The Smoking Barn presents The 2014 Playoff Snub Survival Kit

Oh, so your team got snubbed from this year's College Football Playoff? That's a real shame. It's not every day that you have to watch in agony as your super talented team that might even have a Heisman contender (or two!) gets passed over more quickly than, say, the Israelites at Passover, or Skinny-Arms Rob Lowe in gym class dodgeball, or that green bean casserole that everyone tweets pictures about during the holidays but is really the nastiest thing I've ever eaten so STOP BRINGING IT TO OUR FAMILY DINNER, AUNT LAURA. QUIT TRYING TO MAKE GREEN BEAN CASSEROLE HAPPEN.

I mean, not that I'd know anything about that. It seems pretty crazy that an undefeated team in, say, the SEC would get overlooked, right? Surely we wouldn't ever reminisce that there was a time when computers called the shots. Surely somebody would fix that right away. That's the kind of America I want to live in.

But hey, it's the first time for this committee. Let's give 'em some slack, eh! After all, it's almost Christmastime! And isn't it amazing that 10 years after we discovered that the BCS was a hot circle of garbage, they're finally doing something about it? What exciting times we live in!

So hey. If this feels like the first time your team or any team has ever gotten snubbed from a chance at the National Title game, take heart, and look on the bright side!

Actually, there is no bright side. Sorry.

Since your team will be the team that got snubbed before it was cool, before snubbing was an actual thing, before it got referenced on The Walking Dead or Girls or The Newsroom or whatever you kids watch these days (do y'all remember J.G. Wentworth commercials?), here is a handy survival kit packed full of fun sundry items to keep you in good spirits, and believe me, this is based on nothing whatsoever resembling a similar event that happened ten years ago. In fact, just go ahead and dismiss from your mind right this second that this is some kind of time capsule from Auburn fans in a previous time period, because it's not. It's definitely not.

Hey, there's always next year! I hear Saban's havin' fambleh issues.

1. Anchorman and Napoleon Dynamite on DVD (it's wayyyy better with the outtakes)

Hey, you know what the cool thing is these days? You know what's actually funnier than watching these movies? QUOTING THEM.

The only thing funnier than Will Ferrell recycling more characters than your John Kerry-voting neighbor recycling The Daily Show bits and PBR cans is everyone around you doing their best Ron Burgundy impression. Hey, it's a hard voice to do. Some people just don't respect your work. It's hard being an artist between 5th and 6th period.

"Hey, have you seen Napoleon Dynamite yet? Have you? Oh my gosh, remember the part where he's like _________________ and then that karate teacher is like ____________________???"

"YOUR MOM GOES TO COLLEGE *GIGGLE GIGGLE*"

"OH YOU GUYS ISN'T MR. CARTER JUST LIKE UNCLE RICO? SEE Y'ALL IN SPANISH."

2. A scratched-up Now That's What I Call Music 17 CD

You sit there asking yourself, "17??? How can they keep coming out with these albums?" Oh, you just wait.

And oh, MAN. Black Eyed Peas are SO crunk. Fat Joe might EAT them.

I can't think of a better selection of bangin' melodic soul food to wallow in your football-snubbed angst with than "The Reason" by Hoobastank. No, that's really their name. Yeah, Hoobastank. Did it originally not stink at some point?

"I'M NOT A PERFECT PERSON

OUR SCHEDULE MADE MY TEAM GO 10-2

BUT WE'RE B—C—S WORTHYYYYYY

I HOPE THOSE DUMB COMPUTERS SEE US THROUGH

IT'S NOT LIKE BOISE STATE IS GONNA GOOOOOOO

SO I JUST WANT YOU TO KNOOOOOOWWWWWWW...."

(Sorry, I forgot that this is a survival kit, not a cyanide capsule)

3. A mirror to look at yourself

Do you see yourself looking back at you? Are you breathing? You're alive. That means you voted. Congrats. Four more years of Presidentificatin'. Just like Puff Daddy, er, Puffy, er, Sean John, um...(is Kanye a thing yet?) would've wanted.

4. A Palm Pilot with a scratched screen, missing its stylus

This is such a cool device—I don't even need sound to watch a 16-second clip of the new Spiderman movie preview! I just wish there was a way to hook up my iPod to my Palm Pilot and slap it on my Motorola Razor.

HA. That's ridiculous. A device that's better than a Palm Pilot? Chyeah...right!

5. A gum wrapper passed to you during study hall with instructions on how to use Limewire scribbled inside

Hey, don't tell your parents. Also, I'm not responsible for the virus that slowly eats away your father's processor as a result. But at least you were able to download "Confessions Part II" without paying for it. Super hardcore.

6. A Livestrong bracelet with an ink stain on the n

Lance Armstrong is soooooooo amazing. You know what rhymes with "amazing?" Not, "honest," or "transparent," or any word that sounds like the opposite of what you're about to find out about him in a few years. Just give it time. It'll be on Oprah, and Now That's What I Call Music 83 will be out.

7. A gently used Atkins Diet book with page 2 dog-eared and the receipt bookmarking the first chapter

Hey, cheer up. You know what'll make you feel better? Watching your friends eat endless breadsticks at The Olive Garden. #solidarity*

*I just realized you don't know what that number sign thing is yet. It's called a "hashtag," and it's going to replace the Illuminati in about a decade right around the time Matthew McConaughey wins an Oscar. I KNOW, RIGHT?NIGHTMARISH PREMONITIONS.

8. A Texas Hold 'em fold-out board and a set of chips with one of the blue ones missing

Now that championship football is over for you, you'll have so much more time now to hang out with Craig, Mitch, Eric, Keith, and Braxton on Thursday nights and lose more of your parents' money in a game that's going to get you sooooo much action later in life. So press that blue dress shirt with the vertical white stripes and trim your goatee. It's time to get rich.

9. A William Hung poster ripped at the bottom left corner

HE HAD A DREAM, AND THAT DREAM WAS SHATTERED, JUST LIKE YOUR TEAM'S DREAM. I SEE YOU, BILL.

10. An invitation to join Facebook from your girlfriend's brother who's in college

Have you seen Spiderman 2 yet? You know the scene where that scientist attaches huge robotic squid arms to his spinal cord and they develop their own sentience and start wreaking havoc on society and asking for people's private information and making you pay attention to digital advertisements? Yeah, it's just like that, but all the colleges are doing it, and I really want to get all my AP credits this year.

At the end of the day, sometimes you just can't choose what the powers that be will decide, because after all, they're just computers—what do they know?

Wait, what am I saying? THEY'RE PEOPLE THIS TIME! HOLY SMOKES, I THOUGHT IT'D NEVER HAPPEN.

People? Real live people, with brains and a soul and a conscience? Oh, this is fantastic. No way this can go wrong. No way your team gets snubbed this year. What is this, 2004?

But if it does, just take solace in the fact that your team was the first one EVER to get snubbed at the end of the season. Way before Miami, and Missouri, and Boise State, we're talkin' Utah, and Texas, and we're gonna go into Oregon, and Oklahoma State, and Bill Snyder, and Stanford, (and Auburn?)....BYEAHHHHH!!!!

"BYYEEAHHHHHHHH!!!!"