Little known fact: I’m a PhD student in Industrial Engineering. What does that mean? I’m not good at making things, but I’m good at making things better. I did not invent football, but I’m here to teach you how to make your football gameday better.
If you have a girl, you either need to get rid of her or make sure she understands she won’t be seeing you on weekends anymore. I don’t care how cool you think she is, or how much you think your boys don’t mind having her around. None of them want her there on gameday giving her take on what is and isn’t a catch. Newsflash: No one fucking knows what a catch is anymore, especially her. She’ll also try to guilt you into missing some big games. Because as much as you think she likes football, there are a thousand things she’d rather do than watch 14 hours of football on a Saturday in the fall.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, here’s how to enjoy the perfect Saturday when your team is playing (you’re going to need this, because as I mentioned last night, we’ve begun 41 straight days of football):
9-9:30 AM:
Alarm goes off. Shake off the cobwebs from going out Friday night. DO NOT put on ESPN college gameday because Kirk and Lee have no fucking clue what they’re talking about. Instead, get yourself into the bathroom, take your morning dump, and scroll through Twitter for your gameday signs fix. Head over to studentunionsports.com for some actual insight on the upcoming games.
9:30-9:45 AM:
Your bowels are now empty and you’re ready to rock and roll. Stumble into the kitchen, and grab a shower beer. In your still drunk/hungover state, you might not think you need a shower. But trust me, you might not stank that second, but you’re in for a long day and will REEK by 3 PM if you don’t. Take care of that before your boys come over.
9:45-11 AM:
Get out of the shower. Lay naked on your bed for a while. Scroll through the bookie of your choice’s website and figure out an outrageous parlay. Make sure it’s at least 5 teams, and has an underdog moneyline in there worth +200 minimum. While doing this, you put back at least another 2-3 beers.
11 AM:
Your boys are either arriving, or on the way. You’ve got a little buzz. It’s time to figure out lunch. The correct answer is sub sandwiches. Burgers and hot dogs are an acceptable substitute, but if you want your day to be perfect, you go with subs. The hoagie rolls are perfect for soaking up the alcohol you’ve been/will be consuming. The meat is necessary because we are men. And the shredded lettuce/tomatoes count as a vegetable. So if your mom calls and asks if you’ve had a vegetable today, you don’t have to lie.
11 AM-12 PM:
Your boys are all arriving. Get into heated debates about why the bets you put in are better than theirs. Make sure you don’t have too many bets going against each other though. There’s nothing worse than a douche cheering in your face for winning a bet on the same game you lost. Especially when you laid $100 on it and that asshole only laid $5.
Still 11 AM-12 PM:
This is also when the dick measuring contest of who can drink more starts. Some will choose to do this by shotgunning, some will choose to do this by funneling, but the correct way to do it is by not being a pussy and just drinking at a good pace. The funnelers and shotgunners will all either be puking or passed out on your couch by 12:30. They’re fun to mess around with, but you don’t want to be that guy.
12-3:30 PM:
Time for kickoff. You are riled up and dreaming of all the things you’ll do if your parlay hits. Keep crushing beers, because it’ll make you feel better when that parlay is inevitably as dead as the shotgunners and funnelers by the end of the noon games.
3:30-5 PM:
Put in some more straight bets on the afternoon games. This is important because you’re in a hole and the only way to dig yourself out is to bet more. Besides that, nothing has really changed since the noon games started besides the fact that you’re beginning to feel more than a buzz.
5-6 PM:
Now this is a key part of the day. Start falling asleep on the couch with about 5 minutes left in the second quarter of the game you’re watching. This is important, because a nap is essential for making it to the end of the Hawaii game later in the night, and you will minimize the amount of game time you miss by making sure halftime is part of the nap.
6-7:30 PM:
You wake back up and you’re a little groggy, but the afternoon bets you made are winning. So it doesn’t take long to get back into the swing of things. This is where most people make the mistake of grabbing another beer. You need to switch to liquor. My personal go to at this point is a nice glass of Glenlivet on the rocks, but really any straight liquor or strong mixed drink will do. If, for some reason it is hard to get back into the swing of things after the nap, mix in a red bull. This is also the time you order pizza. Your stomach probably won’t be able to handle much more than that greasy, cheesy, deliciousness. But it doesn’t matter, because even if you’re feeling good enough to handle something else, there isn’t anything better than pizza while watching football at night.
7:30 PM:
You’re bloated as shit. You’re sweating alcohol and pizza grease. Rather than realizing this, you’re feeling confident as fuck from all the alcohol, so you and the boys decide it’s time to head downtown to a bar for the night games. Some guys might try to convince you to go to some club. Do NOT give in. Get your ass to a sports bar. You can’t listen to “Sorry Not Sorry” by Demi Lovato or some trap music while the game is on TV. You need to get to a place that will be playing the audio of the primetime game.
7:30 PM-2 AM:
If you do this part of the night correctly, you’ll remember the outcome of the games, but not any of the specific details. It honestly doesn’t matter what you’re drinking at this point. It’s dealer’s choice. Just make sure that you’re not confined to your boys anymore. Find other guys who are rooting for the same team as you. Buy them a shot. They’ll buy you twice as many back. You might even make some new lifelong friends, but you won’t remember anything about them except that you see a new name in your contacts Sunday morning. You’ll just know you had an awesome time out.
2 AM- Until You Pass Out:
Crawl into the Uber home. Have someone carry you back to the couch in your house, and throw the late night game on. You really don’t care about it, and it probably isn’t a good game. But it’s still football and it’s exactly what you need to pass out to.
Once you’ve followed this simple formula, you’ve experienced the optimal gameday. Feel free to follow @clemsoncarl on twitter and let me know how this worked out for you.