As the weather heats up in the Yellowhammer State and we become further and further removed from the dark and cold winter, there’s one thing on the minds of most across the South — football.

The end of spring and start of summer means we are inching closer and closer to the start of everyone’s favorite season; early fall and the start of college football for the Alabama Crimson Tide, Auburn Tigers and the rest of the SEC.

In fact, this week marked exactly 100 days until the start of the season which will feature several exciting Week 0 matchups on August 29 before the SEC puts toe to leather on September 5.

While there may not be a ton of extremely intriguing matchups in that first week of the season as a large portion of the conference hosts non-power four teams, Auburn will take on Baylor, while several teams in the conference have tough showdowns — including LSU hosting Clemson in a rematch of last year’s week one game to kick off the Lane Kiffin era in Baton Rouge.

There’s still a long and hot summer to get through, but fans can officially start counting down the days, because college football is a whole lot closer than it may seem right now.