It just hit you, didn’t it?

It’s that moment after the NFL Draft when you realize that for the next 3 months, your actual college football intake is going to be extremely limited. And by “actual football intake,” I mean either college football practices or people over-analyzing former college football players.

Fear not. We can get through this. After all, it’s summer. It’s not so bad. There might not be tailgates and Saturday afternoons of zero productivity, but there are still ways for SEC fans to pass time until that calendar flips to August.

And no, that doesn’t include finding out which NFL stars are holding out from OTAs. Those haven’t even happened yet and I’m already sick of them. Give me more college football, please.

So how do you make sure that you’re consuming all things college football even when there are no games or practices? I’ve got you covered. And for what it’s worth, I’m talking about in addition to reading SDS every day and listening to the SDS Podcast (shameless plug). Obviously.

I know what you’re thinking. You survived every other summer without my helpful hints. Why take my advice now? Well, if you didn’t survive the summer without my helpful hints and you’re reading this now, I’m mildly freaked out. And impressed.

Perhaps I should’ve written a better headline for this story. Here’s my second attempt.

“With spring camp and the NFL draft over, here’s how SEC fans can get through summer 2018*.”

Better? Good. Let’s break down how SEC fans can survive summer 2018.

‘Crootin’ will be even more intense

If you’re the person who retweets 16-year-olds when they drop their top 15 schools, I’ve got good news for you. Recruits will be taking official visits all summer. That’s because the NCAA allowed for a change so that recruits can take official visits beginning in April 2018 until the last Wednesday in June.

What does that mean? Instead of having unofficial visits all summer, the nation’s top recruits will have the red carpet laid out for them before they even begin their senior seasons.

That means verbal commitments GALORE.

So if you’re a fan of these tweets, this summer will be all sorts of lit:

https://twitter.com/toniobarber11/status/989913059463520259

If Nick Saban lands a commitment while taking a recruit and his family to the local water park, I’ll need at least one video of Saban going down a water slide to celebrate.

Watch viral videos of SEC players doing summer things

I’m all about those.

It’s one thing to watch video of a tight end going through blocking drills from a reporter standing 50 yards away. It’s another to get a slow-motion video of a kid doing a back flip on a beach like it’s nothing.

I mean, when else can I see Jacob Eason throwing to Isaac Nauta on a jet ski?

Just send it. #SAFTB @ijay18 on the ski @h0lladay_ on the boat @barstoolsports

A post shared by Jacob Eason (@skinnyqb10) on

That’s becoming a really big thing that all the cool college quarterbacks are doing. That is, go viral throwing a pass while on the water.

It says to a coach and future NFL teams, “yeah, I’m soaking in the sun all day, but here’s proof that I’ve got friends and a cannon.”

It’s a really smart PR move, and let’s be honest. That’s the type of stuff I want to see from my team’s quarterback. That’s so much cooler than some lame workout video of a kid doing drills by himself at his high school with a billion hashtags like #NoDaysOff #EmbraceTheGrind #Can’tStopWon’tStop.

I wish you’d stop with those posts. Or better yet, start getting to the beach and asking your friends to participate in some cool aquatic trick shot videos.

Road trip for the new SEC Media Days set-up

When you aren’t scrolling Twitter for aquatic trick shot videos or pics of recruits on official visits, you can actually leave your house to satisfy your SEC football itch. I don’t need to tell anyone why they should head to SEC Media Days. If there was ever a year to do it, this year would be it.

Not only are media days a bit later than usual (July 16-19), but they’re in Atlanta (they’re also outside of the state of Alabama for the first time since 1985). What does that mean? Mizzou and Texas A&M, aka “New Kids on the Block,” are the only fans who probably wouldn’t road trip to the event.

But for the rest of the conference, they can drive less than 6.5 hours to Atlanta, where they can enjoy all the fanfare at SEC Media Days at the College Football Hall of Fame. What a perfect excuse to take a few days off work and take a little college football-related getaway.

But if you’re doing this, well, #ItMightMeanTooMuch:

I get that people have a lot of time on their hands in the summer, but painting your pet is probably not the best use of your time.

Besides, let’s not try and put mascots out of business in this economy.

Go on a (legal) stadium tour

Find out if your team offers one. Some do, and some don’t. If they do, sign up for one with the family. You’ll get an entirely new perspective of the stadium when it isn’t filled with tens of thousands of people.

If they don’t offer an official tour, don’t be the guys to break in and get arrested. Self-guided stadium tours are cool, but they aren’t worth getting arrested for.

Instead, do what I did with my family back when we were at Notre Dame for my brother’s basketball tournament 15 years ago. Show up at the stadium, find a security guard, ask him or her in your friendliest voice if there’s any way you can get a quick peak inside and pray that they say yes.

What do you have to lose?

True story: When we did that at Notre Dame — which treats that stadium like it’s the Vatican — the security guard let us right through the tunnel and we got to walk around in the end zone. He then asked if we wanted to see the locker room. Duh, of course we did. He showed us around the home locker room and we were slapping the “Play like a champion today” sign before we even realized where we were. My dad then ran down the tunnel and yelled “Rudy, Rudy, Rudy” about a dozen times (and he did that at every stadium we ever went in after that).

So yeah, if you’re local and looking for something to do, empty college football stadiums are actually pretty awesome. Especially when you befriend a security guard that may or may not have a clear understanding of what he’s allowed to let random strangers do.

Follow the Fulmer Cup standings

If you aren’t aware of what the Fulmer Cup is, you should be. It’s Reddit’s unofficial tracker for offseason arrests by college football program. Points are assigned per seriousness of the crime (1 point for underage drinking, 5 for murder, etc.)

Yes, I understand that college athletes make mistakes and mocking them isn’t fair. That’s the beauty of the Fulmer Cup, though. You can track the standings as a whole and make it a team game. If a team is high in the Fulmer Cup standings, it probably says a lot more about the coach than it does an individual college kid. A coach making $4 million a year if fair game for mocking if his team can’t stay out of trouble.

The SEC once had a streak of 4 consecutive years winning the Fulmer Cup from 2010-13 (Georgia, Auburn, Arkansas and Vanderbilt). This past year, however, the SEC didn’t even crack the top 10:

So far, the SEC is out of the top 10 for 2018, too. And I’m not saying it’ll happen or that I hope it’ll happen, but it would certainly be ironic if Tennessee made a splash in the Fulmer Cup standings the year that Phillip Fulmer returned to Knoxville.

Tweet at recruits!

Just kidding. Don’t do that this summer or ever.

Get in shape for fall

Did my other options not really appeal to you? Here’s one that might.

Summer is the time when you do that random favor for your neighbor because maybe, just maybe, they’ll owe you one and repay it in the fall, and thus, open up your schedule to watch more football.

I know that’s not the most exciting idea, but it could yield a great return come fall. Mentally and physically, summer is the time to prepare yourself for 3 months of eating way too much and not being the most productive human being. Setting yourself up to do that — even if it means grinding through yet another episode of “House Hunters” on a Saturday afternoon with your significant other — can still be time well spent.

I understand. It’s hard. This time of year is never easy for us college football fans. We’re not sure what to do with our hands, and we find ourselves counting down the days until college football really returns. Pass the time using my methods, and I promise it’ll help.

If you take nothing from this but my final words of advice, take this.

Fall will be here before you know it.