a lot like last year's schedule: a pleasant intro of Cal and directional Illinois schools, and then right into the teeth of their Big Ten schedule with Penn State, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Iowa, and Michigan all in a row.

They finish that streak up with ACC "I'm just leaving a toothbrush and a few clothes here" member Notre Dame. The rest of the schedule is made up of Big Ten plague monkeys, one of whom very well could improve dramatically and bite Northwestern in the ass randomly.  Assuming they take one game out of that long streak in the middle, and then file the rest away like so many tidily filed law school applications, and you're looking at a team that should go at least .500 against a fairly weak slate with a thorny, inhospitable stretch in the middle.

P.S. They have a good offensive line, and no team with a good offensive line is totally doomed.

Using only cold logic, is Northwestern screwed? No, probably not, though there are so many problems with schedule-picking here. The Wildcats might not come close to replacing Venric Mark's production, and those ghastlies at the bottom of the Big Ten might not stay so consistently ghastly. Oh, and if you lose to Cal and/or Minnesota then hoooboy does this get difficult to pull out of a fatal nosedive.

Asking only the superstitious Bulgarian peasant woman in your soul: is Northwestern screwed? Oh god yes, they're beyond doomed and should give up now, they have the mark of the yellow ghost bear on their souls and will roam the hillsides looking for honeycombs filled with invincible bees that will never yield their honey.

KISS THE COOK (AND TASTE MANHOOD INCARNATE)

What's Frank Beamer cooking up for you? Well, any of the following:

1. Punts
2. Revenge against that damn county judge and his high-falutin' cronies who put granpappy in the pen
   
3. Probably not a quarterback
4. Panda Cobbler (Panda Cobbler is a panda who makes shoes, not a dessert. Frank Beamer is not a monster. Also Panda Cobbler will get a few drives at QB "just to keep our options open.")
5. Maybe a little 'shine if you're not wearing a G-man's shoes, friend
6. The stuff you put in a car battery cause he makes his own and has since the Great Blizzard of '78
7. Chicken thighs, because success hasn't dulled him to the pure value of solid savings combined with real savory yardbird flavor
8. Maybe some pineapple rings, Frank's not immune to the charms of the islands
9. Bud Foster's usual (grilled 12 pack of Busch Light put straight on grill, one whole hog head)
10. A plan to put that Apple Store out of business once and for all, after they refused to repair his Laserdisc. IT'S MADE OF LASERS JUST GO GET MORE LASERS DUMMY.
    
11. Another matchup with James Madison and dammit get the fire extinguisher--
12. One shitburger labeled "FOR MIKE LONDON"
13. New pot of turkey pheromones for huntin' season
14. Second pot of turkey pheromones for courtin' season
15. Jim Druckenmiller's Igloo Made of Ham

(Photo via the invincible Key Play)

MACHALO, EVERYBODY

Problem: Hawai'i is financially strapped, so much so that they might have to consider dropping football altogether. That's the storyline from yesterday, at least, since Hawai'i's AD has backed off that statement today, stating a need to make the case for "urgency" in restructuring their current "funding model." Cloaking that in management-speak doesn't change the basics: the Warriors have run in the red for 11 out of the past 13 seasons, and no amount of "proactive top-down financial reconfiguration and asset stress amelioration across the next twelve quarters" changes that.

Solution:

The Mid-American Conference and ESPN have agreed to a new 13-year media rights deal through 2026-27, an industry source told ESPN.

Put Hawai'i in the MAC, get some of that delicious, life-sustaining ESPN moneyfall, and give the Midwest what it wants most in November: an excuse to go to somewhere that isn't the Midwest. Want to nab some Big Ten recruits? We'll send you to Hawaii once a year, son. What's Purdue gonna promise besides a special field trip to Iowa City? Despair? Well, they've got that. You want that despair, you go ahead and go to Purdue. Come to Akron, and we'll take you to Diamond Head once a year.

You say: won't that get expensive? No, because the arrangement involves Hawai'i never having to leave the island. Hawai'i plays every MAC team, every year. How does this work logistically? Shut up, nerds. Just make a schedule and you'll make it work. Florida plays Easterns Kentucky and Michigan this year, so at this point it's not like football games have to happen for any reason, or count for or mean anything. Sorry, Detroit: the MAC Championship Game is in Honolulu now, and no one will regret this decision for an instant.

All we do all day long is solve problems. MAChalo, y'all. It's not even funny how much shit Robert Kekaula is about to talk about Akron.

As part of Verge Hack Week, we've invited great minds from around Vox Media to contribute their thoughts on the future of everything — from food to fashion to the written word. In this installment, we welcome Spencer Hall, editorial director of SBNation.com.

The future of sports will be a nightmarish universe without bundled cable, meaning you will either pay individually for network’s programming or write a hefty check to ESPN (or its logical successor) in order to subsidize its production of league content. It will not be a nightmare for you, the person who does not like sports, but it will be a pain for those of us who will have to remember all those passwords to our WWE, NFL, SEC Network, La Liga, and International Cornhole Championship accounts.

(You, Verge readers, are smart nerds who probably use automated password management. Most sports fans do not.)

It would be fun to say that the NFL will decline as the king of American sports, but even if it does its subscription services will artificially extend its lifespan. There’s already a model for this: MLB, whose online subscription model will keep it alive long after it should have died naturally. Soccer will grow in popularity as fewer children play impact-heavy football. Oh boy, how you’ll have to read a lot of horrible, horrible editorials on that happening.

No matter what happens, the London Jaguars will mark the NFL’s spectacular turning point

No matter what happens, the London Jaguars will mark the NFL’s spectacular turning point, particularly when AFC East teams finally get tired of flying across an ocean to play in the wrong time zone for tens and hundreds of groggy and confused English "fans."

The NBA needs no help, having made inroads into the lucrative international market already. David Stern will continue to guide the league’s fortunes from his hermitic kingdom in the mountains of Canada, healthy and alive on a steady diet of Tim Duncan’s immortal blood marrow.

Performance-enhancing drugs will become less and less of a deal as they, along with most other drugs, get decriminalized and see more sensible, measured use. Ditto for gambling, an activity most other countries handle just fine in coordination with a lively sporting scene. It’ll all happen and people will be shocked and horrified we did it so stupidly for so long.

The Olympics and FIFA are two of the most corrupt, unprincipled, and shadowy organizations on the planet

College athletics will become an open market, shockingly looking a lot like college athletics looks now: a small group of dominant teams paying people to play at their schools in cash. It’s amazing how a lot of legalization merely involves sanctifying what is already happening with a little bit of law, but that’s where it’ll be. Teams will function as little more than branded university properties; players will either take a football-focused curriculum for a degree, or simply work as football players and employees of the university. The concept of the student-athlete, at least at the highest levels of college athletics, will be mercifully dead.

The Olympics and FIFA are two of the most corrupt, unprincipled, and shadowy organizations on the planet. Based on this, I assume both will live forever, and enjoy continued thriving success into the next five centuries.

The finals are here, and the competition has us feeling real human feelings.

9:00 This is not the final episode of American Ninja Warrior. No, this is the pen-penultimate episode, the first of two building to the final showdown with Mount Midoriyama. Purists will blanch at calling the Las Vegas version "Mount Midoriyama" since the original is in Japan, a place so devoted to cultural purity they built a second Eiffel Tower right in the middle of Tokyo as a major landmark.

9:02 John Stewart is 52, and is competing in the finals. So many orthopedic surgeons are going to make their summer home mortgages off him when dads suffer horrendous injuries falling off their homemade backyard salmon ladders. Yeah, the American Ninja Warrior thing? It didn't work out. I can't hold a coffee cup now without peeing a little, but you have to follow your dreams, yanno? My wife turned it into a trellis. The morning glories look great on it.

9:04 Let's go over the stages, and how each would kill you so hard

1. Piston Road. Just the Quad Steps with smaller surface area. ACL tears are totally possible here.
2. Giant Wheel. Be honest: you probably can't jump far enough to even touch the edge of the giant wheel you use to swing across more mysterious cocaine-laced Las Vegas runoff water. If you did, your shoulder will come out of socket, and the contact with the wheel will put you in a perfect position to faceplant 10 feet into the edge of the crash pad like Sam Sann did last year. More on him, and his shockingly unbroken face, in a bit, but the point stands: you would die and don't think I wouldn't laugh at you while it happens.
Melanie Hunt -- (Photo by: David Becker/NBC)
3. Silk Slider. Two curtains arranged on the end of a long pole that slides to a landing pad/raft floating in the water below. You would not be able to even hold the silky curtains long enough to get a good slide, much less land accurately on the pad. Nevertheless, this is clearly an obstacle stolen from an old Errol Flynn pirate movie, and that makes it the best obstacle Ninja Warrior has ever had. You should get bonus time for doing it with a cutlass clenched between your teeth.
4. The Jumping Spider.
5. Half-Pipe Attack. More pirate-y jumping off a wall with a rope, approve without reservation, would try for fun even though we know how it ends (skull fracture).
6. Warped Wall. Jumping out of a half-pipe, aka "Ninja Warrior designers are height-ist bastards." Skull fracture, knee injuries, and looking tiny and frustrated and cursing your genes are all possible injuries.
7. Spinning Bridge. Just running across a bunch of bouncy balls arranged like a Newton's Cradle.
8. Tarzan Rope and Rope Ladder. Really just a time-burner, though you'd probably get your ankle caught in the cargo net and be stuck there like a pissed-off cicada in a spider's web.

9:05 Karsten Williams is our first contestant tonight, and he gets a halfassed profile with his perfectly cool mom, because unlike a lot of ANW contestants nothing in his life appears to have gone wrong, and then been rectified or overcome through training for Ninja Warrior. Per the rule of inversely proportional profile length / course success, he should advance easily. Remember: the longer and more tragic the background story, the sooner said contestant will explode in a ball of flames on the second obstacle.

9:06: I AM WRONG. Karsten is no pirate and falls into the water on the Silk Slider.

9:07 Dustin McKinney is a tiny, ripped white dude from McDonough, Georgia who says the competition is a challenge for "any guy, or girl." Rednecks are getting so gender equality aware! This and his spastic pre-course breakdancing warm my heart. Dustin eats shit on the Jumping Spider face-first, but is the Most Georgia Contestant Available and deserves credit for that title.

9:10 Kevin Klein is a flag runner for the Dallas Cowboys, and yet somehow runs out of time and fails without Tony Romo in attendance. There's really something to like about the relentlessly positive ectomorphs of American Ninja Warrior, though, when they're not rooting for doomed football teams. They're personal trainers, they're the people who carry flags out onto football fields, they're the teachers flipping over the desks in their classrooms. If you lose your wallet in a volcano, they're the ones who fish it out happily for you, most likely while telling you about how to work on doing a single pullup in just 15 minutes a day. You should hate them, but even their failures are respectable. Poor Melanie Hunt falls off the Jumping Spider, but does so in a manner so coordinated I sort of feel like she should be allowed to advance: off the walls, and into a safe landing pose right into the water like a gymnast.

9:21Ninja Warrior's inverse relationship between hardship endured/obstacles completed is one of nature's least flexible rules, earlier failures be damned. Sam Sann is a Cambodian-American who grew up drinking jungle water out of puddles in the jungle while hiding from the Khmer Rouge. He did this last year.

Sann gets a luxurious, adversity-heavy pre-run profile. He will, of course, crash out on the Giant Wheel again, though this time without his face smashing into the pad and making that horrible metal-on-foam-on-human-face-collision sound.

9:30 Abel Gonzalez is the first finisher! Can we talk about how hard Matt Iseman, Akbar Gbaja-Biamila and Jenn Brown sell this? Every episode is Ragnarök, and AGB in particular is hilarious in hitting this like it's an NFL playoff game right down to the film study on technique. "You see the hands there? CLASSIC JUMPING SPIDER TECHNIQUE." I would hope that they get bigger, higher-paying jobs for their work, but I don't think you can have as much fun covering something where people enjoy hating the contestants. No one really hates anything on American Ninja Warrior; there's just varying degrees of stokedness opposed by the cold, indifferent cruelty of the course.

9:39 Andrew Lowe missed the final by a second last year, so he's basically the 2013 Alabama Crimson Tide of competitors. AGB also says "He knows a thing or two about trampoline technique," because AGB's film breakdown never stops.

9:41 Tremayne Dortch has his son's name written on him. Tremayne Dortch is DOOMED, and the inspirational cuteness of this is so painful it can only mean an imminent and painful defeat. He also rolls his stomach prior to starting like a belly dancer, if only to give you as many clues as possible to just how hard he's going to fail on this course.

9:43: Tremayne loses it on the Jumping Spider, collapses crying, and Jenn Brown actually gives him space. This is actually one of the more humane moments I've seen any sideline-type reporter have on television. You have us all feeling real emotions, ANW, even though we knew the dude with his son's name written on his chest was going to lose because THAT IS WHAT ALWAYS HAPPENS HERE.

9:48: To conserve time, they show a few unremarkable finalists who failed in a quick montage. One is a "Utah insurance executive" failing badly and pouting while slapping the water when he comes off the course. I could watch this man lose at things all day. Schedule "American Ninja Warrior: Churlish Executive" immediately, NBC, and reap the lucrative joy of those who hate their corporate overlords and want them to fail as badly as possible.

AMERICAN NINJA WARRIOR -- "Las Vegas" -- Pictured: Lance Pekus -- (Photo by: David Becker/NBC)

10:00 p.m. Lance Pekus is a cowboy who runs the course in jeans and a cowboy hat. He also appears to wax his entire body. He goes out on the Jumping Spider because his hands are greasy from all those depilatories, and because his stupid ass was trying to run the Ninja Warrior course in a pair of jeans. I was wrong about not hating on ANW: Screw this dude. Screw him and his tiny Kenny Chesney-looking ass forever.

10:02: Jo Jo Bynum is from Alabama, so he takes off his shirt and grinds seductively when he finishes. (Roll Tide.) He also is a huge baseball fan, and describes it as "a chess game." We as a nation do not know what chess is and should stop referencing it, ever.

10:23 I seriously enjoy how many women they have in this. There is nothing forced about that enjoyment whatsoever: women in ANW compete on the same course, with the same times, and increasingly with the same success. I used to climb a lot. The greatest part about the community wasn't how many women did it and did it just as well or better as men, but how effortless that dynamic came about. No one was a good "female climber" -- they were just climbers. ANW, not coincidentally, has a similar dynamic, even with the obvious storylines around Kacy Catanzaro becoming the first (but not the only) woman to qualify for the finals. It's refreshing, and not just when AGB has to be pulled off the ceiling when a woman does well.

10:34 "The kitchen's not the only place he uses his hands." Unnecessarily sexy, ANW writers. But still sexy.

10:43 Noah Kaufman wants to do it for his son. He becomes the first person to mention his children prominently to actually complete the stage, and is thus the only good parent. All the other parents in this competition are horrible and if they really loved their offspring they would have made it all the way. Take their children. Take their children NOW.

10:49 Meagan Martin gets to the Jumping Spider and

OH MY GOD AGB IS GONNA CRY MEAGAN MARTIN IS THE FIRST WOMAN TO COMPLETE THE JUMPING SPIDER.

HE JUST COMPARED HER TO MUHAMMAD ALI AND MAGIC JOHNSON AND MICHAEL JORDAN. HE WANTED HER TO FINISH OFF THE CLOCK. I AM SERIOUS AGB IS ABOUT TO SHED REAL TEARS OVER MEAGAN MARTIN'S GREATNESS. I don't know why I watch anything else.

The Southeastern Conference is set to fire up three months' worth of football, and we have something to say about every last bit of it.

Thursday, August 28th

Texas A&M at South Carolina

Steve Spurrier: "Y'all miss Texas as a rival, Kevin?"

Kevin Sumlin: "Nah."

Spurrier: "Waylllll, you're 'bout to."

Ole Miss vs. Boise State

Dr. Bo surveys the patient.

"It's just potatoes stuffed into a body stocking and wearing a Scream mask," he says grimly.

Hugh Freeze raises a hand.

"Correction. It's potatoes stuffed into a body stocking that's 1-0 against the SEC in the Georgia Dome, Doctor. I suggest an immediate quarantine."

Temple at Vanderbilt

Name both of these teams' head coaches in five seconds and you will ahahaha you already lost.

(Temple: Matt Rhule. Vanderbilt: Derek Mason.)

Saturday, August 30

Tennessee-Martin at Kentucky

Kentucky shouldn't be playing the Skyhawks. But we're not against UK blowing the doors off an FCS team. It's like putting bumpers on a bowling alley for kids. It makes them so damn happy when the pins go boom.

Alabama vs. West Virginia

Alabama will win the game of football, but West Virginia will win the game of sportsmanship!

(Pssst, your car is on fire, Nick Saban, and your hotel is empty thanks to a bomb threat. GO 'EERS.)

South Dakota State at Missouri

For the Jackrabbits, this is just a warmup for the Beef Bowl against the UW-Oshkosh Titans, so pardon them if they're not totally focused.

Arkansas at Auburn

That's My Bert (9:00 p.m. CMT). Bert goes to the country with the family to teach them a little bit about clean farm living. But when their car breaks down in Alabama, he's forced to deal with locals, who have a lesson of their own to teach!

Clemson at Georgia

Two teams replacing major skill players with no clue how they'll perform means this game is basically one three-hour Talladega crash. Dabo Swinney would make an incredible NASCAR personality, btw. Like, one of the ones who gets testy in the pits with other drivers, but then makes a Diet Pepsi commercial with them later.

Idaho at Florida

"We just want to keep it close and win it in the fourth, boys."

"Why don't we just win it in the first quarter and run out the clock, Coach? We're a lot better than they are."

"This is why, son."

[Will Muschamp plays "Cruise (Remix ft. Nelly)" on locker room stereo, pledges allegiance to 1985 football]

Southern Miss at Mississippi State

Dak Prescott is regarded as one of the best returning quarterbacks in the SEC*, and Mississippi is no less than the eighth-best state in the union that starts with "M."**

* The SEC has no quarterbacks this year. Every game will be 17-10 and horrible. Your dad will LOVE it.

**There are eight states that start with M.

LSU vs. Wisconsin

This game is being played in Houston, where Les Miles used to work as a barge captain. Not with anyone's permission, but definitely as someone wearing a captain's hat and commanding a barge. Licenses are a scam, and that's why he works in Louisiana.

Sunday, August 31

Utah State at Tennessee

"Chuckie Keeton is the next Colin Kaepernick," says someone with zero imagination* who watches Tennessee lose this game to the Aggies.

*Or an NFL scout. Same thing.

Saturday, September 6th

Missouri at Toledo

Gary Pinkel just plays the schedule he's given, which is why this game exists, and also why Missouri plays Bayern Munich in October.

Florida Atlantic at Alabama

FAU's head coach is CHARLEY PARTRIIIIIIIDGE, a name very difficult not to enunciate in the Dave Chappelle Rick James voice.

This is also the team that plays in Nebraska, Alabama, Boca Raton, and Wyoming in the first four weeks of the season. Plot their airline travel on a map and play "Sun Belt Team in August or Roaming Natural Gas Worker?" for fun.

Arkansas State at Tennessee

Tennessee is terrible at scheduling cupcake games: first Utah State, and now a good Red Wolves team. To be fair, the Vols do get to play Florida, so someone has to firm up the strength of schedule a bit.

UAB at Mississippi State

How a player named "Diaheem Watkins" didn't end up living in Starkville is reason to be angry enough to care about this game, Bulldogs.

Ohio at Kentucky

How you feeling about this game, Frank Solich?

Frank Solich has mastered the Tibetan art of inner fire this offseason. Ohio by FOUR HUNDRED POINTS.

Eastern Michigan at Florida

"No, just do your job, and keep it close until the fourth quarter."

"This is one of the worst teams in college football, and we are playing them at home."

[Muschamp points to freshly severed eagle's head, glares]

"That's an endangered bald eagle, Coach."

"I KNOW STUFF ABOUT THINGS."

Nicholls State at Arkansas

That's My Bert (9:00 p.m. CMT). Bielema offers to let a neighbor pull his finger, and discovers it's a detachable bottle opener.

Ole Miss at Vanderbilt

This has been an outright howler of a game recently, including last year's game in which Vandy and Ole Miss flipped the script twice in the last two minutes, aka "The Jordan Matthews Puke Game." Never sleep on the Bonobos Bowl.

San Jose State at Auburn

If you cashed in Malzahn's Starbucks Rewards cards, you could cancel our debt to China instantly. Auburn scores 50.

East Carolina at South Carolina

"Like that offense you got there, Ruffin. Too bad it can't do this."

[Spurrier pulls Dylan Thompson two snaps into game]

[Connor Mitch throws interception]

[Spurrier puts Dylan Thompson back in for next series]

"Like I said. Let's see you do that."

Lamar at Texas A&M

Cheers to Lamar, a small school in Beaumont, for staying Texas-true and using a logo that kind of looks like a bird with a cheek full of chewing tobacco.

Sam Houston State at LSU

The best matchup you'll see this year between LSU and "A Team You Always Watch In The FCS Playoffs In That Week In December When FBS Football Goes Away And Leaves You On The Barren Straits Of Life With Only FCS Football Or Maybe Eww The NFL As A Life Raft."

Saturday, September 13th

UCF at Missouri

UCF's return to the United States after "a triumphant 52-14 victory over Notre Dame in Ireland*" will be a stout test for new Tigers quarterback Maty Mauk.

*Score courtesy of George O'Leary. Yes, that game is against Penn State.

Massachusetts at Vanderbilt

1. Hire Hal Mumme in 2015 to rebuild moribund football program.
2. Watch Hal Mumme print up "Passachusetts" shirts and rack up 8,000 yards via a quarterback with lupus.
3. Watch UMass vote to take its program back down to FCS anyway.
4. Watch Hal Mumme become the next head coach of the Cleveland Browns.

Arkansas at Texas Tech

That's My Bert (9:00 p.m. CMT). When Handsome Kliff the quarterback invites Bert and his husky buddies over for a pool party -- planning to humiliate the Midwesterner with a V-neck strip tease -- Bert flips the script, whipping his top off and sitting on the pretty boy until he cries!

Georgia at South Carolina

"Be honest, Mark. Todd Grantham couldn't read, could he?"

"Steve, I--"

"Come on now."

[sighs] "No."

"Attaboy."

Louisiana-Lafayette at Ole MIss

The leading cause of death for Cajuns in September will be heart disease. Robert Nkemdiche will be a close second.

Mississippi State at South Alabama

You can't tell me the University of South Alabama isn't just UAB on an oil derrick with a bookstore and Bass Pro Shops built into it.

Louisiana-Monroe at LSU

"Who was Louisiana Monroe, and why was she Huey Long's favorite mistress?"

-- Dr. Les Miles, history professor, Louisiana State University

Kentucky at Florida

There was a quarterback named Randy "The Stickleyville Slingshot" Jenkins who played for Kentucky in 1982 and threw two touchdowns and 20 interceptions. He was later charged with fraud for passing bad checks. He is one of the greatest Wildcat quarterbacks ever.

Tennessee at Oklahoma

Eight years ago, you let your athletic director pick your schedule using Dynasty Mode in "NCAA Football 2004." This is what happens, Tennessee.

Rice at Texas A&M

Rice was in this game last year until late in the second half -- with Johnny Manziel and Mike Evans frequently playing. DON'T LOSE TO FOOD. IT'S A RULE IN LIFE, AGGIES.

Thursday, September 18th

Auburn at Kansas State

A gang of caffeinated squirrels with tiny rock hammers swinging as fast as they can at the side of a giant, unperturbed land tortoise: that is this game, a matchup between one of football's most frenetic offenses and its polar opposite, the productive glacier of Kansas State.

Saturday, September 20th

Indiana at Missouri

At least one out of every five SEC-area sports bar-watchers will spot this on the television, sip a Bud Light, frown, and mutter "I ain't watching that Big Ten game."

Troy at Georgia

Trojans coach Larry Blakeney seems like the kind of dude who doesn't have air conditioning in his house, on principle.

"Yeah I got air-conditioning, pal." [points to tank top, flexes.]

Texas A&M at SMU

Northern Illinois at Arkansas

That's My Bert (9:00 p.m. CMT). Bert's uncle from Chicago stops by to ask for money. Bert gives him a beer, tells him which neighbors have strippable copper wire in their houses, and calls the cops to report a burglar on his street.

Mississippi State at LSU

Mississippi State is oh-for-the-21st-century against LSU, having beaten the Tigers once SINCE NINETEEN NINETY ONE. As a matter of comparison: Kentucky, which has played eight fewer games in that same span of time, has four wins against LSU. Bully can't leave his doghouse without wearing a yellow and purple ankle monitor.

South Carolina at Vanderbilt

"Don't blame yourself, Derek. If Vandy fans aren't in the stands, that means there's a Lexus dealership on fire somewhere."

Florida at Alabama

Muschamp winning this game will save his job, and the following week's loss to Tennessee will put his already-scalded ass right back on the frying pan. You know those cars programmed to steer like a drunk person, the ones they use for DUI awareness campaigns? That's Florida.

Saturday, September 27

New Mexico State at LSU

From Wikipedia:

The college was supposed to graduate its first student in 1893, but the senior, named Sam Steel, was murdered before he was able to receive his diploma.

That's pretty much all you need to know about NMSU football.

Missouri at South Carolina

"Hey Gary, played any golf this offseason?"

"A little, Steve."

"Bet you hit those irons real good."

"I hate you, Steve."

"I know."

Tennessee at Georgia

Pig Howard fumbled the winning touchdown through the end zone last year, and that was indeed weird. But remember that Jonathan Crompton engineered a 26-point blowout of Georgia, so nothing will be normal in this series ever again.

(P.S.: Crompton is now with the Montreal Alouetttes. Three other Alouettes have thrown passes this season, but he has not.)

Arkansas vs. Texas A&M

That's My Bert (9:00 p.m. CMT). Bert goes to Texas to kick a dog he believes owes him money. Trouble ensues! (With special guest star Rip Torn as "Colonel Felony.")

Vanderbilt at Kentucky

The game the SEC Network was made to show forever.

Louisiana Tech at Auburn

Don't sneer. It's not like both teams haven't lost to Tulane. Auburn did it in 1955, while Louisiana Tech did it ... um ... last year. Skip Holtz!

Memphis at Ole Miss

The nastiest quarter of football you will see all year any year, followed by three quarters of the Tigers being sucked into a jet engine.

Saturday, October 4

LSU at Auburn

Auburn did lose a game last year: this one, its sixth loss in seven years to LSU. Les Miles, grass-loving friend of the planet, is so very angered by your waste of good trees in victory, Auburn.

South Carolina at Kentucky

"Hardest part about playing at Kentucky? Seeing the field through all that cigarette smoke, probably."

Florida at Tennessee

I remember thinking what a tragedy it was when a Vols fan in Gainesville shot his brother, a Gators fan, during one of the games in the 1990s. Now I realize he was doing him a favor.

Texas A&M at Mississippi State

The Jackie Sherrill Cup! Winner gets probation and a fresh set of bull testicles.

Vanderbilt at Georgia

"Let us bow our heads for a moment of prayer to golf."

[entire stadium breaks down in tears]

Alabama at Ole Miss

Sure, you're 51-8-2 all-time vs. Ole Miss, Alabama. Know what else usually wins? Bubonic plague, and you don't see people saying how much you should love that, do you?

Saturday, October 11

Alabama at Arkansas

That's My Bert (9:00 p.m. CMT). Bert challenges his tiny, mean neighbor to a fist fight. Bert later finds out from an emergency room doctor that human bites cause more infections than dog bites.

LSU at Florida

LSU always saves one really great and utterly humiliating trick play for Florida. This year's will be Miles' cruelest: encouraging Jeff Driskel to pass the ball.

Louisiana-Monroe at Kentucky

Pro tip, Wildcats: think of ULM fans as Tennessee fans with a will to live and capacity for happiness.

Ole Miss at Texas A&M

In a half-dozen meetings ever, the Aggies are undefeated against Ole Miss, but winless against fashion, honey. Cling to this victory, Rebels.

Auburn at Mississippi State

¿QUIEN ES MAS AGRICULTURAL? (Es Universidad del Estado de Mississippi, claro.)

Georgia at Missouri

Could be a good crowd if the Cardinals don't make the playoffs this year.

Chattanooga at Tennessee

UTC used to have a mascot named "Chief Moccanooga." The mascot was deemed insensitive, and eventually changed to a lecherous songbird. But somewhere in there the school used this shoe as its mascot. Getting rid of that shoe is why the Mocs are doomed to mediocrity.

Charleston Southern at Vanderbilt

At least it's not those bastards from Charleston Northern.

Saturday, October 18

Georgia at Arkansas

That's My Bert (9:00 p.m. CMT). Bert goes to church, like his wife wanted him to. But things take a turn for the worse when Bert gets his own ideas about how many donuts "Free" means at the post-service mingle.

Kentucky at LSU

This feels like one of those games where Kentucky will get 500 yards and still lose by 27.

Tennessee at Ole Miss

The battle between those who subscribe to "Garden & Gun"and those who subscribe to "GUN."

Missouri at Florida

This is Florida's homecoming game. Like your last visit home, this will involve taking a loss, crying, regrets, and explaining to Mom why you didn't and couldn't go into advertising like a normal person.

Furman at South Carolina

"Yeah, Furman's not an FBS team and all that. Then again, neither was Georgia Southern, right?"

Texas A&M at Alabama

Once Saban's up by three scores, watch his lips as he locks eyes with Sumlin across the field and mouths, "YOLO."

Saturday, October 25

Ole Miss at LSU

Might think LSU would be thirsty for revenge after last year's shocking loss at Ole Miss, but Miles is proof a memory disorder, charisma, and a good understanding of zone blocking schemes are the best things a coach can have.

Mississippi State at Kentucky

You know how Nature decided that, when it came time to have certain animals preserved in amber, it usually chose the mosquito? One of the shittiest animals in the history of shitty animals, the insect investment banker of creatures, to forever memorialize in petrified tree sap?

That's what the SEC did in preserving this cross-division rivalry in the new schedule. Try to make a dinosaur from the DNA you get out of this game, science. Hope you enjoy that 40-foot-tall Jared Lorenzen with cowbell hands wrecking your town after it escapes from the lab in search of Skoal and Mountain Dew Code Red.

South Carolina at Auburn

Sixty minutes of double halfback passes, nervous twitching, and glorious visor abuse.

Alabama at Tennessee

No, wait stop [cackling] no really, you see, this game comes after Alabama's likely demolition of Texas A&M [hooting and knee-slapping] and right before their perennially earth-shattering game with LSU [grabs wall to breathe, farts a little from laughing so hard] and yes, even though Tennessee is replacing every starter on both its lines [grabs balls to keep from laughing them off] no STOP I'm not saying Tennessee will beat them [tears, falls over, rolls on filthy ground without concern for clothes] but that it could and should be a really close game based on where they fall in the schedule [begins crying from laughing so hard as to cause an abdominal hernia, is put on medical redshirt by Saban for faster, younger laughing person who won't take up a roster spot.]

Vanderbilt at Missouri

Mizzou prides itself on its journalism school. But Vanderbilt has produced luminary talents in the field, like--

Beat them by 400 points, Tigers.

UAB at Arkansas

That's My Bert (9:00 p.m. CMT). Bert is told he is going to be "chasing the dragon," and confusion ensues!

Saturday, November 1

Old Dominion at Vanderbilt

2014 marks ODU's first year as a full member of FBS in Conference USA. Related to the previous entry: despite this, the Monarchs were picked ahead of UAB in preseason conference polling. FIU was picked behind both of them. FIU is a house-ruining carpet mold in cleats.

Auburn at Ole Miss

Ed Norton wants to direct and write the zany tale of Freeze and Malzahn as two competing megachurch pastors trying to win over congregants in a small Southern town. YOU MUST NOT LET HIM GET THE RIGHTS TO THIS FILM HE WILL RUIN IT AND ALSO PROBABLY WANT A STARRING ROLE AND GET TO DO AN ACCENT. Oh god, please don't let this ever happen.

Arkansas at Mississippi State

That's My Bert (9:00 p.m. CMT). When his car breaks down in rural Mississippi, Bert punches cows in the face until one of them gives him a straight answer about where a man can get a suitcase of Busch and a new alternator in these parts.

Kentucky at Missouri

why

Tennessee at South Carolina

"Now, Butch Jones done what Lane Kiffin and Derek Dooley couldn't do. What am I talking about? A lot of things, potentially, now that I think about it. Like, could be anything at all."

Louisiana-Monroe at Texas A&M

The only things these two schools definitely agree on are deer jerky as a food group and a tree stand as an acceptable place to have an extramarital tryst.

Florida vs. Georgia

Rivalries, like bugs hitting your car at 80 mph, tend to run in streaks. This particular bug is named Will Muschamp. He thinks the windshield is his best friend.

Saturday, November 8

Alabama at LSU

Les Miles still hasn't fully explored the labyrinths Saban had installed under Tiger Stadium. All he knows is that he can hear Jordan Jefferson down there somewhere, playing "Streets of Rage," the greatest game about living in Baton Rouge.

Georgia at Kentucky

The trophy for this series should probably be a bronze statue of a downed single-engine aircraft surrounded by beer cans.

Presbyterian at Ole Miss

"Hey, let's kick the hell out of those Blue Hose," said Hugh Freeze, disgraceful standard-bearer for violence and calumny against Smurf sex workers.

Tennessee-Martin at Mississippi State

Best anagrams for Starkville's county, Oktibbeha:

• Hit a Kebob
• Babe Ho Kit
• Hot Bi Beak
• Oh, bike bat
• The Oak Bib
• Dan Mullen's Interview With Miami Really, Really Didn't Go Well

Texas A&M at Auburn

Revel in the pleasure of a state where one tribe worships trees and another worships the elephant, both of them looking at Texas A&M and going, "Y'ALL ARE A DEVIANT CULT."

Florida at Vanderbilt

The great unwashed versus the ungreat washed.

Saturday, November 15

LSU at Arkansas

That's My Bert (9:00 p.m. CMT). Bert enters a contest for "The Golden Boot." A hilarious and horrifying misunderstanding of definitions ensues! (Warning: episode contains expensive vomiting.)

Auburn at Georgia

Good luck defeating DR. MALZAHN'S EVIL GRAVITY CANNON.

BOW TO THE POWER OF SCIENCE, SERVANTS OF THE ASTHMATIC DOG.

Mississippi State at Alabama

The Bulldogs under Mullen have never scored more than 10 points against Alabama.

South Carolina at Florida

"Let's not make this any worse than it has to be, y'all. We're up by 20 and so forth."

"Okay, Coach."

"Fake this punt and throw a deep play-action pass when we get it."

"I thought you didn't want to make it worse than it has to be, Coach?"

"Well, if I'm calling that, obviously we ain't there yet, are we?"

Kentucky at Tennessee

The second saddest thing I ever heard growing up in Tennessee was people saying they were "coming to Tennessee for fun" on the weekend. The first saddest was people from Tennessee who went to Kentucky for fun.

This game is a sorrow-welt on the ass end of football, and "for fun" had to have something to do with drugs made from expired firework innards and cough medicine made in trailer bathtubs.

Missouri at Texas A&M

"Pour one out for the WAC, bitches!" [both teams throw for 400 yards and make no attempt to stop a single pass all night]

Saturday, November 22

Western Carolina at Alabama

The Western Carolina mascot was nearly "the Mountain Boomer," a type of squirrel noted for being very difficult to catch. This trivia could be the only thing of value in this whole game, and aren't you glad we added a 12th game for just these occasions?

Samford at Auburn

There is a long-running rumor that when Terry Bowden was coaching at Samford, some of his players stole car stereos out of the school parking lot. He addressed the team and said that he was disappointed, but that if someone just returned the loot before the next day, no further investigation or charges would be pressed. The next day, Bowden's car stereo was stolen during practice.

I want this to be true. I need it to be true.

Eastern Kentucky at Florida

"Boys, let's just go out there and win it in the fourth quarter."

"Who are you?"

"Hi, I'm interim coach Ed Orgeron. You might remember me from the film 'I Brought Them In-N-Out: the True Story Of How I Seemed Lovable After Lane Kiffin's Reign of Terror.'"

"How did you get here?"

"Good question. Bettah quession: how did ALL THESE DELICIOUS CUPCAKES GET HERE?"

"Yaaaaaayyyyyyy, cupcakes"

[Florida goes on to beat Eastern Kentucky by four points]

Charleston Southern at Georgia

Go away, Charleston. You're just a roofless antique store too cheap to pay for air conditioning.

P.S.: SHRIMP AND GRITS ISN'T THAT SPECIAL. YOU HEARD ME. IT'S CORNMEAL AND AQUA-ROACHES AND IF YOU GET REAL FANCY OOOOOH SCALLIONS. WHEN YOU DO IT IT'S AMAZING, BUT WHEN I DO IT WITH WEEDS AND BUGS AND GRAVEL AND EAT IT OUT OF A BIKE HELMET WITH A FORK THEY CALL THE POLICE AND ASK ME NOT TO EAT IT AT THE BUS STOP IN FRONT OF THE CHILDREN BECAUSE IT FRIGHTENS THEM.

Ole Miss at Arkansas

That's My Bert (9:00 p.m. CMT). Bert asks an innocent question about the Rebels' mascot, then spends the rest of the episode gnawing his own arm off trying to get away from the answers.

South Alabama at South Carolina

"Gotta be hard to keep players in that football program, since every Jaguar I've seen in Alabama ends up getting repossessed."

Missouri at Tennessee

When you Google "Tennessee Missouri History," you get this image.

Oh look, it's Tennessee's offensive line.

So glad the Doomed Riverboat Rivalry could pick up right where it never left off.

Vanderbilt vs. Mississippi State

"That's alright/ that's okay/ you'll buy pork from us someday."

That's yours, Miss State. Use it. It's free.

Thursday, November 27

LSU at Texas A&M

If you attend this game and still believe in the philosophy of libertarianism and a self-governing citizenry after watching these two groups of people in the same place, I will accept that your mind cannot ever, ever be changed about anything.

Friday, November 28

Arkansas at Missouri

That's My Bert (9:00 p.m. CMT). On a very important episode,the Bielemas face one of the most important challenges of our age: the continued existence of Missouri.

Saturday, November 29

Tennessee at Vanderbilt

"We've retaken the state from Vanderbilt" will be the Vols' "Sober For One Week" chip.

Auburn at Alabama

Screenshot: 9:19 p.m., November 29, 2014

Mississippi State at Ole Miss

Dr. Bo, that procedure you performed at the end of the Egg Bowl last year is basically illegal in Mississippi.

South Carolina at Clemson

"Don't be mad, Dabo. Gettin' Clemson fans to count to six is a pretty special accomplishment."

Florida at Florida State

Never forget, Will: even Ron Zook won his last game against Florida State.

Georgia Tech at Georgia

Say it with me, Georgia Tech fans:

"E-sports are the future. E-sports are the future. E-sports are the future. E-sports are the future. E-sports are the future. E-sports are the future. E-sports are the future. E-sports are the future. E-sports are the future. E-sports are the future. E-sports are the future. E-sports are the future. E-sports are the future. E-sports are the future."

Kentucky at Louisville

"Hey, where'd Bobby go, it's the third quarter, and ... "

"... and that's when he takes the Florida job, and you live the same nightmare over and over again."

Follow @SBNationCFBFollow @SBNRecruiting

IT'S BAD METHODOLOGY BUT THAT'S NEVER STOPPED COLLEGE FOOTBALL BEFORE

The Wall Street Journal compiled a list of coaches and their records against the top 25 and it confirms a lot of what you think already, and confuses the hell out of you on a few other things. This is with good reason: it's not ideally set up, and the data's a little misleading. (Just like this beautiful, addled sport.)

1. This isn't a really collection of data you'd want to lean on too hard. It is, we believe, a compilation of records against teams ranked at the time of matchup, not based on final finish. If you're into whether a coach can perform well against what writers anticipate before they see a single game, it's really, really useful, and you don't really know what useful things are. Here is a can opener, please go fix your car with it.

2. Still, if you want to have some innocent and dumb fun comparing how people live up to often-wobbly poll rankings, you can.

3. For instance: Bob Stoops is a really fucking great coach, at least against rankings-as-played. You forget that sometimes thanks to outmoded and deeply popular ways of thinking about him, but when he's not raging against the SEC or snatching dollars from the hands of his starving players all Bob Stoops does is win most of the football games he is supposed to win. He's also standing on a giant institution's shoulders, one that was very good before he got there, and one that will probably be good when he leaves. (See also: Nick Saban.)

4. Also: daaaaaaaamn, David Shaw. 14-4, even in this sort of busted comparison, is damn impressive.

5. Take a moment of understanding for the poor souls who have to fight upwards from the Kansas States and Texas Techs of the world, i.e. Bill Snyder and Mike Leach who scuttled their records with years of butting their heads against better depth charts and larger budgets. The most impressive mark in this whole collection might be Gary Patterson at TCU, since he's .500 against ranked competition despite coaching at relative upstart TCU. He also plays guitar in a country band in Ft. Worth under a stage name five nights a week and retweets Earth_Pics like a madman, so it's all doubly amazing when you think of it like that.

6. Will Muschamp! WILL MUSCHAMP.

7. WHO IS GIVING RANDY EDSALL MONEYYYYYYYYYYYY

8. Exact conversation with Bill C when we suggested doing this against final rankings for each coach:

Bill Connelly not sure the best way to do that, though ... CFB Reference has week-to-weeks, but it's with current poll rank, not eventual

Spencer Hall I think you just have to do them all by hand :(

Bill Connelly yuuuuuck

In short: no one is ever doing this!

WHAT DID YOU DO TO THAT HORSE, LADY?

Regrets collect like old friends

Here to relive your darkest moments

WHO COLLECTS OLD FRIENDS

THEY AIN'T POGS

I DON'T RELIVE MOMENTS

NEGATIVE PEOPLE GET NEGATIVE RESULTS

STUPID LADY PUTTIN' FRIENDS IN DRAWERS

NO WONDER THEY WANNA SHOW YOU BAD STUFF

YOU PUT 'EM IN DRAWERS

I can see no way, I can see no way

And all of the ghouls come out to play

LIKE THAT ATTITUDE, GHOULS

GET SOME

And every demon wants his pound of flesh

But I like to keep some things to myself

I like to keep my issues drawn

It's always darkest before the dawn

I DON'T UNDERSTAND A WORD OF THIS

CEPT FOR THE LAST LINE

THANKS A LOT MISS FARMER'S ALMANAC

GOT A REPORT ON THE DEW POINT LADY

IT'S THE DEW POINT

THIS SONG IS STUPID

And I've been a fool and I've been blind

I can never leave the past behind

I can see no way, I can see no way

I'm always dragging that horse around

WHY'S A GIRL DRAGGIN' A HORSE AROUND

DID SHE FUMBLE IT

IS SHE JEFF DRISKEL

JEFF DRISKEL SINGS LIKE A DAMN ANGEL

Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa

Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa

And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back

So shake him off, oh whoa

WAIT

WAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIT

WHY'D YOU DO THAT TO THE HORSE

THAT HORSE TRUSTED YOUUUUU

LOCKING FRIENDS IN DRAWERS

BURYIN' HORSES AFTER DRAGGIN' THEM AROUND

JESUS LADY

Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa

Shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, shake it out, ooh whoa

And it's hard to dance with a devil on your back

So shake him off, oh whoa

DEVIL'S GOT SOME TENACITY

GOTTA LOVE THAT

CHECK HIS HANG CLEAN

GET A 40

THIS SONG'S DUMB

PUNCHO

YUP, THE ONE WHERE NOTRE DAME LOSES

The "College GameDay" and "Saturday Night Football" analyst spends as much time in the air and in college towns as anybody in football, often doing TV in two different time zones on a single Saturday.

Spencer Hall: What's your double-duty day like on GameDay? How does it start, where does it end, and where do you nap in between?

Kirk Herbstreit: It really depends on the week. I think there are 15 college football Saturdays, and I think last year GameDay and the game I called were in different locations nine times. So if you're on the West Coast in Eugene, Oregon for GameDay and it goes live on the air at 9 a.m. Eastern, which is 6 a.m. out west, then you have to be there at 5 in the morning, so you have to be up around 4. A lot of the times you'll leave Eugene, and I could be heading to Austin, Texas, or to Tallahassee. It all depends on where the ABC game is.

Typically, Disney provides one of their charter planes to get me from one spot to the other. A lot of times, if we go to the hotel at the game site, I'll take a shower and change and head over to the game. You call the game, it ends at about 11:30 or midnight, and I usually do a SportsCenter segment or two after the game. There's no doubt it's a long day, but it's doing something you love, so it's a fun day. But there are times when you don't know what hotel you're in anymore.

1. Know your surroundings

SH: At times do you do the old rock star thing where you're about to yell out, "Hello Cleveland!" but are actually in Buffalo?

KH: No, but honestly, you really do wake up in a hotel, take a wrong turn, and literally forget what hotel room number you're in because everyone has cards now. It's pretty embarrassing to go back to the front desk and have to say, "I'm so sorry, but I don't know what room I'm in." Hopefully you have your ID with you, and can get your room.

After about October you start to get a little bit fatigued, and like you said, you have to nap. I happen to be a really good sleeper on the plane. I'm pretty good at catching up on getting as much rest as I can. The older you get, the more I'm a huge believer in physical activity and getting as much rest as I can. That's cut short by a significant amount in the fall, so I have to catch up where I can.

2. Exercise when you can

SH: The GameDay crew are all gym rats. How do you work out on the road?

KH: I do it as often as I can. I think it's more than exercise for them. It's their therapy. I'm big on [exercising] Monday through Wednesday here at home in Nashville, and then on the road, my goal is Thursday or Friday at the least. If I can get four days in per week, I feel pretty good about what I'm trying to do.

3. Eat smart ...

KH: Like a lot of people, I'm getting up there in age. Before I ate anything and everything. I just inhaled food. I enjoy eating, and I used to be the guy who works out just to eat. Now I'm much smarter about what I eat.

SH: You can get in trouble at the airport.

KH: You're right. It's hard on the road. A lot of times the best you can do is go to a Subway or a Jersey Mike's and get a turkey sandwich. Thursday and Friday night are the two nights when we go out and try to enjoy a good meal, but when it's Thursday or Friday and you're going into production meetings with ESPN, or running over real fast to go talk to Jimbo Fisher or Jameis Winston at Florida State, you literally have like 30 minutes in between. Our ops guys behind the scenes will try to hook us up with food, but it's challenging. Anyone who travels understands eating right on the road is sometimes tough.

SH: The Popeyes in Terminal C at Hartsfield can ruin your week.

KH: Hey, they've got Chobani yogurt now at most airport shops. It's painful, but it's healthy.

4. ... but eat well

SH: Related to food: in the major conferences, where are your favorite places to eat in each?

KH: In the SEC, I'd say Five Bar in Tuscaloosa. They've got outstanding atmosphere and great redfish.

SH: If I went Big Ten on you?

KH: Hyde Park Steakhouse in Columbus.

SH: And in the Pac-12, which I think is deeply underrated for food.

KH: There's a great pizzeria, La Perla, in Eugene.

5. Add these to your bucket list

SH: What are a few places people really should get to that might still be underrated at this point?

KH: Besides Eugene? Because Eugene would definitely be one of the top choices there.

I love going to Columbia, Missouri. That is a really underrated campus. It shocked me when I went there because I really didn't know what to expect. I have four boys, and if they ever ended up saying they wanted to go to Missouri, I'd be very happy for them. It's a clean campus, they love sports, they're diehards when it comes to the Tigers, and I don't think a lot of people realize how good it is. I'd put that on there.

I love Athens, Georgia. It's got everything you're looking for when it comes to the college experience. If you're going to go and take in a game, there's outstanding atmosphere for a game, a great stadium, and you can have a great time on Friday night.

Madison, Wisconsin, is another great spot to take in a game. Those people just live to tailgate. The brats, the beer: every stereotype you might have about a Wisconsin tailgate is alive and well on a Saturday at Camp Randall. It's a really, really cool place where they try to be the difference in the game.

SH:GameDay still hasn't been to Ole Miss, correct?

KH: That's correct.

SH: Is there anywhere besides Ole Miss that you'd really try to get to?

KH: I know we'd never been to Seattle until last year, and that was a big one for me. That is a phenomenal town in general, but it's an especially great football town, and not just for the Seahawks and the 12th Man. You're talking about some killer restaurants, and a place that's just rabid for football. I've been begging the powers that be to put the College Football Playoff in Seattle and make it a host for the Championship. I think Tampa and Phoenix are already up on the board, but Seattle needs to be a serious consideration. It's just a very, very passionate town.

Seattle was one. This is my 19th year on the show, and it seems like we've been talking about getting to Ole Miss for 12 or 13 years. Like, since Eli Manning was a sophomore, we've been talking about wanting to get to the Grove. I've been there when we used to call Thursday night games with Mike Tirico, and did the Egg Bowl every Thanksgiving, so I've never really seen the Grove in all its glory, because that's when school's out. That by far stands out to me as a place we've gotta get.

SH: Alabama at Ole Miss, October 4th. It's just sitting right there.

KH: I know! There will probably be other big games that weekend, but if both teams keep winning, that would be a fun one to get to.

6. Don't beat yourself up

SH: How many phone chargers do you lose a year?

KH: I average about three. I'm the guy who doesn't do a lot of traveling outside of football season. I'm a big routine guy, and it takes me about three weeks to get on autopilot when it comes to travel. Until then, I'm a wreck, just an absolute mess. I'm almost guaranteed to forget my cellphone, my charger, especially when you charge it on your desk in a hotel room. It's a lock that I leave one there. Thankfully I've never really lost my phone on a plane. Give me until Week 3, and I'm good to go.

SH: I'm good for about five a year.

KH: It's just so easy.

7. Cleanliness is everything

SH: Hotels with the best free bathroom gear?

KH: Well, we gotta go next level on that. You're not talking to a guy who covers the NFL, who goes into a lot of big cities. We're in some smaller hotels. I'm not overly sophisticated or picky: I just want a clean bed. I'm a little bit of a germophobe. I made the mistake of watching that Stone Phillips thing about 10 years ago --

SH: -- with the black light?

KH: Yes. It just freaked me out. The things that they found when they looked at the bedspread in a hotel room almost gave me real panic.

As long as I have a clean hotel room, I'm fine. I don't even care about the swag, or the breakfast bar, or anything like that. As long as the room doesn't smell like cigarettes and the sheets look like they've been washed, I'm pretty happy.

8. ULTIMATE KIRK HERBSTREIT LIFEHACK

KH: I told you that I'm a routine guy. Well, the first thing I do when I get in a hotel room is throw the comforter in the closet. I don't know how to iron, so I take all my clothes, put them in a bag, take everything out, turn the shower on as hot as it will go, and hang all of my shirts and suits in the shower and let them sit for 10 minutes or so. It does a great job of ironing for me. This is all within the first five minutes of checking in and getting in the room.

9. Prepare entertainment

SH: If you do kill time while traveling, how do you do it?

KH: Typically I'm studying college football, which is obvious. But if I have some down time ... I just finished up Breaking Bad. I have about three more shows to go. My wife and I did that in the offseason. I'll download different shows, put my headphones on, and just be in the corner with my hat on watching my show. I also typically fall asleep pretty quickly on the plane, too.

10. Chill out on the plane, please, everyone

KH: Just let me air this out while I'm talking to you, since we're talking about planes.

SH: Go ahead.

KH: What is it with people hovering around the gate before their group is announced? Why do we have a hundred people around the door? This guerrilla warfare for overhead space ... I'm not a participant. I'll check 17 bags before I fight somebody to get the overhead space. Ever since the airlines changed it and charged everybody for bags, nobody checks bags anymore, and now we get everyone waiting in a sprinter's stance to claim their territory for their overhead bag.

I have a theory. I think we should charge people to bring bags into the overhead. Not for checking the bag, but for taking up space in the overhead. Might free it up a little bit. I've never seen so many people in a three-point stance in my life. I just bring my backpack and slide it under the chair in front of me. Oh, and when the bell goes off and you get your gate and two or three people just get up instantly, running past you even though there's nowhere to go? Where are they going? I don't understand why these people are in such a hurry.

As soon as it goes "ding" I take my backpack and just stick it in the aisle. I give them an obstacle to either trip over, or they're gonna have to hurdle it to get past my row.

SH: I think the agility test there is fair. If they're agile enough to get over your bag, they can have that space.

KH: They're excited to get on the plane, and they're just as excited to get off the plane. I don't know which one they're more excited for.

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IT'S HERE: THE FAT-SOAKED, DELICIOUS COLLEGE FOOTBALL SINGULARITY

Should you be getting excited over a new bowl sponsor?

No. A rational person does not get excited over corporations, faceless negligent citizens created for the explicit purpose of negating the concept of personal liability. Murder by a thousand hands does not deserve your friendship, loyalty, or love, no matter how beautiful a mask it wears.

Are you excited about a new bowl sponsor?

YOU'RE DAMN RIGHT WE ARE. Because it is Popeye's, the last known fast food fetish that the nutritional stresses of adulthood have not burned clean from our system. Taco Bell may be ground parakeet meat stuffed into amalgamated corn chips swept from the floor of our nation's Chili's. McDonald's serves only the cheapest cuts of soy zombie meat sandwiched between sugared packing materials, and Subway provides an unblocked and unceasing pipeline for the lunchmeat of expired racehorses to flow into the gullets of the American workforce.

It's all bad and we know it but dammit Popeye's, we cannot quit you or your spicy, chunk-breaded wonderment. All other fast-food restaurants may be unmasked as accomplices in food recycling, but you will be there for us at the last, Popeyes, even when we find out you've been making us crave Mexican pigeon meat masquerading as chicken. Honestly, don't act like you'd know or care about the difference. You wouldn't, particularly if it were spicy.

Isn't that an inconsistent position?

Yes, well, thankfully that's never going to be something you get here.

Does it help that it's the Bahamas Bowl?

Hell yes it does. In a sport loaded with corruption where the rules make proper compensation a form of contraband, there is no better or more fitting location than the Bahamas. The only thing more appropriate would be playing the game on Norman's Cay.

Wait: is there even a Popeyes in the Bahamas?

There are dozens of Popeye's in Turkey, and eight in Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. Japan boasts ten locations, while Peru has at least twelve different spots where you can eat a three piece with red beans and rice within spitting distance of the Andes. Italy has two stores; Saudi Arabia has eleven locations. Even the backwater nation of Florida has so many locations that a visualization of their layout looks like a herpes outbreak. (Which, yeah: that's appropriate on a lot of levels.)

Note what does not have a single red dot: The Bahamas.

So you're going, right?

Oh hell no. It's on December 24th, and there's a little known rule that you lose your citizenship if you spend Christmas out of the country more than once. Additionally: parole violations are serious in the state of Georgia and are treated harshly by the authorities.

Which teams would be the most entertaining to turn loose in the Bahamas on holiday?

Given the MAC/Conference-USA matchups? Ohio vs. Rice. Frank Solich steals a boat, and is last seen yelling "WHO'S THE REAL PIRATE" with the hammer down headed somewhere towards Cuba while singing "Changes in Latitudes" through clenched teeth.

CORRECTION: we'll take Rice/Ohio, since we screwed up the conference affiliations first time around. OWLS ON PARADE.

Would the Ohio mascot be with him?

Of course. He's not missing a pillage.

CORRECTION: It's a Conference-UA

LET US PRAY

Join us in seeking forgiveness for what we are about to do, and perhaps not do, this upcoming football season.

FORGIVENESS GRANTED

I forgive you, Will Muschamp, and seek new outrages. Fresh outrages. Outrages where we lose to Idaho, perhaps.

I forgive you, Wisconsin-Arizona State refs; it was very late and Todd Graham's hair looks sharp.

You are forgiven for being beautiful and everything we want in a football team, Baylor, but this baby we're having will save this marriage to Will Muschamp. [pic of kurt roper's head put on baby]

You are forgiven, BCS Industrialists who insisted that a playoff could "never work" and was "bad for fans" and would be "a perversion in the eyes of Dennis, the God of Football Tradition long may he reign and cluck about tattoos."

DACOACHO FUHGISS YOU PAD HAVEN. ASSA TOKIN UH GUHWILL DACOACHO SENDUNYA A PRYSWINNIN WATUHMOCKASIN. TOLDA YOU ESS PEE ESS ISSA SLIPPERAH BAGUETTE.

I forgive you, Dude Who Plays Mayhem In All The Allstate Commercials, both for your cruelties to Liz Lemon and for demolishing the same truck 300 times a Saturday. HEY DUMMY.

Accept our forgiveness, Mike Bobo. For too long you were assigned blame that rightly belonged to another: the ghost of John Rocker, who is a detective in the Athens Police Department even though John Rocker isn't dead.

Whatever you did not do for the least of these, you also did not do to the Lord himself, which is why we're going to watch and cheer during at least one Illinois football game this year.

We forgive John Swofford. It turns out you can't dilute your conference so much that the Virginia "just disappears," but it was a valiant effort nonetheless.

We let go of irritation and irksomeness, forget the mocking of the "Michigan Man," and instead focus on the positives of the Michigan program like

All of your past transgressions are forgotten, Connor Halliday. It is important to wipe the slate clean before you throw it directly to an Oregon cornerback.

We believe in you, Purdue, and dream that one day you will become a reality.

We forgive Louisville for the 2012 Sugar Bowl, and for taking your coach in 101 days whether we think it's a good idea or not.

[puts in earplugs] WE FORGIVE YOU IN ADVANCE GUS JOHNSON. WE APPRECIATE YOUR ENTHUSIASM AND ENERGY. WE'RE GONNA BACK UP A LITTLE BIT IF YOU DON'T MIND.

We want to forgive you, NCAA. We really do. Instead, we will do the Southern thing and quietly resent you in your dying years and then skip your funeral.

REQUESTS FOR FORGIVENESS:

Forgive us, random follower who liked a tweet we did about TV three months ago. Forty-three tweets about a MAC game on a Wednesday night weren't what you signed up for.

Forgive us, Will Muschamp. If there were a Geneva Convention for Internet Commentary, we will be full-blown war criminals by 2 p.m. this coming Saturday.

Forgive us, friends who aren't that into college football. You are good parents and you keep the non-football economy running from September until February. We're still getting you a Kennesaw State shirt for Christmas, because we are bad at this.

Accept our apologies in advance, FSUTwitter, because when you lose to Virginia we will remind you exactly how many NFL draft picks missed a tackle on a crucial late Cavaliers TD run.

May our own bodies forgive us, or at least blame science for not turning pork into a vegetable.

Let the spirit of understanding underline every AHAHAHAHAA FUCK YOUUUUU to Alabama this season, for we mean it out of a malice borne of meager moral fiber, and also the fact that even God thinks it's hilarious when y'all shit the bed.

Forgive us for kicking Kansas when it is down, for abusing a corpse is a felony in most states. (Not Kansas, though. Gotta do something during basketball season.)

To our spouses: we are so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so very sorry.

Seriously Will Muschamp you seem like a fine person so just forgive us for everything, but especially what we'll say if you go 7-5 but beat Florida State.

We apologize to Terry Bowden for accurately predicting that he will be hired by Arkansas.

We ask forgiveness for that rental car. It was like that when we got it, bloodstains and all.