Even my room steward wanted to show his "Roll Tide Side" and he made me an elephant out of towels for the bed. (Photo-Larry Burton)

Rather See the Playoffs in the Morning? Come to Australia

By: Larry Burton

When you are an avid football writer, you of course must first watch the game you intend to talk about. That’s just the given rule. But doing so overseas is sometimes either difficult or just downright entertaining.

Such is the case when you watch American college football in Australia.

The Aussies are fans of this type of football, though they’ll claim it’s inferior to rugby. They enjoy watching our games and doing so doesn’t present too much of a hardship for them.

While a lot of the US will watch Alabama take on Oklahoma at either the seven or eight pm timeslot on a Saturday night, December 29th to be exact, I’ll be watching it live on Sunday morning at 11:30 in the morning. That will be after setting the alarm for 7:00am so I can have breakfast early and watch the Clemson / Notre Dame contest that starts at 7:30.

So I get my college football fix early in the morning and will have the rest of the day to tour the fine city of Adelaide with some of my Aussie buddies.

Yes, the cruise ship I’m on for 36 days, the Holland America Maasdam has ESPN on the television in my room, so unlike Stephen Smith, who’ll be covering the game for you live, I’ll get to dip into the bar in my room and enjoy the game with fine rum and coke and shipboard room service. Who knows, I may get a massage at halftime. So who says it must be thrilling to get to cover that game live? I’ll manage just fine even though I do enjoy covering the game in person.

But after working overtime like a flea at a dog show trying to rebuild all the damage caused by hurricane Michael over the last two months, a vacation was definitely in the cards and here we are. And being overseas always has an amazing event. No matter what country I’ve traveled to, Russia, China, Thailand, Europe, South America or more, if I wear Alabama gear, I have always had a local recognize it and give out a “Roll Tide!” call.

Yes, we’ve been called “America’s Team” by the press, but to be truthful, we seem to have now become the world’s most recognized and talked about college team.

So while you’re watching the game after a great dinner with the stars in the sky, I’ll be enjoying kickoff just after breakfast on the balcony on a cruise ship and watching it onboard with some Aussie friends who will give me a hearty, “Roll Tide Mate!” every time we score.

Just a simple article to let you know that this is truly a world event, watched by millions overseas and that this isn’t the same Alabama team your grandfather rooted for.

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Larry has been published in almost every media outlet for college sports and now primarily writes here for Touchdown Alabama. Follow Larry on Twitter for inside thoughts and game time comments at https://twitter.com/LBSportswriter

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