Gameday: Columbia, Missouri

Tigers vs. Colorado Buffaloes
October 25, 2008 (5:30 p.m.)

Tiger AP ranking: 16th

A friend of mine tells a story about starting out as a junior advertising copywriter in the 1980’s. He was asked to travel to St. Louis and interview the manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, Whitey Herzog, for a promotional book on baseball strategic tips. So he flew down to the Gateway City and caught a cab to Busch Stadium. Nobody had told him how to find Herzog—or how to get into the ballpark, for that matter. So he roamed around the perimeter until he found an unlocked gate, then worked his way through the bowels of the stadium. Eventually he found a door that looked like it might lead to the clubhouse. He could hear yelling coming from the other side. He thought about leaving, but he had his assignment.

He nudged the door open and was treated to the sight of one of the greatest managers in the history of baseball, wearing only a jock strap and flip-flops, pounding a bat on a table and berating the Redbirds for their lackadaisical play. Herzog turned to the intruder, screamed, “What the fuck do you want??!” and sent my friend to his office for what he assumed would be the end of his short career. Eventually Whitey showered, dressed, and walked through the door, reintroducing himself. “Pretty loud, huh?” the manager smiled. “You gotta do that sometimes. Not that those assholes listen.”

Sports history is rich with lectures, tongue-lashings, brow beatings and dressing-downs. Sometimes, like a mythical cleat to the rump, they propel a team to scale previously unfathomable heights. On other occasions the team doesn’t respond, often because they’re too high to remember what the coach said. There are even instances where the hollering is just for show, like the “lollygagging” scene in Bull Durham.

On the Monday following the Texas crapathon, word began to leak out that Coach Pinkel had delivered his team an ass reaming of biblical proportions. All signs pointed to the fact that none of it was just for show. Players were contrite during media day, deflecting questions and robotically answering that the only thing that mattered was “5:30 Saturday”—the starting time of the Colorado game. You didn’t need a deerstalker cap and calabash pipe to deduce that the furious pinning back of the players' collective ears had something to do with the fact that while the Texas kickoff took place at 7 p.m., most players sashayed in around 8:37 or so, empty bowls of ice cream in their wake.

Pinkel’s ire seemed justified. Missouri fields an incredibly talented team, and Texas embarrassed them, particularly their defense. Had the Tigers been staring schmoopy-eyed at their press clippings? Reading aloud the gushing mash posts on tigerboard.com? Whatever the reason, ten defensive starters returned to the team from 2007, and after seven games it would be difficult to argue that they hadn’t regressed. Can a team return too many starters? Is that even possible? “From the press box, it appears to this reporter that the 2008 Missouri Tigers are suffering from a pronounced surplus of experience. We may need to expand the roster with some athletes who have no idea what they’re doing.”

My friend the Dude had volunteered to drive his gigantic BMW from Chicago to Columbia, and I gave him no chance to change his mind. He grew up in Detroit and his dad worked for Motor Trend magazine. In other words, he’d drive around 90, pass people on the right whenever expedient, and sniff out smokey like a latter-day Burt Reynolds. We made the 389-mile trip in about 45 minutes, the Dude executing a perfect bootlegger’s turn into an illegal parking place upon arrival.

It was homecoming weekend. The University of Missouri is credited with inventing homecoming in 1911 when alumi were invited to “come home” for the Tiger-Jayhawk game. Festivities that year included the crowning of a homecoming bale of hay and emptying a cannon into the Kansas fan base. Refinements were added in the ensuing seasons.

In the 2008 version of homecoming, the streets of Greektown were cordoned off as young and old alike ooo’ed and ahhh’d at the colorful house decorations—“house decs” for short—assembled on the lawns of the fraternities and sororities. The Dude and I went to the bars.

Last season’s 12-2 record rendered the many past seasons of Mizzou futility to something of a quaint, ancient history in many fans’ minds. But back-to-back losses had brought the fumbling nightmares marauding back. The Oklahoma State game represented a mild upset, but the generally consensus was that they were a quality team who caught us on an off night. When Texas followed that up with a good old-fashioned prison raping, the faithful began rechanneling the dark days of the 80’s and 90’s in vivid, Woody Widenhofer Technicolor suckage. Still, hope, like a Weeble, would not fall down. And as the band marched through Harpo’s, more fans than normal knew that the game would start at 5:30 p.m.

The Dude was excited as only a man who had left his wife and two small children in Chicago could be. He insisted that we do a Jager bomb (Jagermeister and Red Bull, mix well, hold the dignity). My steadfast policy is that shots are never a good idea. They shorten your evening and make the next morning a brutal one. The Dude persevered, insisting that we’d be out for a while and that the caffeine in the Red Bull made this shot actually a wise investment. Not a well-constructed argument, but I didn’t want to argue, so I drank it. Not ten minutes later, bellying up to the bar for another round of beers, four cute senior coeds asked me to join them in a toast to their promise to return for next year’s homecoming. I smiled, threw down a shot of tequila, and gratefully accepted a trampolining hug from their generously-endowed leader.

Awakening Saturday, I realized that I’d need every minute leading up to the 5:30 kickoff. The large pepperoni and onion Italian pie we’d inhaled at Shakespeare’s had proved a worse idea than the shots. But if Lee Corso could stick his squash in a smelly Buckeye mascot head (GameDay was at Ohio State), I could pull on my old Missouri sweatshirt and get some fresh air.

The weather continued its pattern of perfection on Mizzou 2008 game days. The sun was out and, while the leaves hadn’t hit full flame, there were plenty enough on the ground to provide a crunchy fall soundtrack. The air was fresh and crisp—ideal conditions for ducking inside a dark, dusty old man bar. We met more friends at Booches and watched as Texas Tech dismantled Kansas, dilly-dallying it until it was time to honor Coach Pinkel’s tirade.

If the Tigers had been unceremoniously plunked from the national championship picture, none of the tailgaters seemed to mind. The Dude and I tried to hook up with Norm Stewart, the legendary basketball coach, and his wife. The Dude works with Coach Stewart’s son-in-law, and we’d been given directions to his tailgate. When you ask people where you can locate arguably the most recognizable face in town, a man who won over 700 games and whose name adorns the floor of the basketball court, they look at you a little funny. No, they haven’t seen him. Have you? We found out later that we were looking in the wrong lot and that Norm and Virginia Stewart had been expecting us. I settled for my brother’s tailgate. I love my brother, but he hasn’t won one goddamn basketball game.

It was 5:30 p.m.

To say that the Tigers showed up would be like saying that General Sherman attended a little cookout in Atlanta. Mizzou scored a touchdown on their 4th play from scrimmage. They scored another on their 7th. Chase Daniel spread the ball around like Jackson Pollack splattering a canvas, leading scoring drives on nine of 11 possessions. Chase Coffman—one of the players who, with 140 yards in catches, had nothing to be ashamed of in Austin—caught seven more, eclipsing the all-time NCAA record for receptions by a tight end. When the announcement was made, the ovation felt warmly deafening.

But as well as the offense performed, the story of the game was a defense that played like an angry mob in a Frankenstein movie. We cringed as much as we cheered from the carnage that unfolded 53 rows in front of us. Four sacks. Collisions that made receivers hear Sasquatch footsteps. Hits that bruised distant relatives.

The final score was 58-0, the first conference Tiger shutout since 1988. With the Buffaloes driving into Mizzou territory late in the game, Pinkel replaced his scrubs with his starters to preserve the shutout. An angry but understandable coaching decision. Sometimes you need to grab your pride back. This defensive unit had spent the last week watching Colt McCoy use them for his personal Heisman campaign mannequins.

With the Tigers regaining their swagger, Downtown Columbia was swamped. We bypassed the usual haunts, which were, in the overheard words of a fan on a cell phone, “retardedly crowded.” We walked down to the Flat Branch microbrewery. People think that you get better suds at a microbrewery, but there are crappy microbreweries, too, where lackadaisical brewschlockers toss their lunch wrappers into the vats. I had an ESB so bland and flat that I drank it only because I felt compelled to celebrate. The Dude had a green chili beer that tasted like, you guessed it, green chili. He drank the entire thing, effectively daring himself not to shit his pants.

We left the Flat Branch, looking for something to eat or at least a dinner mint to remove the wrung out sweat sock aftertaste. But there were no seats to be found in any of the bars and restaurants. Screw it, we’re old, we decided, let’s turn in. Then, as we pulled into the lot of the Quality Inn, we saw a billboard for Hooters. Certainly, Hooters, as their slogan once suggested, would make us happy. Upon arrival, though, every one of their 900 television sets was tuned to the same Ultimate Fighting match. This while there was a World Series game being broadcast. There’s something disconcerting about a large room of burly men cheer for two other, shirtless burly men who are grappling and rolling around embracing. I’ve seen “Deliverance.” It was time to hit the scratchy, who-knows-who’s-slept-in-them sheets.

The next morning, after skillfully-prepared omelets at the Broadway diner, we hit the road back. We encountered some weather that included sheets of rain and wet snow, and watched a couple of workers struggle to keep an inflatable “McCain/Palin” promotional balloon inflated in the deluge. With the Senator from Arizona trailing badly in the polls and only 9 days remaining before the presidential election, the symbolism seemed almost too heavy-handed.

Somewhere around Normal, Illinois we stopped for gas, and I ducked inside to use the always lovely service station bathroom. Inside, I noticed a 25¢ “Cologne at a touch” spray machine. Returning to the car, I buckled up. As we pulled back onto I-55, the Dude turned to me and said, “Are you wearing cologne?” “It’s not ‘cologne,’ I corrected him. ‘It’s Obsession.’”

Smelled like…victory.

Gameday: Columbia, Missouri

Tigers vs. Oklahoma State Cowboys
Oct. 11, 2008
Tiger AP ranking: 3th

The joke in Green Bay was that the most useless guy on the sidelines every Sunday was Vince Lombardi. It wasn’t a knock on his coaching ability, but rather recognition of the hall of fame coach’s inexhaustible pregame prep. Lombardi made certain his players were the best-conditioned athletes on the field. He drilled them on the most basic of plays until they could execute them in their sleep. He motivated so completely that his team feared not only losing, but disappointing him in any way. If there was anything in a football game that could be controlled, Lombardi found a way to control it.

Lombardi died of cancer in 1970 at the age of 57. Twenty-seven years later, the Green Bay Packers won Super Bowl XXXI—their first since he had coached them. The city held a parade to honor their heroes, and a photo of the celebration ran in newspapers across the country. Off to the side stood a middle-aged man, a bit removed from the festivities. He wore an overcoat and a brimmed hat and appeared to be taking in the moment with great pride.

The man looked exactly like Vince Lombardi.

In sports, there are things that can be controlled, and then there’s the heebie-jeebie stuff. More often than not, there’s no heebie-jeebie stuff at all—the team that’s expected to win does. Sometimes there’s a single defining heebie-jeebie moment, like the 1980 Notre Dame-Michigan game. On the last play of the game the Irish attempted a 51-yard field goal into the teeth of a 15-mph wind. The wind had been blowing all game, and as the kicker counted his steps from the placeholder, the flags at the top of the goal posts suddenly went limp. Harry Oliver’s boot cleared the uprights by a foot, giving the Fighting Irish a 29-27 victory and leading to many eyewitness accounts of Touchdown Jesus intervention.

Sometimes, there’s no defining heebie-jeebie moment. Something just feels right. Or wrong.

My trip to Columbia began uneventfully. That is, until I realized that my tiger tail was missing. Mizzou fans hang one from their trunks as they make their way to the games. My father always did, anyway, as he drove the two hours on I-70 from St. Louis to Columbia. I continued the tradition, honking at other fans who did the same. But on Thursday I realized that my friend Kitty still had my tiger tail from last weekend’s trip to Nebraska. She offered to make arrangements for me to pick it up, but I decided that I could do without it for one week, in effect thumbing my nose at fate.

I was traveling to see the Tigers take on #17 ranked Oklahoma State. Oddsmakers had slated Missouri almost a two touchdown favorite, largely because the game would take place in Columbia and OSU hadn’t yet played a team worth a sheet of detergent coupons.

Oklahoma State always struck me as sort of an odd team. For starters, they go by a grab bag of names. The Cowboys. The Cowpokes. The ’Pokes. OSU. Okie State. Okie Light. Their campus is located in Stillwater, where polite folks admit there isn’t much to do and less polite folks call it “Stoolwater.” Their primary benefactor is Forbes list hedge fund guy and alternative energy TV spokesmodel T. Boone Pickens. He’s given $265 million to the OSU athletic department, and apparently when you do that, they name the stadium after you. I don’t know the reason they decided to drop the “T” and call it Boone Pickens Stadium, but it doesn’t sound all that removed from dropping Jethro Bodine’s middle initial.

OSU’s team mascot is “Pistol Pete,” a mustachioed cowboy who totes a pair of six-shooters. That’s not so odd, except when you consider that there are two other Pistol Petes, one at the University of Wyoming and the other at New Mexico State. Wouldn’t it be confusing for fans if they ever scheduled each other? Should I cheer for this mascot or throw kettle corn at him? I suppose the issue could be settled with a duel. These bowlegged muppets already have guns, for crissakes. Why not give ’em real ammunition and square them off at 20 paces? Winner gets to keep the big head. I’m not condoning the killing of mascots, of course. Rather, let’s see who can shoot off the other’s giant mascot cowboy hat first. Whoever loses can give a slapstick western comedy double take, along the lines of, “Dang gum it! I just had a hat!” This would be a real crowd pleaser, because everyone loves slapstick western comedy.

On the (tailless, trunk-nude) trip down, I listened to the news. The past week had been the worst in Wall Street history. Coupled with the $700 billion government bank bailout and a presidential race less than a month away, talk radio enlisted a parade of experts who declared that while they had no idea what to do, it must be done quickly. My personal take is that we got into this mess largely due to Americans’ eternal optimism. As a nation we think nothing of borrowing from a banker named Lefty.

Pulling into Columbia around 8:30 Friday night, I made a beeline to Harpo’s and ordered a giant cup of Budweiser. The bar began to fill up with middle-aged men and beautiful young coeds. It was either father-daughter weekend or a bunch of stockbrokers sold General Motors short last week. As I waited for “News” Hughes to show, a guy dressed up as Captain Morgan swashbuckled in (the Captain does not “walk”) and began handing out beads and trinkets. Historically, Harpo’s has discouraged on-premise promotions, but times being what they were, maybe they felt that a guy dressed as a swishy pirate might draw in more patrons. Still, his presence sent another sign, albeit small, that things were slightly off this weekend. What if Oklahoma State had a little Captain in them?

"News" showed up, and we worked our way down Broadway. We grabbed the corner elbow of the bar at Teller’s, ordered drinks, and talked about the election. News’ usual cocktail, a Tequila Sunrise, always strikes me as hilarious. After a few minutes we noticed that the girl seated next to me was passed out cold. Two bartenders and a waitress took turns trying to revive her, their concern not so much for her safety as to avoid a potential lawsuit. Her balance, as though she were Crazy Glue’d to the bar, struck me as all the more impressive given the violent manner in which they jostled her. Finally, she came to and raised her head, a strand of drool extending from her mouth to the bar like Spider-Drunk. Refusing the pint of water offered, she straightened up, shook her head to clear the effects of too many Red Bull vodkas, and walked out under her own power like a trashed superhero. Ah, the recuperative power of youth.

Saturday dawned and I parked myself in front of a Booches’ bloody mary in time for the 11 a.m. OU-Texas kickoff. This was a matchup of #1 vs. #5, and Mizzou would face off against the Longhorns the next weekend. My friend Pops, who I’ve known since the 8th grade, walked in minutes before game time. He would have come up the night before but—and it pains me to say this—he had to take care of his and/or his wife’s three cats. We made our staple order of two Booche burgers and chips. A few orange-clad OSU fans sauntered in, and then a few more. Their team would be well supported tonight.

We caught up with News at Shiloh’s for the second half. Texas answered every Sooner score and finally took control in the 4th quarter. It has always been my conviction that Oklahoma is so accustomed to blowing its opposition out that it struggles in close games. I make this assertion because I can’t stand Oklahoma. Texas, conversely, was making a statement, as sportscasters love to say. I interpreted the statement as, “our uni’s look spiffy, our cheerleaders are masturbation-worthy, our quarterback’s got a bitchin' name, and we’re about to become the #1 team in the country.” Or words to that effect.

It was approaching game time, the Tigers’ second national primetime start in a row. News and I argued about whether I should give him a lift to a tailgate he wanted to attend, a debate that concluded unsatisfactorily for him when I used the ironclad logic that he had his own car. Pre-game tensions were rising.

I had another problem. The Missouri Athletic Department has requested that Mizzou fans wear gold to the games, which, of course, means that many attend in purple or something camouflage. I, conversely, am nothing if not a Mizzou Athletic Department tool. Problem was, with two hours to go, my undefeated gold t-shirt lay helplessly in my motel room. Knowing full well that the expedient thing is rarely the correct one, I bought a cheapie gold replacement at the Tiger Spirit store. “Cheap” being a relevant term, for with the Tigers so highly ranked, face decals were going for around $500 a cheek. I was also knowingly violating my anti-chafing rule of never wearing a t-shirt without first washing it. Increasingly, the events of the last few days—each one just a tad off the norm—began to strike me as some sort of Mizzou Bizarro World. Something was amiss.

Pops and I found our seats. The Cowboys were lined up on the yard markers of Faurot Field, stretching and clapping in unison. They looked calm and collected, but then, so did the Tigers. Chase Daniel wore #25 rather than his normal #10. This was to honor Aaron O’Neal, their teammate who collapsed and died of lymphocytic meningitis during a practice session in 2005. Aaron would have been a senior this year, and the other seniors had voted to rotate wearing his number. Tonight was Daniel’s turn. No one knew which senior would wear the honorary jersey each week, but I had heard the rumor it would be Daniel earlier that day, and it gave me goosebumps.

The Tigers won the coin toss and chose to receive. Jeremy Maclin ran the kickoff out short of the 20, and Mizzou started their first drive of the evening with the knowledge that a win might vault them to number one in the country.

The Tigers, who had scored on every opening possession this year, marched down the field before stalling at the 1-yard line. One OSU offside penalty later, the ball sat little more than a football away from the end zone, third and goal-to-go. Despite the short distance, Mizzou remained in the shotgun, with running back Derrick Washington, not Daniel, taking a snap at the 7. OSU stopped him at the goal line, forcing fourth down. This led to a call that would be debated that night, the next day, and maybe the rest of the year. Rather than trying to punch it in on fourth down, Coach Pinkel opted to kick a field goal. It didn’t seem like that big a deal at the time, but the call did seem to take a little air out of the crowd. Still, with over 9 minutes remaining in the first quarter and the Tigers averaging over 50 points a game, most people in the stands figured the Tigers would be in the end zone quite a bit.

The Cowboys answered on their opening drive, marching down the field to make it 7-3. Most sports pundits looked for the game to be an offensive explosion, but the defenses for both sides stiffened. OSU slowed the MU running game and pressured Daniel from the sides, forcing him to use the middle of the field. At the half, the score stood at only 10-7 Mizzou.

The longer an underdog team hangs around within striking distance, the more they start to believe they can win. In the second half, the Tiger D continued their early season pattern of alternating big stops with giving up huge slabs of real estate. The ’Pokes burned the deep secondary for touchdown strikes of 40 and 31 yards.

More concerning was Chase Daniel. The Heisman frontrunner possessed his normal Lasik surgery accuracy, but despite his deep set-ups, OSU was finding ways to get a rush on him. Because of this, when Daniel wasn't hitting Tiger receivers, he found Cowboys. He threw two interceptions in the second half, and was fortunate to narrowly miss another that would have resulted in a touchdown. Cousin Jimmy texted me from St. Louis: “does Chase have a mustache and a Mohawk?” I had good seats, but not that good. If this was true—my TiVo later confirmed a feuxhawk—perhaps the combination of the new number and hair experimentation represented too much change for one week. Never alter a winning game plan. Wear the honorary jersey against an unranked team. And quit giving your new ’do the Fonzie thumbs up in the mirror while there's game film to study.

On kickoffs and punts, Maclin seemed off, too—more tentative than an about-to-be-dead guy in a M.Knight Shyamalan movie. He had gotten up slowly in the first half and had us wondering if he was a little banged up. Or maybe the OSU team witch doctor had thrust a pin into the hammy of a Jeremy Maclin doll. Both seemed equally plausible.

Even placekicker Jeff Wolfert missed a pair of field goals, and he hadn't missed any in Big XII play. Granted, one of the attempts was from Kingdom City, Missouri. But still, c'mon.

I gazed up into the perfect, clear night. The moon was almost but not quite full. Maybe that meant that the waves of weirdness would merely give us a scare—one that could make the Tigers a tougher team but didn’t cost them the game.

With 4:27 left, Daniel led the team down the field and threw a gorgeous 7-yard touchdown to Danario Alexander, making the score Okie State 28, Missouri 23. The defense held, and the OSU punter shanked one. Mohawk or not, this was Daniel’s moment. The crowd, awkwardly unaccustomed to seeing Mizzou struggle at home, came alive and shook the stadium. The Tigers took possession at their own 35 with 2:40 remaining—an eternity for Mizzou’s hurry-up offense.

Daniel immediately completed a pass for a first down. This drive had all the makings of sparking a celebration that would require copious amounts of Anheuser-Busch products, both spilled and chugged. Two plays later, a Cowboy lineman leveled Chase with what appeared to be a helmet to chin shot. Daniel remained on his back for an extended period as the refs marched off the 15-yard penalty. With just under 2 minutes remaining, Daniel took the snap from the OSU 37-yard line, rolled right, and tried to squeeze a pass into tight coverage. Too tight, it turned out. Interception. Game over. Stunned team. Stunned onlookers.

Filing out of the stadium, fans played Sunday morning quarterback (very little of Saturday night remained, anyway). Why hadn’t Pinkel gone for the touchdown in the first quarter? Should Daniel have been removed from the game for a play or two after taking such a vicious shot? Why had Mizzou all but abandoned the running game in the second half? And had Oklahoma State provided other teams with film evidence of how to slow arguably the best spread offense in the country? The Tigers would drop in the standings, probably out of the top ten. The only silver lining was that next week they’d have the chance to climb right back up when they played Texas.

I returned to my car and found a parking ticket, care of Columbia’s finest. For the record, they come in Tiger colors. I crumbled it, drove away, and threw my 0-1 t-shirt in the cheap plastic motel trash bin. There had not been one signature heebie-jeebie moment, but there were little ones to knock the crowd and the Tigers off their rhythm. Upon arriving home Sunday night I opened an email from Cousin Jimmy:

“BTW, my lucky charm was not activated last night…something always goes wrong when it’s not ready... need to make sure it’s activated next Saturday evening...”

So I wasn’t imagining things. One week you’re on top of the college football world and the next you find yourself in the dungeon of Saw, ankle-chained to a Lee Corso. Nobody knows why.

The Case of the Husker Hocker

The morning the news came out that actor Robert Blake was suspected in his wife’s murder, I was eating pancakes with my friend Heavy D. He looked up from his newspaper and said confidently, “Baretta did it.”

I asked how he could be so sure. According to the account, Blake’s wife was gunned down after dinner while he returned to the restaurant to retrieve a gun he’d left at the table. “I grew up on a farm. We always owned guns,” D said, pausing dramatically to take a long draw from his coffee. “You don’t ‘forget’ where a gun is. You know. It’s a goddamn gun.” His reasoning made so much sense that my only reply was, “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”

Which brings us, of course, to Chase Daniel’s accusation that a Cornhusker player spit on him before the Mizzou-Nebraska game. Let’s examine this damning charge using the same gimlet-eyed logic.

The headline in Sunday's Omaha World-Herald blared the ugly incrimination: “Daniel: Huskers a dirty team.” “They came out hitting,” the Missouri quarterback said. “Nebraska was definitely one of the dirtiest teams I’ve played. It’s football, so you’ve got to be ready for it…” When asked to elaborate, he added, “Walking out before pregame, I got spit on. I’ve never really done that before.” Queried as to whether it was by a player, he added, “Yes, by a player. A Nebraska player.”

The next question, naturally, was “who?” Perhaps realizing the lung cookie was out of the proverbial bag, Daniel declined to finger the alleged perpetrator, concluding, “He knows who he is.” This interview led to what the media tagged “Loogiegate,” launching a feverish attempt to determine if Daniel was telling the truth, and if so, to identify the Cornhocker.

Sadly, before Loogiegate could gain any momentum, both sides squeegeed it up. “We’ve communicated with Nebraska yesterday,” Pinkel said the Monday following the game, according to the Columbia Tribune. “And as far as I’m concerned, from the University of Missouri’s standpoint, it’s a dead issue.” Nebraska coach Bo Pelini told reporters that he addressed his team about the incident and that “it’s a lot of ‘He said, he said.’ I don’t think our coaching staff was really aware of it. We did our investigation, and it’s over.” When asked if Pinkel told him who the alleged spitter was, Pelini added, “It’s a little bit gray.”

So we may never know whom the expectorator was. The question remained though, did it actually happen or did Chase Daniel make it up? On that matter, we can perform a virtual swab test on the spittle. Let’s look at the facts:

1) Daniel made the comment moments after Mizzou had dealt the Cornhuskers their worst home loss in 53 years. Daniel lacked a revenge motive because, with the Tigers having just dismantled Nebraska on their own field, he’d already delivered it.

2) Let’s play act for a moment. Say you’re minding your own business, walking to the office, when you pass somebody on a busy intersection who works at a rival company. As you walk by, your head recoils from a moist projectile of spit, mucus and an undigested piece of fried egg sandwich. You’re stunned, then disgusted, as the protein and amino acid mixture slithers down your neck. But as you duck into a nearby restaurant to wipe yourself down with the nearest napkin you can find, you turn just in time to see the fuzz apprehending the cad for jaywalking. The perpetrator receives a full cavity search right there on the sidewalk, as hundreds of pedestrians guffaw and teenagers with cell phone cameras click away, many of them posting the video on YouTube. The shame and humiliation of the officer violating his nether regions will no doubt haunt your foe for the rest of his life. Now ask yourself, and be honest: when you told this story to your friends, wouldn’t you still begin by telling them that he spit on you first?

3) Circumstantial evidence department: Before the game began, Bo Pelini was widely quoted as saying that he hoped to shut out the Tigers. To shut down an offense that averaged just under 54 points coming into the game, his team, especially the defense, would have to have played out of their minds. The Cornhuskers clearly did, racking up 14 penalties. As David St. Hubbins philosophized in Spinal Tap, there’s a fine line between clever and stupid. The Huskers may have been too ramped up for their own good.

4) Let’s say—and you would never, ever do this—but let’s just say for the sake of argument that you decided to spit on somebody. Really work up a juicy one and let them have it. Again, you would never consider doing this, and it’s a purely hypothetical situation. But let’s fantasize that you decided to go for it. The question is, when? Any intelligent, hypothetical, would-be spitter knows that the correct answer is “when nobody’s looking.” Alrighty, then, when is nobody looking at a college football game? When are there no cameras focused on every nuance of every play? At what juncture are the people in the stands busy adjusting their seat cushions?

“'Walking out before pregame…' Daniel said." Bingo.

5) Nebraskans eat a lot of corn, which contains about 65% water. Cornhuskers are full of spit.

So there you have it. Irrefutable evidence that Nebraska football aids and abets spitters, perhaps entire sleeper cells of them.

Lady History will decree that the Cornhusker program must henceforth wear the Scarlet “S.” At his Tuesday news conference, coach Pelini sounded weary about the story that, unlike launched drool, could not be easily wiped away. “It hurts. That’s not the type of program I run and I’m going to run. I think the allegations are unfortunate. By no means am I calling Chase Daniel a liar, but I wasn’t there, and there are mixed stories. Unfortunately, I can’t turn back the clock and go get a video and see exactly what happened.”

Plausible deniability. A convenient alibi. And while you wouldn’t let the bloody-handed Robert Blake near this case, maybe another TV gumshoe would like to take a crack at it. One with experience in getting the drop on arrogant, well-heeled ne’er do wells like, say, the head coach of a major college football team.

Lt. Columbo, do you solve spit takes?

Gameday: Lincoln, Nebraska

Tigers vs. Nebraska Cornhuskers
October 4, 2008

Tiger AP ranking: 4th


A road trip to a Nebraska Cornhusker game consists of genuine hospitality, followed by bloodcurdling terror, topped off with heartfelt niceties.

Arriving in Omaha—aka the “Big O"--I was pleased to learn from a urinal splatter guard that Eppley Airfield is the cleanest airport in the world. Not that I intended to stick around and test the claim, but good to know. Nebraska quarterback Joe Ganz’s mom and dad happened to be on my flight. A Missouri fan had met them earlier, and he introduced us as they passed. I wished them both luck, and Joe's mom replied, “Thanks. You’re going to need it!” She seemed a little nervous, as any mother whose son was about to be squished might be. This was the closest thing to smack talk I would encounter all trip.

The official Nebraska website identifies the Big Red faithful as the “Greatest Fans in College Football.” At first glance this is just a self-directed compliment along the lines of St. Louis’ designation as the "Best Baseball Town in America." Both labels are impossible to disprove, though, and over time, can evolve into a self-fulfilling moniker.

Cornhusker supporters are just flat-out nice. Everywhere you go, they ask if you’re enjoying your stay in Lincoln. Everyone raves that you’ve got a talented team. They seem thrilled you’d go through the trouble to travel here. Oh, and by the way, would you like a beer? The package of choice in Lincoln is the 16 oz. can. Bud, Bud Light, Coors Light, Miller Lite—doesn’t really matter so long as there’s a tall boy of it. On balance, I'd call this a Bud Light town.

The Sea of Red I had heard so much about begins early morning on the sidewalks of Lincoln. Nebraska fans don’t get up on a Saturday and rifle through their chest of drawers looking for a shirt that matches their color wheel (“Something mossy—I’m an autumn!”). There are no shades of rose, sunset, or puce. Everyone, and I mean everyone, wears red. And when I say “everyone,” I mean 95% of the populace. Which begs the question, what sort of rat bastard does not? Two types:

1) Fans who wear black and red, in honor of Nebraska’s feared “blackshirt” defense, so named because they wear that color in practice.
2) Al-Qaeda.

I’d float the theory that the hospitality stems from a combination of Midwestern friendliness and an unbridled pride in the success of their football program. By any reasonable measure, the Nebraska Cornhuskers field one of the most famous football clubs in the NCAA. They’ve won 5 national titles. They've competed in 44 bowl games. So while their fans are wishing you good luck, they have traditionally known that the odds are your puny football players are about to have their spleens punctured.

But Nebraska isn’t dominant anymore. To understand why, it’s necessary to take a look back at their history and how, in the last few years, they've become victims of it. In a cornhusk, here’s what has transpired:

In 1962, the Cornhuskers hired Bob Devaney as their head coach. He took a mediocre team and built it into a national power, enjoying himself along the way (if the legend is to be believed, Davaney would become so intoxicated after home games that state troopers would surround his car and escort him home as he weaved between them at 5 mph). After winning national titles in 1970 and 1971, Devaney turned the position over to his taciturn assistant, Tom Osborne. Dr. Tom lifted the program to even greater heights, battling Oklahoma for league supremacy and winning national championships in 1994, 1995, and 1997. As the millennium closed, Nebraska had established itself as arguably the greatest college football team of the last 40 years.

Osborne retired after the 1997 season, and his hand-picked successor was a 19-year assistant coach named Frank Solich. Solich led the Cornhuskers to six consecutive bowl games, playing for the national title on Janurary 2, 2002. The Huskers got blown out in that game by a much faster Miami Hurricane team. The following year, perhaps still hungover from the championship loss, Nebraska stumbled to a 7-7 record.

The alums had no intention of getting used to life as a .500 team. Solich guided the Huskers to a respectable 8-3 record the following year, and was rewarded with a pink slip. He left the field with a .753 winning percentage, a record that would get coaches bronzed at most schools.

Desperate for a return to glory, Nebraska hired Bill Callahan, an NFL coach with no ties to the University. Callahan wasted no time in making changes. He installed the pass-oriented West Coast offense, alienating fans who preferred a strong running game. He dismantled the popular walk-on program, alienating high school coaches and players who dreamed of playing for the state team. He struck reporters and fans as arrogant—a marked departure from the modest and thoughtful Osborne. The program regressed, culminating in 2007 with the first losing season in 45 years. My Nebraska friend Heavy D’s mom gravely noted that Callahan didn’t behave like a Cornhusker coach ought to. Osborne came out of retirement as athletic director, an indication that Callahan’s days were numbered. The day Callahan was fired, an impromptu parade broke out in downtown Lincoln.

So now, on this warm and sunny fall day, the Big Red faithful celebrated their homecoming by breaking in yet another new head coach. This one’s name was Bo Pelini, an assistant who ran the Husker defense in 2003. As my friend Kitty and I pulled into town, the scarlet-clad fans exuded an air of optimism and possibility. Several shirts carried plays on the name Bo. Bo knows Nebraska. Bolicious. Bad to the Bone. Despite the downturn in Husker fortunes, they all wished us luck, a vestige of a time not long ago when opponents needed it in desperate measure. There were plenty of opportunities for luck wishing, with kickoff set for 8 p.m. and (16 oz.) beers going for $3.

The big story leading up to this game centered on the Tigers’ failure to win in Lincoln since 1978. There were scads of articles covering what had transpired in the intervening 30 years, many mentioning the invention of pasteurization and moveable type. The weight of history hung over Missouri like a fumigation tarp. Despite all those losses, the betting line tabbed the Tigers as an 11-point favorite. My feeling was that Mizzou could eclipse that number if they didn’t feel pressure to battle the ghost of blowouts past.

Mike Ekeler, the Nebraska linebacker coach, implied that the Cornhuskers had concocted some sort of secret defensive strategy to stop the Tigers. “I’m very, very, very excited about this game,” Ekeler told the Omaha World-Herald. “Very excited.” I’ve learned to discount pre-game boasts, but four “very’s” warranted monitoring.

Nebraska’s Memorial Stadium is massive, with two one-story red “N's” flanking its name and the years of the Corn’s national championships chiseled into its facade. Like every other storied program, the view from the visitors’ seats leave the seat occupant somewhat underwhelmed. Up high in the corner of the end zone, the benches seem to peel away from the field like the lid of a sardine can. Just break into small discussion groups and cheer amongst yourselves, visitors. Kitty pulled our hip flask of Johnny Walker from her pocket and I provided the go cups of watered-down Sierra Mist, the better to get our bearings.

The Sea of Red did not disappoint. Ever seen the Blob, the 1958 horror movie featuring Steve McQueen and a mound of red Nickelodeon Gack? Or the even blobbier 1988 remake? Far, far redder and blobbier than that. The crowd oozed and flowed like a bag of donor blood used for a hospital corn toss game. We were attending Nebraska’s 294th consecutive sellout, an NCAA record. The announced attendance of 85,372 ranked as the second-largest crowd ever, leading to the metaphysical question: If every game is a sellout, shouldn’t every crowd be the largest in school history?

The stadium was loud. "NOT 'PLOWED!' I SAID THE STADIUM IS LOUD!" Fans screamed, the sound system boomed, and the Husker Burgers™ sizzled with crackling intensity. Some stadia (always fun to use the plural) hold noise and others let it escape. Memorial Stadium turbocharges it. So this was the intimidation that had rattled sophomore Chase Daniel and so many Tiger teams before. The scoreboard itself bellowed with a plethora of Husker-associated endorsements. The roar of the bloodthirsty hordes built to a crescendo as the introduction of the players was teased with a blaring rendition of the Alan Parsons Project’s “Sirius.” Although this musical bit was ripped off from MJ and the Chicago Bulls, it’s no less of a crowd pleaser. As the defensive starters appeared on the scoreboard, their faces morphed into flaming skulls in Nebraska helmets—a cool Pirates of the Carribean touch and my favorite effect by far. The Tigers elected to receive, and at 8 p.m. plus a few minute lag for commercials (the game was carried on ESPN), the Cornhuskers teed it up and kicked the ball high into the 64-degree night.

The wildly inventive, never-before-attempted Nebraska defensive scheme appeared to involve putting pressure on the quarterback. On the third play from scrimmage, two Cornhusker defenders converged on Chase Daniel, slamming him to the ground. A glitch in the plan, it turned out, as he had already released the ball. Jeremy Maclin hauled the pass in and ran 58 yards to make it 7-0 Tigers. Less than a minute of play had elapsed. If this was a strategy to get very, very, very, very excited about, the Corn should gag their defensive coordinator.

The Huskers tied it up, rolling out their QB repeatedly and finding seams in the Tiger secondary. Before you could take a long sip of your giant highball and mutter, “What might it take to quell the reddened masses?” the Tigers marched 80 yards and made it 14-7. Then they stopped the Cornhuskers and marched the other way again, culminating in a 48-yard Jeff Wolfort field goal. By late in the second quarter, when linebacker Brock Christopher picked off a Joe Ganz pass and ran it in, Mizzou had scored 5 times on only 4 possessions.

One of the things a new coach can do to improve a bad team quickly is to cut down on penalties. Bo Pelini, conversely, was leading his charges in a very, very, very, very exciting new direction. The Cornhuskers piled on themselves by piling on infractions, committing 14 for 101 yards--two of them personal fouls. Undoubtedly, the new coach wanted his charges to play aggressively, and, being 20-year-olds who want to impress the new boss, they showed him they could follow directions to the point of absurdity. As Heavy D likes to say, the "N" on the football helmet--it stands for knowledge!

The score at halftime stood at 31-10. We sauntered down the 27 ramps leading to what as best as I could tell was the only restroom in the stadium. The inside of a stadium men’s room always serves as a good barometer for a fan base's mood, but the Cornhusker fans had precious little to chatter about. As I approached a urinal trough, one of them spotted my gold Cotton Bowl sweatshirt and granted me a wide berth, muttering, “I wish my team was good.” Generous peeing space—yet another perk of a dominant football program.

Missouri poured in another 21 points in the third quarter, as the sea of red gradually gave way to thousands of empty grey seats. Kitty began surveying the field for other diversions. “What is that?!?” she grimaced. “That” was “Li’l Red,” one of two Nebraska mascots. L’il Red is the one you cannot miss, cannot look away from as much as you’d like to. He’s…he’s…a big, inflatable boy. Bouncing off goalposts and sideline officials with equally derelict aplomb, Li'l Red's random zig-zags provided an apt metaphor for the team he represented.

Li’l Red came into being years after the original Nebraska mascot, Herbie Husker. Herbie used to look like he actually came from Nebraska—blond hair, overalls, a cowboy hat and a build that could be described, in a positive way, as “corn-fed.” An ear of maize jutted jauntily from his pocket and, yes, he was happy to see you. If Herbie looked like a hayseed, he was a hayseed who could kick your ass. But the ever-diligent mascot police turned their backs on the state’s proud agrarian roots. Herbie’s hair was dyed chestnut brown with Just for Men for Mascots. The overalls were replaced by a red collared shirt and jeans. They put him on the Nutri-slim diet. Tonight being homecoming, Herbie had donned a sports jacket. He looked like Mitt Romney.

Why does Nebraska need two mascots when other schools have only one? My guess would be that the Nebraska administration felt that today's computer saavy kids--tomorrow's Huskers--couldn't relate to Herbie. This represents the same sort of flawed thinking that spawned the completely unnecessary Little Green Sprout to sell Green Giant veggies.

Pinkel pulled his starters in the 4th quarter and passed on the opportunity to kick another field goal, turning the ball over by calling a run into the line (the Tigers did not punt the entire game). With the final minutes ticking away, Kitty and I positioned ourselves on the walk leading to the visitors’ locker room. The final gun sounded--or Pelini shot himself--and the Missouri players streamed out, looking like a team that expected to do what they just had. They high-fived their adoring fans, beaming at the fuss made over their effort. Chase Coffman, for the record, is 8 foot 3.

Back on O street, we ducked into a crowded bar for a victory Bud Light, grabbing a couple of chairs to sit for the first time in hours. The game the Husker fans had just witnessed symbolized the first tangible evidence that the coaching change would not yield a fast turn around. A few fans made their way over to congratulate us. “You have a great team,” one said. “Good luck this season.” These were genuinely nice people--or at least unfailingly gracious ones--when they weren’t cheering for broken thumbs. Two Husker fans seated nearby provided a grim prognosis for their tough remaining games. I turned and perused a 2008 schedule that hung on the wall. They were probably right.

Thirty years of frustration and futility, washed away before the first half ended. The Tigers had passed their first big road test with plenty of head room to spare. A Tiger fan held up a sign near the end of the game that read “Corn. It’s what’s for dinner.” Another pair raised two signs--one that said simply, "wound" and the other, a shaker of salt.

When you’ve delivered beatings for 15 straight visits, sympathy isn't on the menu.