You’ve been counting down the days to kickoff and talking yourself into this team since the end of last bowl season. Most of your time in class or at your internship is spent following recruiting or reading reports from camp. Worst case scenario, this team goes 9-3, you foolishly convince yourself after spending countless hours schedule-bating and chalking up wins and loses. That quarterback of yours had moments of brilliance before, and with another year under his belt in this system, he’s ready to take major steps forward to the next level. Your thought process completely overlooks the fact that the offense lost all of its weapons and the o-line underwent a major overhaul as well. Plug in those highly touted recruits and let’s keep this party going.

Well, now we’re one week in, and the writing is on the wall that this party is and has been over since that lashing you conveniently forgot about at last year’s Irrelevance Bowl. That cupcake in-state school that you laugh at every time they refer to themselves as your rival just took your team to the fucking woodshed, murdered you in clear daylight, and danced and pissed all over your dead corpse for good measure.

You almost had an aneurism from the plethora of emotions that came about simultaneously.

First, of course, is anger. “Coach just doesn’t have the locker room anymore. His message isn’t hitting home with these goons. Time for his ass to go. This quarterback has regressed like a recovering heroin addict whose wife divorced him and took full custody of the kids. McShay and Kiper need to take him off their big boards entirely. I hope I see him out at the bars tonight. Just give me one reason ‘Golden Boy.’ This defense couldn’t stop a team of toddlers from getting 6 every possession.”

Next up is denial. “No way did we seriously just lose to that fucking school. I had better odds of getting my salad tossed by Lisa Ann than that group of pathetic misfits covering the spread. They won outright? I refuse to believe it. The colonization of Mars has a more realistic chance of happening.”

Followed by depression. “Give me whiskey-water. Make it a double? No, I’ll just tell you when to stop pouring. Grab another glass and keep going. How did we get here? I was just getting use to success. Everything was on the up and up. But we were apparently a fraud. Big time programs don’t lose to lesser schools. You don’t see Bama slipping up to Troy. Saban would commit mass homicide before letting that go down.”

Then comes delusional optimism. “You know what? That wasn’t that bad of a loss. They’re a young up and coming program that will probably be competing for their conference title. Plus, this will really humble our team before our own conference play. That’s what’s important here. We were never a national championship contender to begin with. This will serve as a learning experience for all the underclassmen that just expected to walk in and roll. We’ll play angry the rest of the season.”

Finally is acceptance. “This team is a tire fire, but dammit, they’re my tire fire. I’ll have to drown out the heartache prior to entering the stadium so that I’m numb during the abortion taking place on the field, but I’ll be there, every Saturday. You can count on that.”

So stock up on plenty of grain alcohol, make the most of every tailgate, fasten your seat belt and brace yourself for a ride of pure turbulence, it’s going to be a long season..