ClayNation: College overtime the wildest ride in sports

Let's be honest: Overtime in college football is the most overwhelmingly exciting event in sports. I'll acknowledge a limited exception for soccer penalty kicks in the World Cup, but otherwise there isn't even a close second in the world of sports when it comes to nail-biting, hair-pulling theatrics of the mind.

Vols fans tear down Neyland's goalposts in 1998. (Getty Images)

We're all bipolar once college football overtime begins. Your moods bounce from moments of excessive glee (wow, a first down!) to moments of unmitigated despair (oh no, third-and-4) from one play to the next. One moment you want to hug everyone in your vicinity and literally offer them the shirt off your back. The next you want to strangle every person in your immediate vicinity for having the temerity to ask you a question.

In college my friend Cliff once said, "It's not looking very good for UT, huh?" when Tennessee was playing Florida in a 1998 overtime. I responded with such anger and so many curses that he still remembers it to this day. Of course, 10 minutes later when UT had won 20-17 I gave him a hug and bought his drinks for the night. He still doesn't trust Southerners.

My wife doesn't even watch overtime games in my presence anymore after a particularly difficult UT-Alabama overtime game in 2003 when my screaming and yelling drove her from the condo and led her to question her selection of mates. College football overtime does this to us. It turns the most reserved and saintly fan into an epithet-hurling anarchist.

Basically, college football overtime is like nothing I've ever experienced as a sports fan. Chances are, no matter what team you're a fan of, you have the same feelings about it. And on Saturday I got to experience four overtimes while doing a book signing at the Auburn University campus bookstore. So here we go, DDT style:

1. I pay more for a premium rental car so I can listen to the first half of Tennessee-Kentucky on satellite radio, then park two miles away from the Auburn bookstore. Auburn on game day is the only place in the SEC where there are no pay parking spots available. For miles. I end up in an RV lot somewhere near the Gulf Coast and am an hour late for my book signing.

C'mon, Les! It's NOT literally pronounced 'Ark-kansas'! (Getty Images)

But I'm in a decent mood because Tennessee has a 24-7 lead at the half. Honestly, after about 45 minutes of driving around looking for a parking spot I actually considered turning around and driving back to Nashville because things were going so well with me listening to the UT-Kentucky game on the radio that I didn't want to mess anything up. But instead I went to the Auburn bookstore, where I assumed UT running back Arian Foster would continue to have his way with the UK defense.

2. Which provides a convenient segue to this link from reader Clint who discovered it on YouTube while looking for Foster's long touchdown run against Arkansas. (By the way, did anyone else love when McFadden called out Les Miles for not being able to pronounce the state correctly? I'm torn on whether I want Miles at Michigan or want him to stay at LSU. For the record, when any SEC running back calls you out for being an idiot, you've hit a new low.)

Foster: 1,100-yard runner, great receiver out of the backfield, penalty-drawer for unsportsmanlike conduct, and ... teaching white girls at UT how to dance while wearing sweatpants. Truly a renaissance man. What I particularly like about this video is how Arian pulled up one leg of the sweatpants. Most people don't realize that you've got to let at least one shin breathe to be a really good dance instructor.

Make it rain, DDT-style. (Provided to CBSSports.com)

3. Conveniently, the Auburn bookstore has flat-screen televisions showing the UT-Kentucky game placed such that I can see the screen from my table. Inconveniently, the television is so far away that I can only tell vague things about the game. Such as who has the ball, when touchdowns are scored, and that Rich Brooks has not smiled since a terse gritting of teeth during Beverly Hills Cop when Axel took Taggart and Rosewood into the strip club and complains about the price of a Coke.

4. I might very well have mangled any number of book inscriptions while trying to watch the game -- not the first time. Reader Alyson e-mailed to tell me about my inscription for her at the Gainesville Wal-Mart: "I'm glad you remember your eloquent signing in my book. Your exact words were 'Go Vols except for you when the Gators beat them. Which is always.'"

There is no truth to the rumor that Cormac McCarthy is jealous of that inscription. And this one might have been good compared to what I wrote in Auburn. I need Arian Foster to roll in (wearing the sweatpants) and show a white boy how to sign a book.

5. UT scores to go up 31-14. I start to breathe easily. Contemplate making it rain with my books at the Auburn bookstore but decide that's something Les Miles would do when asked to read aloud. Things get even better when reader Charlie Mathes shows up and becomes the first person to do the ClayNation "You Can't See Me" three-finger hand signal. Honestly, I'm beaming. The world is spinning in my direction and UT is headed to Atlanta.