Time enough at last. (AP)

By Holly Anderson

Here follows an account of the reign of Nick Saban from the years 2015-25, commonly referred to by better historians as the Wilding Tuscaloosa era.

The year is 2015. The season, midwinter. Flush with six national titles, four of them consecutive, five at Alabama, even the agile football mind of Nick Saban atrophies with boredom. Staring listlessly at a commitment list that’s a unanimous pick for tops in the nation, a list that will bolster a roster that’s already a consensus national title favorite, in the predawn dim of National Signing Day, the crafter of college football’s most unassailable modern dynasty crumples a piece of copy paper into a wad the size of a golfball with the density of sandstone. It’s time at last, time to turn on the cheat codes, Saban’s last defense against the dulling of his edge. He needs to be tested again.

But the codes are not for his benefit. They’re for yours.

And from now on, everything’s gonna be different. Well — almost everything.
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By Holly Anderson

The greatest beauty and cruelty of college football is the brevity. The short seasons are here and gone before we feel we’ve fully grasped their import, and, at most, we are granted only a few years to appreciate the players we most admire before they’re shipped off to be homogenized into the NFL. It’s only natural, then, that draft season is the bleakest time of year for us. We wish all departing players well, but it always chokes us up a bit.

Jarvis Jones (right) and a chicken-salad bust of Jarvis Jones (left) at a Manhattan Subway. #DraftWeek!!! http://t.co/t8hzrRuvN9—
Mike Garafolo (@MikeGarafolo) April 23, 2013

Never does this hit home harder than when Subway gets ahold of promising draft prospects. Was it just a few short months ago that we were marveling at Jarvis Jones’ Cocktail Party performance? He was an apex predator, an eater of Gators, and now he’s chicken salad. So wags the weary world away.

“If you prick us, do we not bleed? Probably not, but if you tickle us, do we not slap you with secondary violations? Totally.” — A real thing Mark Emmert said (AP)

By Holly Anderson

Heat death is based on the concept of entropy, which holds that disordered states are more stable than ordered states. We experience entropy in real world examples like a glass window being easier to break than to reassemble or create anew. On the scale of the universe, complex systems like stars, planets and galaxies are the glass window, and the Australian physicists have found that supermassive black holes are breaking them faster than we could have imagined. — Popular Science, October 2009

Even by the grimmest estimates, the heat death of the universe is still uncountable centuries from occurring. Rest easy, however, in the equally grim assurance that when that dark, cold day winks out, Miami and the NCAA will still be swapping barbs:

The NCAA’s enforcement staff responded to Miami’s claims and harsh criticisms of the NCAA by lashing back, claiming that UM is “grasping at straws” in an attempt to disqualify members of the enforcement team and that it is “offended” by Miami’s insinuations in regards to the case. — Bruce Feldman, April 2013

Of all the parties we never thought we’d have to remind that It’s Not Called Feelingsball.

The latest wave of realignment as it stands of 4:55 p.m. EDT on Thursday. God be with us.

A felicitous March Madness to all! The NCAA round of 64 commences today, and we’ll gladly cede the floor to hoopyball for its duration. While there is much we do not understand about basketball, including but not limited to its history, rules, strategies, players and coaches, the tournament does come along at a dreadful lull in the calendar for our beautiful game, and it gives us something to watch on television that is not the Cakes And Skanks Channel.

We harbor a particular fondness for the first day of March Madness, for it was on this date five years ago that we first journeyed to Las Vegas to take in the massive multi-day basketball betting spectacle, and it was there on March 21, 2008, that we spied an Illinois fan wearing a commemorative Rose Bowl shirt in public:

At the time this photo was taken, less than three months’ time had elapsed since Illinois faced utter obliteration at the hands of USC, falling 49-17 to the Trojans in Pasadena. This anonymous gentlemen is the bravest football fan we have ever met, and without college basketball, we’d never have known he existed. For this we give thanks.

Andy Staples on Jim Delany: “In a declaration filed last week in federal court in support of the NCAA’s motion against class certification, Delany threatened that any outcome that results in athletes getting a piece of the schools’ television revenue could force the schools of the Big Ten to de-emphasize athletics as the Ivy League’s schools did decades ago.”

Jim Delany to Andy Staples: “It’s not that we want to go Division III or go to need-based aid,” Delany said. “It’s simply that in the plaintiff’s hypothetical — and if a court decided that Title IX is out and players must be paid — I don’t think we’d participate in that. I think we’d choose another option. … If that’s the law of the land, if you have to do that, I don’t think we would.”

Internet’s reaction: Over there to your right.

Campus Union Feelings Collage on the subject: After the jump.

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The story of a bowl game, as told through social media.

And now, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir lets loose: “Lark the herald Cougars sing / How will James the pigskin fling?” #BYUFootballCarols

— Matt Zemek (@MattZemek_CFN) December 21, 2012

Sometimes you’ve just gotta let Lark fly.

— Brian Floyd (@BrianMFloyd) December 21, 2012

And other times, Lark slams into a window.

— Brian Floyd (@BrianMFloyd) December 21, 2012

Adam Dingwell is a decent quarterback and a disastrous air traffic controller.

— edsbs (@edsbs) December 21, 2012

Simultaneously violating four different components of the BYU Honor Code while BYU is playing. I used to be better than this.

— Ramzy Nasrallah (@ramzy) December 21, 2012

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Tracking the Week 6 zeitgeist through the magic of social media.

I feel like there’s a certain level of spectacle that should overrule a penalty, and Utah achieved it on that long (non-)touchdown.

— Matt Hinton (@MattRHinton) October 5, 2012

Oh, dear lord. Utah’s backup QB is 6-7? Please tell me Riley Cooper isn’t his roommate.

— Andy Staples (@Andy_Staples) October 5, 2012

Go home ESPN you’re drunkRT @espncfb: No need for ReecesPieces, MarqiseLee just phoned home. The Extra-Terrestrial WR goes 83yds for TD.

— LandThieves (@LandThieves) October 5, 2012

Spurrier mixing it up, jabbing Pac-12 on radio: “That other USC is not ranked as high as this USC.Maybe they need to change their logo.”

— Josh Kendall (@JoshatTheState) October 4, 2012

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We can’t believe it either, Dread Captain. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea-US PRESSWIRE)

In one day, our battle captain returns. Glory be. Let there be football. 

What is it about social media deals and ACC football and unending waves of sadness? Last summer, in the first week of this site’s existence, we examined the true value of Boston College’s Groupon deal, and now @thekeyplay alerts us to this new devilry from LivingSocial:

LivingSocial’s sales pitch begins: “Bicker as you might about whether the Big East or ACC is the better football conference, when it comes time for kick-off there’s only one thing that matters …” The end of this sentence is not “If these two teams combined their win totals from last season they could’ve gone to the Belk Bowl,” but we all know it for truth in our hearts.