We all missed you, sweet blue turf
It's indisputable that September through December is the best time of year, because to real patriotic Idahoans that means one thing: college football Saturday, and more specifically, Boise State football. Sweet Jesus, those three words make my vas deferens tingle like Lauren Graham in the movie Bad Santa. Only America has the guts and smarts to dream up such a beautiful pastime. Do you think they have anything like that in France? Not a chance. Them douchey European fluffers sit around all day Saturday and eat rock-hard bread while hating on Lance Armstrong. And it's the same all around the world. Instead of basking in the warmth of Kellen Moore and the collegiate cheerleader, the rest of the troglodyte countries on this planet do pointless stuff like buy lentils at the market, herd their goats, or shoot automatic weapons at each other. Please. Just the thought of all that foreign nonsense makes me want to thank a veteran for my freedom. Better yet, it makes me want to go thank John McCain for my freedom.
Not a good way to spend Saturday
If you don't know how college football Saturday works, or if you're looking to improve your experience, here's the way it needs to be. Trust me; I've perfected the itinerary over countless fall Saturdays, and one day I plan to have a ghost writer write a book about it. In a nutshell, the Boise State game only lasts about three hours (if ESPN happens to be letting them play on Saturday), so you've got to skillfully fill the rest of the day with other games that don't involve blue fields, Fiesta Bowl references, and the ghost of Pokey Allen. It's sad but true, at least until they can clone the Broncos 119 times so BSU is playing in every single Division I game every week.
8 AM Hopefully your alarms goes off. If it does, congratulate yourself. Your ambition is noteworthy and commendable. But you need to immediately focus your attention on the fact that the East Coast games will be starting in about two hours. If you didn't do any prep work during the week, now would be a good time to get on the internet and find out who's playing the first round of games so you can begin to plan your general game strategy for the day. If you were out late on Friday night playing poker, listening to Spindle Bomb down at Grainey's Basement, or porking a new casual-sex partner, you can hit the snooze until 9, but you'll have to forego the Saturday shower. Unless you're lucky enough to have a hot college-football-loving chick coming over to watch some games with you, the shower doesn't really matter as long as you can stand to smell yourself. However, if you find yourself in a football black hole around 8pm when only the Vandals and some other crappy WAC, Conference USA, or Sun Belt teams are playing on the Altitude Channel, you can always take a shower then.
9 AM If you got up on time, now's the time to eat a bowl of Cocoa Krispies and go to Matt Sarz Sports (http://mattsarzsports.com/football2009.aspx) to pick the games you're going to watch all or part of today. Every good college football Saturday requires an itinerary. Spend some time and don't rush. Most of all, take some time to work out your contingency plans. If that Big-10 afternoon game is a blowout, you'll need to have an alternate game in mind to switch to, unless it's Michigan getting blown out. If that's the case, soak it up, dude. Muck Fichigan. Feel free to have two or three bowls of Cocoa Krispies, because that is possibly the best cereal ever. That chocolaty goodness is almost as good as watching Alabama lose at home and trying to figure out what an elephant has to do with a crimson tide. After all the krispies are gone, you get the double-awesome bonus of the chocolate-infused milk waiting for you to drink it down like a pudgy five-year-old kid. I love you, Kellogg's.
10 AM It's kickoff time. The East Coast games begin, and even if you're stuck with Hofstra at Holy Cross, you're still watching football and not mowing the yard or doing other crap you have to do in the summer. Hopefully there's a good Big-10 or ACC game on by 10:30, because then the day starts in earnest. Chances are good that Boise State doesn't play until the evening, so there's a long way to go until your marquee game of the day. So pace yourself. I suggest an inter conference matchup of top-25 teams if it's available. If not, watch a mid-tier SEC game, because the weather is always nice down there and you're guaranteed to get more hot cheerleader shots than any other conference.
Four reasons to love the South
LSU, Florida, Auburn, it doesn't matter. They're all smokin' hot and have wonderful thighs tanned by that sweet Southern sun. The best you can hope for from the Ohio State squad is breast enhancement or the one-in-a-million chance that a daring lass is going commando for extra comfort. It's probably not going to happen, though.
Hide your hoagies and
delicious children
1-2 PM The Big-XII and Mountain West conferences join the party. If you're a fan of Texas or Oklahoma, now's your chance to see them schlong whip Southwestern Louisiana State or Baylor. Isn't that fun? My advice is to skip all Texas and Oklahoma games unless they're playing each other. It doesn't matter how much money T. Boone Pickens gives Oklahoma State; they will still suck corn cobs and blow a thirty-point lead to Texas. And Texas Tech? Please. They're in Lubbock. Lubbock! Have you ever been to Lubbock? Better brush up on your sheep anatomy before you go. And the only way Kansas is ever going to beat Oklahoma is if Mangino eats Bob Stoops and all of his assistant coaches. If you're stuck watching Kansas, however, you can still make it interesting by playing the Mark Mangino drinking game. Every time they show Mangino on TV, everyone takes a shot of Beefeater and then stuffs an entire cupcake in their mouth. If they show Mangino pulling his pants up or picking his nose, everyone chugs a stubby. If Mangino is shown running on the sideline or moving at a rate any faster than his normal waddle, everyone must stand on one leg, take a shot of Beefeater, and then fellate a Twinkie. Based on my own experiences, you should only watch Kansas in prime time, because the rest of the day gets a little blurry after you've been Manginoed by Fox Sports Net.
If you follow Utah, BYU, or other Mountain West schools, now's the time to celebrate that crap-tastic TV deal their conference has. I'm pretty sure their game of the week is on Treasure Valley Community TV, otherwise known as Boise's public access channel. I hope you don't have Dish Network, because that means you can't get their crappy MTN Channel even if you want it. But, hey, you can still get lucky every once in a while and catch a Ute game on the CBS College Sports channel or Versus. That's just awesome. Boise State might play in the god-awful WAC conference, but at least they're on ESPN a crapload of times every season. Personally, I couldn't care less about Air Force, BYU, San Diego State and all the other sucky Mountain West teams, especially when they play each other. Neither should you. They just clutter up your itinerary and distract you from the quality games.
The great shiny cranium
4-5 PM Here's where the early Pac-10 games get interesting. Maybe USC's playing a worthy opponent in a close game and you want to see if Todd Marinovich is chasing the dragon on the sideline. Go for it! Maybe you miss seeing Nick Holt's shiny bald Vandal-loving cranium on the sideline behind a head coach, and you're also curious how much worse the Huskies could possibly get. Make it happen! Or perhaps you want to see how all that shady stuff Rick Neuheisel's been doing is paying off for UCLA. Well, just turn it to ABC or fire up the ol' ESPN Game Plan and the Bruins against the Sun Devils is all yours. Here's something I've wondered for years: Why does the Arizona State Sun Devil have a dirty sanchez? And is Jake Plummer responsible?
Hopefully you've taken it easy in your afternoon drinking and snacking up to this point, because you're going to need a big dinner of BBQ beef brisket, baked taters, and big-ass buttered rolls to prepare for the awesome evening of prime-time games. If you're thinking about drinking Corona with that dinner, or if the urge hits you earlier in the day, don't do it. That's gay. Just ask Hawaii coach Greg McMackin how gay it is. He'll shoot you straight. Instead, drink Bud, Miller, or Coors and be happy with it. Anheuser-Busch runs a commercial during every timeout for a reason, so get with the program.
6 PM It's prime time, baby. Boise State's probably playing in this time slot, so you might have to make some sacrifices or run the DVR to catch the other marquee games. The whole DVR thing kinda sucks, though, because during the BSU game you'll have to keep reminding yourself not to look at any score tickers at the bottom or corner of the screen, lest you see the scores of the games you are recording. However, you can always hope for a BSU blowout that would enable you to flip to that LSU game or that top-ten matchup between two power conferences.
Good riddance
When you're watching the BSU game, make sure you praise the Lord that you don't have to listen to David Augusto or Ted Dawson these days. My advice to KTVB: drop all your announcers and just put a mic on Kellen Moore's facemask. I don't need Mark Johnson telling me it's going to be third down and ten. What I need to hear is the BSU offensive line telling Vandal jokes in the huddle. It used to be acceptable to mute the TV and listen to Paul J. Schneider and Jeff Caves on the radio, but since KBOI lost that gig, silence has been the best option by far. And if it's an ESPN game and Pam Ward is doing the play by play, you might as well pull your scrotum up over your head and beat your brains out like Rain Man. ESPN should know that men watch football so they don't have to hear women's voices, except for Erin Andrews. To suffer through Pam Ward on every play is the worst kind of auditory torture. It's much worse than even an afternoon of Rob Akey jokes. In this case, the Mute button is definitely your #1 amigo.
We all do after 10pm
9 PM By now you should be feeling fat and slightly drunk from the beef, the beer, the BSU victory, and the Vandal loss. That's why the Pac-10 late game is a perfect wind-down for another fabulous college football Saturday. After a quarter or so of Stanford at Oregon State, you'll either be sobered up by all the fabulous Beaver action, or you'll be blessedly passed out. If you get really lucky and USC is playing the Ducks or there happens to be two other Pac-10 teams worth a crap this season, you might find yourself staying up past 11pm, suffering from indigestion and royally piss-drunk, but also basking in the glow of another awesome fall Saturday. I love America because it makes this possible. Every day should be a Saturday in October. And if a little sadness hits you as you're drifting off to Song-Girl-infused sleepy time, just remember that the next day is Sunday, and I've got some advice for that day too.
