(My email was flooded last week as readers from around the country as after only two weeks, discovered that the addiction had taken hold and they needed their fix. So, without further adieu, I bring you Crag “Mac” T.)
Okay, so I’m remiss in my duties. I hope the editor forgives my not adhering to his stringent deadline. I hope I don’t get fined lip service. Look at it this way, there’s nothing better than a Monday rant typing high on coffee, and there’s nothing more tell-tale than the 3:25AM (EST) email receipt. You could ascertain from my tortured writing last week, if you could call it that, from last weekend’s non-game against the Rubbers that the Washington game would be just a stretch.
Think about this. With Michigan going down to Appalachian State, the Buckeye nation was leery of the once bodacious Don James Washington Huskies – the Bear Bryant (BB) of the Pac 10. No-one was ready to prophesize a blow-out. James, as BB didn’t know any of his players and sat in a tower with binoculars like BB, and our favorite OSU hermit, John Cooper. But, his players feared and respected him because when he came down from the tower, somebody got their butt kicked or lost a scholarship, so they could Pac it up and head to Duke to continue their winning football ways.
Yes, I’m gong somewhere with this. If I were a litigator, the judge would slam down the gavel and say, “Get the hell out of here or get to the point, sir.”
Tyrone Willingham is a good coach and a great guy. But, good guys finish last. When your team wears purple like the Minnesota Vikings or the Northwestern Mildcats it doesn’t induce trembling. The coach has to get on the ground, yell at the players, and like Lou Holtz with all 150-pounds soaking wet, run the routes for the receivers and drag the 300-pound linemen around by their facemasks when they screw up. Who’d Lou learn that keen one from? Wayne Woodrow Hayes, that’s who.
I know a guy that played for the Bear, and the freshman had to sit in the front row during pre-practice lecture – where on a daily basis he’d demonstrate a fore-arm shiver on the newbies, knocking them off the bleachers one by one. That’s the way it’s done. Get it on!
Regarding the big picture, we just played a team from the land of fanny packs and London fog. As the game announcers dispensed the pre-game dogma hype as “Past capacity game of 75,000” I almost puked. The cameras panned on half vacant seats at the gut of the 50 yard line seats. A keen eye from any OSU fan could see the visitors’ seats packed with Scarlet jerseys with a lot of spillover into the home seating.
Then the announcer continued, “And, the Ohio State fans somehow got (acquired or liberated) an additional 10,000 tickets.” Then, the ESPN weenies for the rest of the game must have gotten a message in their earpieces to not pan, but focus on the selected sections of hearty attendance.
How do we “get” more tickets than we’re supposed to:
1. We use our allotted visitor tickets at away games,
2. If we can’t get them, we scalp them on-line,
3. If we can’t get them on-line we drive or fly on the new Skybus then scalp them from sell-out home team fans,
4. Join the other team’s alumni for $100 and have them Fedex the tickets for an extra ten “Bucks,”
5. Print your own tickets if you have to,
6. Or, just tailgate with a 12-pack behind a dumpster at Huskie stadium. You can live the half truth with your friends that you “flew out to see the Washington game.”
I received a 1,000-mile text message at half-time from a buddy at the game that flew from Colorado (the Land of Fanny-packs and Rocks). It said, “O. H!” I felt compelled to reply, “I.O!” or face some inherent wrath. You can take the boy out of OSU, but you can’t take OSU out of the boy.
“Outstanding, Red Team… get that man a case of PBR.”
(Name the actor and movie and you’ll win a get out of jail free pass from my maligning you for one year.)
The Washington fans’ lack of commitment is appalling. An astute football wife at our Buckeye party noted, “There’s no-one there because they’re all out hiking or at Starbucks.
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