Stupid Football

So last Friday was a good day.

When I woke up on Saturday I was excited for the weekend and to watch the Gophers on TV again. They had let the game escape from their grasp against Michigan the week before but they would come back and run the table starting today.

As Steve and I have discussed many times before, the lower your expectations are about certain things, the more likely you will either be happily surprised or at least not too disappointed. I didn't realize that I was setting myself up for a fall.

The first discouraging thing of the morning was the broadcast crew for the game, it was Andre Ware and some other dude who I don't remember. They had done the game against Northwestern a couple weeks earlier and I didn't really like them. The next discouraging thing was a stat that they put on the screen that I hadn't heard before. The previous 11 times that the Gophers had played (and lost to) the Wolverines of Michigan they lost the next game, no matter who it was or where they played. Hmmm, that's not good. But hey, now is a good of time as any to break that streak.

It was pretty evident after the first quarter that the stupid streak had something to it as the Gophers fell behind 14-0 fairly quickly and ended the first quarter down 21-10. Things went downhill from there and my bitterness rose accordingly. I was not happy. As I think I've said before, it bugs me when I get mad at the outcome of a sporting event, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

Around half time I left for the post office to mail something to my brother in Minneapolis. My roommate indicated that he thought the post office closed at noon. After screwing around, calling my bro to get his address and a few other things I took off from my house at just about 11:50am in a hurry. So what do you think happened? Traffic was out in force. Every choice I made for the route caused delay and I hit nearly every red light. I had wanted to get this in the mail so I was becoming very perturbed at myself and frustrated and everything else.

When I arrived at the PO I think it was about 12:01, but as I went up to the door I saw that they were open until 1pm, phew. Non-crisis averted. It was a huge relief, especially since there wasn't much of a line and the people working were very friendly. But I had already gone down that slippery slope. I was in a bad mood, and events to come weren't going to make it any better.

I got home midway through the 3rd quarter of the Gopher game and saw the score was now an inconceivable 41-10. What was going on? I hardly paid attention as the score reached a climactic 51-17. Such a promising season was dashed in two short weeks because of a lack of defence and a perplexingly ineffective offence. Alas. At least I could then turn the channel and watch the Purdue Boilermakers beat the hated Wisconsin Badgers. Click. What? What! The score is 7-0 Wisconsin? Heisman trophy candidate Kyle Orton hadn't been able to engineer one scoring drive up to midway through the 3rd quarter? My college football world was crumbling around me. What could I do to aleviate the pain? I remembered the beer in the frig, left there from various functions at our house and decided it was finally time to finish them off. I started with a delicious Murphy's Irish Stout. The creaminess didn't do much to make me feel better but at least I had a beer in my hand.

The Boilers were finally able to tie it up and then take the lead in the 4th quarter 17-14. They had just stopped the Badgers and were heading down the field with less than six minutes left to seal the game. But fate was conspiring against me that day. At just about 3 minutes left in the game Purdue had a 3rd down and 2 to go at their own 38 yard line. Their star quarterback, Kyle Orton, rolled out and ran for the first down himself. He lunged for the 40 while being hit by a Badger defender and was up ended. While diving, and crossing the first down marker, another defender's knee hit the football and popped it loose. NO! The Badger scooped it up and rumbled 40 yards for the touchdown and the lead with only 2:49 to go. I couldn't believe it.

The Badgers missed the extra point, giving the Boilermakers (and Gopher fans) hope. Purdue got the ball back and drove down the field, though not nearly as far as they needed as their field goal kicker shanked at 42 yard field goal attempt to seal the fate of the afternoon. It was about this time that I started on my second beer, an Alaskan Amber, mmmmm.

I decided to read a book for a while and drink a couple more beers. I had two Kokanees, a glacier beer from Canada. That calmed me down a little bit. A while later Steph called and asked if I wanted to watch a movie that night and I said that I really did want to watch a movie that night. So after a little while she came over and we headed off to the movie rental store.