Team, tonight we play the biggest game of our lives. I know you have heard our opposing coach’s comments—“We’re doing everything we can to honor our creator.” I also know you saw last week when their star quarterback took a knee and grabbed the sideline reporter’s microphone so the world could hear his prayer:

Our father, who art in heaven
I throw this ball for you
Please grant me touchdowns
And deliver me from interceptions
All glory to you, God
And to State, the greatest team in your creation
Amen.

Now, you’re probably thinking, “This ain’t good, Coach. They’re convinced they have the Almighty on their side. If that’s true, what chance do we have? How are we going to beat both State and the God of Western Christianity?”

Well, men, I recently completed my audit of PHIL 332: Nietzsche & The Death of Practical Meaning, and I’m tired of mincing words.

Their God is dead.

Time of death: tonight.

Place of death: Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.

Causes of death: the ceaseless march of modernity, the dawn of an age of existential crises, the fatal annoyance of having to endlessly answer the prayers of State’s performatively evangelical offensive linemen, and our explosive passing attack.

When we take the field, we will do what we know how to do. We are going to get pressure on the quarterback. We are going to execute great downfield blocking. And we are going to show State University that Christian morality is by no means self-evident.

We will engage State in a practical philosophical thought experiment that proves an unblocked corner blitz can shatter the idea of God. We will offer definitive evidence that no man has the moral high ground in a two-minute drill. We will teach our gospel: the gospel of deep crossing routes that break the necessary assumptions of Christianity, leaving State’s hands grasping at air, empty and faithless.

Come halftime, State’s coach will stare dead-eyed into the camera, a man whose table has lost three of its four legs. Holly Rowe will ask him, “Coach, what adjustments will help your team get back on track?”

He will respond in a whisper: “They are die Übermenschen.”

We are the Overmen, the Supermen, the dadgum Tech Cougars, those who have crossed from mindless acceptance to a world of self-directed, restless solitude in pursuit of a grounded human ideal.

Our opponent lives, though they do not yet know it, in the twilight of their idols—specifically, the false idols of ground-and-pound, line-of-scrimmage-obsessed football. We require no idols. We have been reborn via our newly installed flea flicker, which reflects our belief in the quintessence of man. We require no moral code. Our defensive coordinator is neither good nor evil. Three-man front or four-man front? Neither and both. We are beyond scheme. Our opponent will live in an infinite loop of eternal recurrence, an unchanging eternity of us Cougars gaining first downs on jet sweeps forever.

We do know that our victory will be meaningless. As soon as it is over, it will mean no more than the act of eating an English muffin at the team buffet. Our win will be as worthless as the paper money society has denominated as value, although it is valueless. Our “National Title” will be as meaningful as the drunkard’s boast that he is heir to the throne of England. Because he is, and he is not, just as we are, and we are not.

Yet this does not change what we do tonight.

Tonight, we won’t rely on faith or intelligent design. Tonight, we won’t pray for victory. Tonight, we won’t supplicate to a higher power. No, tonight, we are accountable for what happens, and what is going to happen is that we are going to kick State’s ass up and down the field.

We will score touchdowns and have the player who scored lie down while the rest of us pantomime throwing dirt on him, representing the burial of the ancient gods, now sacrificed to progress, science, and our air raid passing offense.

We will play clean in coverage, bat passes down, point toward the heavens, and then point at our butts, indicating that their dead God is butt at football.

We will stand victorious at the podium with Holly Rowe. She will ask us how we feel, and we will say, without embarrassment, that we feel as gods must feel. That WE ARE gods. The Gods of Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.

Hands in, gentlemen. Clear eyes, full hearts, Zarathustra can’t lose.