HAPPY NEW YEAR, WE’RE NOT DEAD JUST FRIED

Oh hi, yes, hello: We’re here, though stunned for a number of reasons. There’s the lack of childcare, the randomly sorted holidays, and the “having to talk to people we are related to” that makes the holidays the absolute worst time of year to get anything done. The other day we sorted two baskets of toys, and it represented the most we got done this entire holiday season. They were, to be fair, really well-sorted when we were done.

There is also the dark comedy of two SEC teams making it to the college football final, and thus forcing us to make the joke we do not want to make. That joke? That this match will once and for all determine the greatest nation on earth: Alabama or Georgia?

No point in dodging it. We’re here, we’re going to have to watch two defense-first teams with no hope of scoring play each other for the national title, and college football in 2018 will remain more lopsided and unevenly distributed than global soccer. Italy and Alabama are the same dynasties, right down to the shady accounting and unwatchable play! Prove this wrong and take the prize of zero dollars for internet cross-sport comparison debunking.

We record a Fullcast tonight, where we definitely won’t spend at least ten minutes both gleefully discussing the SEC’s terrible bowl season and insisting that because his team beat Michigan head-to-head that Will Muschamp is a better football coach than Jim Harbaugh at 40% of the price. We’ll also grill Ryan on his deep-fried bowl experience inside the Outback Bowl’s Bloomin’ Onion costume, and on the Rose Bowl, which we pretty much think is going to be the best result the College Football Playoff is going to get out of this round. UNLESS JALEN HURTS TURNS INTO 2002 MIKE VICK OVERNIGHT AND no, no he’s not going to do that at all.

We’re starting off 2018 the way Florida football did: Didn’t go to a bowl, stayed at home, got no work done running around without every hitting paydirt, and yet still have hope for the coming year. Why? Because the alternative is despair or being Illinois football, and we’re not there yet even though the colors really aren’t that far off from all the team gear we already own.

2018: It’s not Illinois football. (Yet.)