Phil. 8:30 p.m. EST. Get ready.

Listen here. We’re off to do lines of fish oil and Provigil just to keep up.

HUZZAH! ONE HUNDRED COCKTAILS TO ODIN! IT’S STEELETIDE!

Steeletide, little doomed one-legged Tim, is the second happiest day of the year: the day when you, the college football consumer gets in their hot little hands the most extensive and punishingly data-riffic college football guide on the planet: Phil Steele’s College Football Preview.

Dictated–no, really, it is dictated–by Phil, it is the compendium of every division one football team broken down into units, rosters, tendencies, exhaustive stats on win streaks, record on grass versus turf, and everything everyone else will mostly be regurgitating up over the next nine to ten months anyways. It’s also great for your marriage.

Wife: Honey, what do you think? Should we plant bell peppers or tomatoes?

You: Mark Richt is 25-4 in opposing stadiums.

Wife: I don’t think you heard me, did you?

You: Utah has the second longest bowl winning streak. It stands at 7 games now.

Wife: YOU DON’T REALLY WANT TO HAVE ANOTHER BABY, DO YOU?

You: EVEN IN A FRUSTRATING YEAR USC OUTGAINED CONFERENCE FOES BY 157 YPG?

Wife: STOP SPEAKING IN ACRONYMS!!!

It should pop up on newsstands shortly, but a sneaky peeky inside this year’s mag in no particular order:

1. Nothing’s changed. Yay. Same infinitesimally small 6 point type. Same arcane system of acronyms. (Hey, there’s a glossary. Nut up, lazy readerperson.) (more…)

Trev strikes back! Trev thinks Notre Dame recovers this year, which along with Phil Steele picking them as one of his most improved teams means you’ll get the floating head of Tom Hammond haunting your dreams with “WAKE UP THE ECHOES” for only the rest of the offseason. If the Floating Head of Tom Hammond haunting your subconscious isn’t enough, perhaps the thought of us having Phil Steele’s 2008 Guide To College Football before you do will make you writhe in sufficient agony.

(Florida? Number one in the SEC East? You’re killing us with high expectations, Phil. More on the goodness tomorrow.)

Phil: Emerging from the DataBunker.

Speaks, writes, emits information at a startling rate: whatever you call what Phil Steele does, it’s ramping up for the release of Steele 2008. (Per his website: June. You can usually find a few copies ahead of schedule on stands, and then call friends and bark at them incoherently with excitement. They’ll get used to this after three years or so of these calls.)

He has comparative strength of schedules tables up based on last year’s winning percentages, and they’re further proof that the less you pay attention to winning percentages in terms of where you put teams in your preseason, the better.

1. Georgia
2. Florida
3. Arkansas
4. UCLA
4. Alabama
6. Auburn
7. Ohio State
8. Kentucky
9. Colorado
9. Baylor
9. Washington
9. Ohio Oregon State.

Que pobrelito, Baylor: you’re the econ major who, through some trick of malicious scheduling, has stumbled into an advanced price theory class in your first semester. Georgia is set up so well for this year: coming in they have the awe-inspiring schedule, meaning their first real foray out of the south, interstate rivalry with a feisty Tech team, and SEC schedule have them stocked high from the onset. Coming out of the schedule, they can still have one loss (a la Florida in 2006) and may still have a legitimate nod over an undefeated team with one loss leaving the season because of THE SCHEDULE, which will be typed in all caps due to its importance in shaking out where Georgia is when the season finishes.

(Barring Knowshon being kidnapped by FARC rebels, this won’t happen. We haven’t saved up quite enough money to make this happen yet, but we’ll keep you posted.)

BTW, Iowa claims the 95th weakest schedule by winning percentage going into 2008. Ferentz Silences Doubters With Football Renaissance. Thought we’d just type that for the six to ten sportswriters who will have to write that same inaccurate wretched story come November or December of this year. Just cut and paste it, guys!

What: EDSBS Live! online radio. Phil Steele/Big Game edition.

PHIL STEELE!!! GIMME A FUCKIN’ SIREN!!!!!!!

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

When: 7:30 Eastern, 4:30 for all you angels on the West Coast.

Where: At NowLive, where you can chat with each other and the show hosts throughout the broadcast in the online forum (type quickly or die!). To phone in to the show, just call (310) 984-7600.

Who: Phil Steele, football monk and forecasteer supreme. You. Are. Not. Ready.

How excited are we? Like, Go! Team excited.

The four questions for tonight:

1.Game you would sacrifice your firstborn to the gods for this year.

Florida/Tennessee. Pure, intoxicating hatred we happily spike ourselves with every September.

2. Game NOT involving your team you’d sacrifice something to the gods to watch…

Right now we’re high on the Nebraska/USC game, which (of course) is the same day as the Tennessee/Florida game. So how bout the first Tuberville/Saban Iron Bowl? That’s got to be worth a prize chicken or two thrown onto the sacrificial altar, no?

3. Name three college football gods right now
coaches, players, mascots, etc…

Sunday Morning Quarterback, Urban Meyer, and Darren McFadden.

4. Who’s the sexiest god/goddess?

Trick question–Lemmy! In all serious unseriousness, we’ll go with Kali: unstable, violent, often depicted as quite curvy in her gentler forms, and has like a zillion arms. Those would have to come in handy at crucial junctures in Business Time.