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The Alligator Army Weekly Open Thread, Vol. CXIII

Do the five stages of grief apply to this college football season?

By Andy Hutchins
Auburn v Florida Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images

I really only have the one question for y’all this week for Open Thread purposes: When it comes to the five stages of grief, where are you in regards to this college football season?

For the unfamiliar, the five stages of grief as outlined by Elizabeth Kübler-Ross in her seminal On Death and Dying are as follows:

  1. Denial
  2. Anger
  3. Bargaining
  4. Depression
  5. Acceptance

While they’re loosely linear, that doesn’t prevent sufferers from flipping from stage to stage or skipping stages entirely; grief is a personal process, different for each person experiencing it. (It’s also worth acknowledging that while On Death and Dying is widely used, its findings and arguments are also based largely on anecdotes, and not broad-based study, which has led to criticism over the years.)

So my question to you is: Where are you? Are you still in denial and projecting that this season is going to be regular or normal? Bargaining with the idea that this all a total sham or a house of cards waiting to come tumbling down? Depressed by how we got here? Accepting of a “new normal” that has changed our existence and some of its fruits?

I’m curious, and I’ll drop by with my observations in a bit.