ALOHA.
A sleepy late breakfast Curious Index reminds you that the Hawaii Bowl is tonight, a matchup where in the giving spirit of the holidays both teams offer up their endzones undefended and open for the taking. Larry Fedora will be coaching his final game for Southern Miss before taking off for the UNC job, Nevada will be playing what is becoming their second home of sorts, and both teams will play after enduring this horror:
Tuesday featured something called the "Outback Steakhouse Barefoot Pep Rally," which we have to assume is a hard-fought contest to determine which team’s players are brave enough to walk through an Outback Steakhouse with no shoes on.
Those poor bastards. The announcers consigned to calling this game will be Ed Cunningham and Mark Jones, who will probably just go rogue after this, head east, and offer their services to random sporting events across the Pacific Rim in a kind of visionquest ending with Mark Jones seeing God in the middle of a Burmese cobra rodeo. (Ed Cunningham would find love in a Jakarta alley. His family will never understand, but when you love an orangutan once, you never love the same again.)
COLLEGE STATION WILL NOW TASTE THE MEDIOCRE, MEALY FLAVOR OF 2012 FLORIDA FOOTBALL. Though the full schedule will not be released until Monday, the SEC has confirmed that Florida will travel to College Station in September as part of their new schedule rotation. Jeremy Foley will have lawyers consult the codes of several states in an effort to prevent this from happening, but it is perfectly legal to play out of state twice in the month of September.
The other confirmed news of note: LSU will remain as Florida's permanent draw out of the west, something we are overjoyed at because playing LSU is never, ever boring, and because we love you all without reservation, Tigers. Unfortunately, this means we get no return trip from Auburn, and will have to find another team to lose to by a field goal. (Vandy! You're up!)
NO HE'S NEVER LEAVING BUT KEEP TRYING. Penn State is "focused on Chris Petersen," while Chris Petersen is "doing whatever it is he does besides beat ass and tell people he is never leaving Boise."
DO NOT MAKE US LIKE YOU LANE KIFFIN. Lane Kiffin is probably still a dick, but he's one who did a brilliant job coaching USC this year and who is smart enough to acknowledge his evolving, maturing dickishness:
SN: Seems like the bridge between you and Meyer is burned. Any regrets for you so far? KIFFIN: I think like anything, you don't want any negatives. It's funny you say that--I texted my agent today to ask for Urban's cell phone number so I could leave him a congratulations message. I'm growing up.
Awww, Lane. The Holidays have us so sentimental, man. [hugs] [realizes Lane just felt us up] [is strangely okay with this]
REMINDER: It's skeleton crew time around here. We'll have the Hawai'i Bowl 35 for 35 up soon, and then we'll be doing the same thing you're doing: deciding what a reasonable cocktail hour is, and eating cookies until we die of shame and/or pleasure. We'll be around on the Twitters for the Hawai'i Bowl, and otherwise please enjoy your holiday responsibly, safely, and with those you love or otherwise tolerate in the name thereof.