9 Reasons Why I'm Pumped for College Football Saturday to Return

1. Getting teary-eyed from a Tom Rinaldi story during College Gameday

Tom Rinaldi’s voice. More soothing than laying down after a bout of hot diarrhea. That voice, matched with an inspirational, heartwarming, or heart wrenching story makes for a hell of an emotional rollercoaster at 9:38am on a Saturday morning. My mind either has two reactions after a Tom Rinaldi story: 1) I want to call my immediate family and close friends and tell them how much I love them; 2) I feel like I can run through a brick wall and I motivate myself to workout before I start pounding beers for the first games at noon. Regardless, tears are in my eyes, and nothing pairs better with football than man tears.

2. Lee Corso’s big game pick

If you don’t spark at least a tiny smile watching Lee Corso pick the prime time game, then you literally have no soul. He is never swayed by the crowd. His pick never takes stats or research into account. And he never lets his pick be governed by anything else other than his heart. Lee Corso is all heart and it’s gonna be really challenging to face College Gameday when he’s no longer sitting at the desk to shame Lil Wayne or The Chainsmokers with a well-timed “not so fast!”.

3. Somehow increasing my Saturday beer intake from my already high Summer Saturday beer intake

Warm weather plus summer vibes is a powerful motivator to slam copious amounts of adult sodas. Having said that, watching premiere athletes who can’t even legally consume alcohol yet put their bodies in harms way for my enjoyment makes me want to shotgun beers in the shower at 11am. And if you aren’t down with shower beers, get out of my face or you’ll have an atomic wedgie coming your way.

4. Wings

Chicken motherflippin’ wings! The most fun food to eat and the least fun food to watch people eat. Also, just to clarify, you don’t eat wings while you watch football, you inhale wings. I don’t what else to say here. In the words of the great American hero, Patrick Henry, “Give me wings or give me death.”

5. The 3:30pm game slot

Maybe my favorite thing about college football Saturday. You’re a little drunk from the noon games, there’s usually a solid SEC or B1G matchup, and it’s the perfect excuse to avoid life’s responsibilities before dinner time arrives. There’s something magical about this time of day in the fall when you’re watching an SEC game on CBS. This is where dreams are made, but you most likely drink too much to remember them.

6. Football tweets drowning out political tweets on my Twitter feed

Really excited for this one, and it’s already begun to happen. The obsession that people have with responding to every Trump-related article is insufferable and pathetic. Sad! You know who you are and you are the fucking worst. But soon, I will no longer have to be a victim of your addiction to retweets and all the college football tweets will strangle your “not my president” and ‘MAGA” tweets into submission.

7. Saying “I told you so” when you luckily guess an upset

I don’t think that even the most restrained people can stop themselves from doing this. Earlier in the week or right as the game starts, you make a really bold prediction about the winner. If you’re wrong, no one remembers you said it and you go on about your day. If you’re correct, it is your right as football fan to bring it up as much as possible over the next month and rub it in every single person’s face. So be bold and, if you end up correctly predicting an upset, go ahead and be an asshole. You have my permission.

8. Saturday night Sportscenter

I grew up on Sportscenter and ESPN was basically my third parent, but after all of the recent on-air talent layoffs, I’ve pretty much sworn off ESPN (miss you, John Clayton…and your ponytail). Other than watching games on the ESPN channels, I don’t watch ESPN anymore because their programming frankly sucks butt. But, and this is a big BUT, the Saturday night Sportscenter recapping all of the day’s games thus far is non-stop electricity and will continue to be my favorite part of the week during the Fall season until Amazon buys ESPN in 20 years.

9. Falling asleep with the TV on during the late West Coast game

Oh wow, Stanford is playing Arizona State at 11:30pm EST on Saturday night. So pumped to watch that game. Me at 11:38pm EST…

Flash to a very confused me waking up at 3am…

College football is back, y’all! Celebrate accordingly.