{"id":34198,"date":"2026-08-29T22:33:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T22:33:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/?p=34198"},"modified":"2026-09-09T22:37:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T22:37:21","slug":"welcome-to-week-zero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/welcome-to-week-zero\/","title":{"rendered":"Welcome to Week Zero"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nThere are certain phrases that make perfect sense once somebody explains them, although you may wish they hadn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cWeek Zero\u201d is apparently one of them.<\/p>\n

The 2026 college football season officially gets underway today at noon Eastern, which seems perfectly normal until you discover that the opening game is being played five time zones away in Dublin, Ireland.<\/p>\n

The North Carolina Tar Heels and TCU Horned Frogs will meet at Aviva Stadium in the Aer Lingus College Football Classic. It is the first international game for both programs and, in another indication that this has somehow become normal, the fifth straight season college football has opened in Dublin.<\/p>\n

So there we have it. August isn\u2019t quite over. Labor Day hasn\u2019t arrived. The normal first week of college football is still somewhere over the horizon.<\/p>\n

Naturally, it is Week Zero.<\/p>\n

That announcement arrived in the Conference Room just as Splash was attempting to explain what had happened down in the Galley.<\/p>\n

His contribution to this morning\u2019s culinary festivities began innocently enough as Caribbean Jerk Chicken. Then somebody mentioned Chicken Cordon Bleu, which apparently sent Splash off in an entirely different direction.<\/p>\n

By the time the bulk serving cart arrived down from the 6th Floor Kitchen to fill the buffet, the special had become:<\/p>\n

Splash\u2019s Caribbean Jerk Cord-On Blue & Cabbage Goulash.<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nThe \u201cCord-On Blue\u201d portion is exactly what it sounds like. Splash produced a blue chicken with a substantial cord wrapped around its waist and seemed surprised that anyone required further explanation.<\/p>\n

The chicken itself is considerably more conventional. The Caribbean jerk treatment starts with allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg and thyme, then brings in garlic, ginger, Scotch bonnet peppers, soy sauce, olive oil, vinegar and lime. Give the chicken several hours in the marinade\u2014overnight if the Galley logistics permit\u2014and put it over a hot grill until the skin is crisp and the interior reaches 165 degrees.<\/p>\n

The cabbage goulash alongside it provides the substantial end of the plate and gives the whole production the sort of cultural confusion we have come to appreciate around here.<\/p>\n

Caribbean chicken. Central European cabbage. French terminology deliberately mangled into an English poultry joke.<\/p>\n

And football from Ireland.<\/p>\n

Miles looked over the morning production schedule and decided there was no point attempting to impose additional order on any of it.<\/p>\n

At noon, North Carolina and TCU will kick off the American college football season in Dublin.<\/p>\n

Splash will presumably still be defending the blue chicken.<\/p>\n

And somewhere, someone will eventually explain what happened to Week One.<\/p>\n

For the moment, welcome to Week Zero.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are certain phrases that make perfect sense once somebody explains them, although you may wish they hadn\u2019t. \u201cWeek Zero\u201d is apparently one of them. The 2026 college football season officially gets underway today at noon Eastern, which seems perfectly normal until you discover that the opening game is being played five time zones away […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-socotra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34198"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34198\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34202,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34198\/revisions\/34202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}