Gameday: San Antonio, Texas

The Alamo Bowl
Tigers vs. Northwestern Wildcats
December 29, 2008

Tiger AP ranking: 25th

A popular explanation for Southern California’s population explosion involves the Rose Bowl. According to legend, Pasadena is chock full of families who woke up on New Year’s Day in the sub-frozen muck of Terra Haute and turned on the TV to see a future Price is Right spokesmodel/Bob Barker plaything sitting atop a banana split float, waving to the sun-drenched spectators in the Rose Parade. Mom and Dad Rustbelt would look at each other and state the obvious: “Californy is the place we oughta be.”

I watched it, too, every New Year’s Day growing up in St. Louis. So when I lived in L.A., I would get up on January 1st and head over the 134 to the Rose Bowl. If you timed it right, you could get a prime parking spot by the stadium and take a shuttle to see the end of the parade (getting a bleacher seat for the beginning of the parade involved getting up at 3 in the morning, and really, if you’re awake when the new year is 3 hours old, you should be having sex, throwing up, or both). Then I’d make my way back to the Rose Bowl itself in plenty of time to watch USC embarrass Michigan or whomever. Sitting at the historic venue, you’re acutely aware that many of your friends are freezing and cursing, making the experience far more rewarding than watching it on TV.

The Rose Bowl is nicknamed, of course, “the Granddaddy of them all”—one of the most prestigious post-season bowls. The others BCS bowls are the Orange Bowl, the Sugar Bowl, and the Fiesta Bowl, which officially go by the FedEx Orange Bowl, the Allstate Sugar Bowl and the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl. The Rose Bowl ducked that sponsorship trend by refusing to sully their name, going instead by “The Rose Bowl presented by Citi.” Which is sort of like claiming to be a courtesan rather than a hooker. Not to mention that there’s nothing honorable about being associated with a bank these days.

Bowl games have proliferated like photos of Britney Spears flashing her mezzanine level. In 1960 there were 8 bowl games, and it wasn’t unusual for a school to turn down an invitation. There are now 34 of them, and athletic directors open a Whitman’s Sampler of kiss ass to get their program into the one with a highest payout.

After what in hindsight appear to have been irrational pre-season hopes of making the national championship game, the descent to the Alamo Bowl was tough on Tiger fans. Not that the Alamo—or the corporately accurate Valero Alamo—was a bad bowl. It didn’t have a dumb name (the late Poulan Weedeater Independence Bowl is the gold standard against which all bowl monikers were measured). In terms of payout, the Alamo fell between the Holiday ($2.13 million) and the Gator ($2.5 million). It enjoyed a prestigious TV time slot, nestled comfortably into the Monday Night Football vacancy created by the end of the NFL regular season the week before. Not to mention that you can buy real Mexican jumping beans in the San Antonio airport.

So the problem wasn’t with the Alamo Bowl. The problem involved the mortar and pestling of Mizzou’s expectations. The team’s 9-4 record wasn’t embarrassing—particularly given the team’s history—but it was two games worse than 2007 with a more experienced roster. Two of those losses came in the final minutes of play, and those defeats resurfaced with Mizzou faithful like a floater in their formerly pristine Bud Lights.

After the crushing loss to Oklahoma in the Big 12 Championship game, many Missouri fans spent the three weeks prior to the Alamo Bowl working up a frothing case of what-have-you-done-for-me-lately. Some considered head coach Gary Pinkel—runner-up to coach of the year in 2007—incapable of rearranging the x’s and o’s in a preschooler’s alphabet soup. Many fans now viewed Matt Eberflus, the defensive coordinator, simply as the assistant Pinkel wouldn’t fire. Eberflus’ secondary had begun the season giving up long pass plays against Illinois, and had improved only in their ability to point fingers at each other as they gave up long pass plays the rest of the year.

But the worst part were the grumblings surrounding Chase Daniel, who finished fourth in 2007 Heisman voting. His interceptions and fumbles had spiked since the Oklahoma State debacle. That Texas-sized confidence which built his legend worked against him as he tried to do too much under pressure. There were whispers about a mysterious injury.

The holidays came and went, with a commensurate drop-off in Mizzou jerseys given as gifts. On Christmas day, my brother—whose bookshelf includes works by literary titans like Ann Coulter—scoffed at the book on Missouri football I gave him and all but assured me that he wouldn’t read it. His disgust with the Tigers squished the modicum of Yuletide cheer he usually mustered. My brother needs an enema.

I had ordered four Alamo Bowl tickets. Accidentally. The Mizzou ticket office sends out a complicated form offering ducats to every mathematically possible bowl game, and at some point in the three-hour application process I had apparently become disoriented and started checking everything. A quick look on stubhub.com showed that the $70 tickets were going for $8.95 a throw.

The Alamo, again, was a solid mid-level bowl game in a desirable city. Tell that to my friends and family. You’d have thought I was asking them to change Mark Mangino’s bedpan. To many Missouri fans, the idea of leaving the frigid Midwest for 70 degree temperatures and fresh margaritas only reminded them that their team didn’t make a BCS bowl. Tim “Buddy” May wanted to go but had blown his football budget and wife favors for the year. I gave Cousin Jimmy one of the tickets for Christmas in hopes that holding one in his hand would boost the possibility of his attending. He respectfully declined. A few of my Northwestern friends expressed interest in going but fell by the wayside when they realized that the Wildcats hadn’t won a bowl game of any kind since 1949. Many of my Northwestern friends are rich, and they didn’t get that way spending money the way I do. They would watch the carnage on TV.

In fairness, the economy was being held together with duct tape and the recession-proof crystal meth industry. Plus, it was gift-giving season. Lucky for me, I held top position this year on my Christmas list. Using frequent flyer miles for the travel, I employed William Shatner to beam me into a room within walking distance of the stadium for $92.

Chicago was cold and grey when my flight took off, which is to say it looked like Chicago always looks in December. The week prior the wind chill had fallen to -30. I stepped off the plane into 72-degree weather and realized that I had forgotten to pack shorts. You forget that you even own shorts during Chicago winters.

Like a lemming, I hit the River Walk.

Everyone tells you to hit the River Walk in San Antonio. It’s the thing every tourist does, and I certainly qualified. The appeal of the River Walk is as obvious as its intentions are modest. It’s a place to grab something to eat or drink while you gaze at a body of water, something that, really, can’t be done anywhere else in America.

Today the River Walk was packed with Northwestern and Missouri fans. Slow-moving Northwestern and Missouri fans. Fans who wanted to savor everything the River Walk had to offer. Fans who moved like a senatorial pay cut bill through congress. As a member in good standing of the Facebook group “I secretly want to punch slow moving people in the back of the head” (1,142,722 strong and counting), this raised a concern. I did not punch anyone in the back of the head, but boy howdy, River Walk was ripe for it.

I always try to sightsee as quickly as possible, once beating Clark Griswold’s record by enjoying the grandeur of the Grand Canyon in .08 seconds. So my River Walk amounted to more of a River Cover-Ground-Like-You-Need-Imodium. Nonetheless, I saw plenty:

A roughly 50/50 split of Mizzou and Northwestern fans

A purple “Nerdwestern” tee shirt (proudly worn by a student)

One fan wearing a Mizzou shirt and a Northwestern hat. What are you, Swiss? Pick a side.

Tour boats containing tourists floating slowly down the river without getting punched in the back of the head, while they learn the history of the indigenous people who sit in restaurants eating and drinking as they gaze at a body of water.

The Northwestern fans were unfailingly polite, the polar opposite of Oklahoma fans. Sooner rooters are so dumb and obnoxious you wonder how they hold down jobs. Northwestern fans are so nice and smart you wonder why they bother with football.

After what seemed like a sightseeing eternity of five to seven minutes, a call came from my Austin friend Manny. He directed me away from the River Walk to the Market Square area, to a restaurant called La Margarita. It was here that he courted his wife, Janice (aka “Baby Cakes”). As the name implies, La Margarita specializes in that drink—traditional, premium, and just about any taste-the-rainbow flavor you can name. They had prickly pear margaritas, which, to me, just sounds like you’re at a bowl game. I’m not much of a margarita drinker, though, because they’re sweet and have been known to cause people to blow out a flip-flop and step on a pop-top. My Zagat entry: La Margarita serves delicious micheladas.

There was one more stop to make before I made my way over to the game: The Alamo. Wait, check that, the bar across the street from the Alamo. A place called the Menger Bar. Built in the 1800’s, it looks like an old-time hotel saloon, which is exactly what it is. It’s also where Teddy Roosevelt recruited Rough Riders, who trained here (in San Antonio, not the Menger Bar). There are photos of Teddy all over the walls, and a moose head hanging over the entrance that I’m assuming he either shot or talked into giving himself up. As the game approached, I stared into the eyes of our 26th president for some sign of rooting interest. Ever the politician, he just smiled and pretended not to hear the question. Bully, indeed.

The Alamodome’s exterior looks like cross between a riverboat and a publicly funded sports venue. It’s ugly, but you have to give the city planners credit—they swung for the fences architecturally. And whiffed. I’ll bet those were exciting times leading up to the unveiling, when they pulled off the tarp, everyone gasped, and the architectural critics fainted. On the inside, the Alamodome is a bit more bare bones. I’d been told by a cabbie that the facilities are outdated, in the sense that it was built in 1993 and gaudier stadiums are now getting the nod for NCAA regionals. The best examples of this were the postage stamp-sized scoreboard video screens, which fairly screamed, “the bond issue didn’t pass.”

But the Alamodome was plenty gussied up for the likes of me, and they served cold beer. I sat with Mizzou Alumni President-Elect Jackie Clark and her parents. Jackie is more dependable for showing up at Missouri Tiger football games than Truman the Tiger, and wears more tiger gear than he does.

After exchanging pleasantries and holiday fruitcakes, we shared our deepest fears about the game we were about to watch. The Tigers were on a two game losing streak, and only 4-4 in their last eight. The Wildcats had won 3 of their last 4, losing only to Big 10 powerhouse Ohio State during that stretch. They finished the regular season beating the teams’ common opponent, Illinois, more convincingly than the Tigers had.

More to the point, the Wildcats had the mojo. No matter how Missouri spun it, the Alamo Bowl stood as a disappointing consolation prize, albeit one they had justly earned. Northwestern, conversely, exceeded expectations in 2008—going 9-3 after a 6-6 season in 2007—and the Cats were thrilled to be there. Moreover, Pat Fitzgerald, the youngest coach in the NCAA, had them believing in themselves. Fitzgerald starred at linebacker for Northwestern in the mid-90’s and had just been elected to the College Football Hall of Fame. Coach Fitzgerald had listed goals for the team at the beginning of the year, and one of the most prominent was to win a bowl game. In short, this guy was the sort of leader who made Patton look like a slacker.

The Alamodome holds 65,000, but it wasn’t holding them tonight. Sections sat mostly empty near the rafters. Still, the fans who showed up were ready—the Northwestern side for an upset, and the Missouri boosters, hoping not to witness disaster.

Missouri received the opening kickoff. Northwestern avoided booting it deep to Jeremy Maclin, which is what smart coaches do—i.e., don’t let the best player on the other team beat you. Mizzou’s m.o. had been that they cruised to easy wins when they got off to a good start, and lost when they didn’t. Chase Daniel looked eager to play, as always. On the first series, he converted on third and long, marched the team to another first down, and then, just across midfield, threw his first interception of the night. It wasn’t his fault—the receivers ran into each other and the ball deflected to a dude wearing purple. The Wildcats capitalized with a six-play drive, culminating with a 35-yard touchdown pass, which scorched the already burnt toast Mizzou secondary. Suddenly, the double-digit point spread Mizzou was favored by looked like it could be reversed.

It wasn’t lost on me that many college football fans love the Wildcats. Northwestern is the only private school in the Big 10, by far the smallest, and combines high academic standards with traditional football insignificance. I saw a fan hold up a sign that read:

Every
Smart
Person is pulling for
Northwestern

I knew that this was, as an NU grad would put it, a statistically accurate statement—well within the standard deviation of the bell curve distribution measuring intelligent fan sentiment.

The Tigers defense tightened and the teams exchange field goals, making the score 10-3 as the first half wound down to the final minute. With the Cats pinned inside their 40, they punted to Jeremy Maclin. The kick didn’t have much air under it, and as it wobbled toward our end of the field, Jackie’s father and I both muttered, “He’ll return that.” Maclin hauled it in, made one defender miss, and sprinted 75 yards to tie the score. It was a mistake—there’s no way a smart Northwestern grad like Pat Fitzgerald would order his punter to kick to the all-purpose yardage leader in the NCAA with a minute left before halftime. Unless, like Patton, he courted trouble.

The emotional lift from Maclin’s punt return felt so good that I enjoyed a peanut coated ice cream at halftime, which, in honesty, I probably would have enjoyed had he fumbled. Surely the Tiger offense, which averaged over 40 points a game, would get going. Everything depended on Chase Daniel, who had thrown two interceptions and seemed to be second-guessing himself.

On the first series of the second half, the Wildcats scored on a another touchdown pass. I could have used a Northwestern grad to tell me if it was statistically possible for our secondary to become any more confused. The extra point hit the upright, making the tally on the miniscule, sad scoreboard 16-10.

I imagine that this was the point at which bowl-loving fans at home began to settle in for an ESPN instant classic. I, alternatively, began regretting my ice cream decision. Daniel led the offense back the other way, tossing a strike to Danario Alexander to give the Tigers their first lead of the game, 17-16. On the next series Mizzou made it 20-16—still tight, but moving in the right direction if you thought black and gold were cool colors.

With the third quarter winding down, C.J. Bacher, the Northwestern QB, threw a fade pattern that got hauled in just beyond the reach of leaping defender Kenji Jackson, giving NU the lead again at 23-20. By now I had given up on the Tigers turning the contest dull. Just win, baby, I pleaded, channeling my inner Al Davis.

The final quarter opened, and the Missouri defense started making plays. They actually appeared to be gaining strength. The Wildcats began soliciting yellow flags to help. Unfortunately, Daniel, who threw his third interception on a terrible pass at the end of the third quarter, had developed a case of the yips. With just over nine minutes left in the game, on a sideline pattern intended for Tommy Saunders, he threw the ball to the cheerleaders. Saunders threw up his arms in frustration, and for the first time in a career in which he set every major Missouri Tiger passing record, Chase Daniel heard boos. As tough as it was to watch what was happening, I couldn’t help but feel ashamed at any fan who saw fit to boo a kid who was harder on himself than they could ever be.

Coach Pinkel couldn’t take Daniel out of the game. His quarterback had earned the right to fight through this, and besides, even with a compromised throwing arm, he still represented Mizzou’s best chance to win. But with time running down, the coaching staff tried to alleviate the pressure on their off-target star by calling more running plays. It worked well enough to generate a modest drive that drew the Tigers within field goal range. With three minutes left, all-time NCAA accuracy-leading kicker Jeff Wolfert tied the score at 23.

The Tiger D stopped Northwestern on four downs and took possession on their own 43 with a little over a minute left. And just as suddenly as he’d lost it, Daniel appeared to right himself. Still, the coaches called for quarterback keepers and only short, low-risk passes. With :03 left on the clock, the most accurate kicker in NCAA history trotted out to kick the game-winner in perfect, climate-controlled conditions. At this point in the game, if you were a Tiger fan, an ugly win suited you just hunky-dory. Northwestern called a time out to make Wolfert think a bit longer about the kick—a tactic that never seems to work.

From the angle at which I sat—almost parallel to the uprights—all I could tell was that Wolfert hit the ball squarely and it had room to spare. I looked to the referees, who looked at each other, and then waved off the kick as no good. The 44-yard field goal started a few feet to the wrong side of the right upright, and never hooked back.

The Northwestern sidelines and stands erupted in an orgy of pumping purple arms. If I had one of those sad little hospital wastebaskets, I would have vomited in it. The momentum had shifted back to the Wildcats, who certainly deserved to win as much as the Tigers did, and now had that tarted-up hussy Destiny on their side. Northwestern won the overtime coin flip and wisely chose for Mizzou to take the ball first. Generally speaking, this is a solid strategy—since in overtime each team takes the ball at the 25-yard line and tries to score, the second team to get the ball knows exactly what they must do. The fact that the Tiger offense had sputtered all night added a generous dollop of psychological pressure to their challenge. Fitzgerald had his riding crop on the Tigers’ throats, or whatever Patton metaphor you prefer.

Overtime began. The Tigers called three running plays, moving the ball to the Northwestern 7. Then, Daniel took a snap in the shotgun and it handled it like it was a joy buzzer. He quickly regained a grip and, with no time to think, fired a strike to Jeremy Maclin in the end zone. The momentum had shifted again and now the uphill climb belonged to Northwestern. Nothing short of a touchdown and extra point could keep the contest going.

C.J. Bacher moved his team, but they stalled at third and goal from the eight-yard line. Many Missouri fans (ok, me) couldn’t help but remember the disastrous end to the Kansas game. But this time Sean Weatherspoon and William Moore came unblocked on a blitz and converged at the quarterback. Bacher fumbled, and the ball bounced backwards, resulting in a loss of 23 yards. A desperation 4th down pass got batted down by Moore, the Tigers had won, and Chase Daniel had avoided a meltdown of Zinedine Zidane proportions.

I hugged Jackie. I high-fived everyone within palm distance. Jackie’s dad and I soared several feet in the air and did the hip bump.

Gay—in both senses of the word—multicolored balloons descended from the rafters. Modest, don’t-burn-the-dome-down fireworks exploded. And arguably the best quarterback in Tiger history hugged his head coach, moments after ending his career with a touchdown pass to arguably the most explosive Tiger player ever. Missouri fans would debate whether or not this senior class was the best in history. But as they walked off the field together for the last time, I felt certain that they were the most fun to watch. They’d climbed the polls from unranked in 2007, culminating in an exhilarating one week tenancy at the #1 slot. They’d played in a New Year’s Day bowl for the first time since 1970—and won. And as the 2008 season unfolded and it became apparent that they wouldn’t reach those heights again, they summoned enough pride and talent to quell the backslide and depart as winners.

We returned to the Menger Bar in time for last call. The mood was mellow—if Teddy Roosevelt were there he would have been wearing his Rough Rider jammies. Jackie’s dad and I donned our imaginary head sets and did the requisite post-game wrap-up, and then Jackie ushered her mom and dad into the cool, clear night.

I was beat, but felt that I should hit one celebratory bar before turning in. The barkeep recommended Mad Dogs, on the River Walk. Jackie’s friend Lou—who had me convinced that Chase Daniel was nursing a secret injury—walked over with me. Mad Dogs was raging full of students. It was a bit of a theme bar, but since the theme involved coeds and waitresses in short kilt skirts, I approved. It was loud and the DJ banged hip-hop off the walls—this was as good a place to celebrate a win as any.

A young guy in a Northwestern shirt bellied up to the bar, and upon seeing our attire rolled his eyes and invited us to rub it in. I assured him that I rooted for the Wildcats when they weren’t playing the Tigers, and besides, an overtime win hardly prompts taunting. The kid was 22 years old and enrolled in the Northwestern ROTC program. I told him that I hoped he would stay out of Iraq and Afghanistan, and he assured me that because he intended to serve on submarines, that should be doable. Al Qaeda’s submarine fleet, I’m told, is minimal and low-tech. I bought him a beer and he confirmed the rumor about submarine food—that it’s the best served in the military, maybe the entire public sector (at least one submarine chef has served in the White House). We talked fondly about Evanston, Illinois, a town where bowling, trick-or-treating, and skipping are illegal, and concluded that the skipping ordinance was probably spottily enforced.

I wished him luck, and he felt compelled to return the favor of buying a round. So my last drink of the last game of the year was a Jager bomb with a student whom I predict great underwater things for.

I strolled out into the night, avoiding the River Walk and its slow walkers, and headed back to the hotel. The college football season wasn’t over, not by a long shot. There would be New Year’s Day bowls, and I’d help my friends root their teams on. Beyond that, the BCS machine would churn toward another awkward attempt to crown a national champion. Once again, the winner would be disputed.

But only a few teams vie for a national championship in any given year, and they tend to be the same ones. For the majority of fans who may never see our teams get there, that’s not something to lament. Because for us, the real college football season ends when the team we care about files into the tunnel for the last time.

Game Day: Kansas City, Missouri

Tigers vs. University of Kansas Jayhawks

November 29, 2008

Tiger AP ranking: 12th

TV programming directors love dreaming up names to promote different college football weekends. The weekend the big round ball teams establish their male dominance over the eenie weenie peenie teams is labeled “Separation Saturday.” “Redemption Saturday” describes any weekend when a couple of squads that got embarrassed last year line up against the same teams. And “Grab some Doritos and Watch this Sorry Excuse for a Sporting Event Saturday” covers weekends late in the year where the glamour programs run up the score on unranked opponents who are just trying to make it to the off-season without rupturing any vital organs.

Hype being the currency of sports programming, the weekend that doesn’t need a promotional twist gets one anyway: Rivalry Weekend. It’s the weekend your school plays the team you hate. Missouri Tiger fans take Rivalry Weekend a step further than the networks. Starting the Monday before, they christen everything leading up to the Kansas game by a simple but elegant sobriquet. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Hate Week.

It’s fun to hate. Anyone who tells you differently is lying or stupid (many Victoria's Secret models think hating is just awful). Channeled correctly, though creative mocking of the other team’s idiot fan base, ridiculous traditions, and numbskull coaches, hating can save fans thousands of dollars on therapy.

Missouri’s hatred of Kansas runs deep, with roots in the Civil War. A “Jayhawker” was the term coined to describe Charles Jennison’s band of lawless marauders who killed and pillaged indiscriminately, murdering innocent people both in Kansas and, when deputized, across the border. Missouri wasn’t without fault in the Civil War, of course—their lawless marauders were called “Bushwhackers.” But after the conflict, the University of Missouri administration left the “bushwhacker” name to the history books (and the dictionary), calling their football team the Tigers—the nickname of the group of men who defended the city of Columbia during the War Between the States. The University of Kansas administration, conversely, embraced the Jayhawker’s tenuous Union association and overlooked their bloody history. Now the name Kansas Jayhawk stands beside storied franchises like the Phoenix Rapists and Portland Goose Steppers.

The head-to-head record between the universities stood at 54-54-9 since they began hating competitively in 1890, making this the second-longest running rivalry in the country. One of those 54 losses knocked Missouri from a 1960 national championship run—a game that the NCAA later made Kansas forfeit for using an ineligible player. Kansas officially claims that game as a win to this day. The Jaywalks also claim a co-Big XII North championship for 2007, despite the fact that they lost head-to-head to Missouri, the tiebreaker according to rules they accepted to play under. Not unlike the Clintons, when the Jayhawks lose, they won't go away.

The hate fault line does not run evenly across Missouri, however. Its epicenter sits in Kansas City, where Mizzou alums are outnumbered by Jayhawks. Hatred runs 24/7 there, and society matrons have been known to scoop up handfuls of mashed potatoes and sling them at rival fans during charity events for sick children. On the St. Louis side of the state, the Kansas football team is looked upon more as an annoyance that flairs up annually, like a case of red-and-blue herpes.

It merits mention that if there’s one thing the powerful University of Missouri alumni insist on from a head coach, it’s beating Kansas. Who are these powerful alumni? No one knows, exactly. My father bitched mythically about them, though. They lived in Kansas City and held clandestine meetings to select head coaches—meetings that concluded with black and gold smoke emerging from the chimney of Jesse Hall. Al Onofrio, the Tiger coach from 1971-77, developed a reputation for fielding teams no non-conference powerhouse wanted to play. His Tigers beat Notre Dame, USC, Alabama and Ohio State—all on the road. But Uncle Al had the temerity to go 1-6 against Kansas, sealing his fate. My old man, an unapologetic Onofrio backer, never forgave the powerful alumni.

Going into the 2008 Border Showdown, Gary Pinkel teams had posted a 4-3 record against the Jaywalks. Not shabby, not dominant. But the most recent win was the one everyone remembered.

In 2007, the MU-KU series shifted from its regular rotation between Columbia and Lawrence to the halfway point of Kansas City, where the series had last been played in 1910 (fans then were served tankards of mead and mutton legs and encouraged to throw their leftovers at the opposing players). The first "Border Showdown" ("Border War" and "Border We Hate Your Ass Face" both deemed too negative) kicked off at Arrowhead Stadium on November 24, 2007 with the #4 Tigers taking on the undefeated #2 Jayhawks. Top-ranked LSU had lost, so Tiger and Jayhawk fans gathered that evening to witness a battle for the #1 ranking in the country. ESPN GameDay was there, earning its highest ratings of the year. ESPN's Lee Corso donned the Truman the Tiger mascot head, predicting a Mizzou win and returning a mascot head that smelled of Vitalis and Ben Gay.

The frigid air crackling with beer breath and excitement, Kansas fell behind early and then clawed back like the mythical birds they are, the game ending when their scrappy (read: short) quarterback, Todd Reesing, got slammed to the turf for a safety. The image of Reesing rising with a divot of Arrowhead turf wedged into his facemask showed up as a cherished Hallmark keepsake ornament on Tiger fans' Christmas trees. In the wee hours of the post-game morning, my friends and I shared champagne as we watched the first web news accounts appear declaring Mizzou the #1 team in the country.

The 2008 Border Showdown, on paper, didn’t—couldn’t—live up to that. I landed in Kansas City on Friday afternoon and hoofed it down to the Plaza entertainment and shopping district. Growing up on the opposite side of the state, my college self always found Kansas City girls wildly exotic—more western in attitude as well as geography, and seemingly always blonde. When Deana Green swiveled around on campus and asked me to help her with her studies, my defenses splintered like one of Mizzou’s blown deep zone coverages. In present day, window-shopping for nothing more than where my first beer would be, little had changed. Kansas City women are flat-out pretty.

This was “Black Friday,” the biggest shopping day of the year, but the Plaza wasn’t particularly crowded thanks to the rapidly tanking economy. Two grinning college-age guys held a sign that promoted “Happy Buy Nothing Day,” a nihilistic economic plan that made about as much sense as anything else proposed by the experts. I ducked into Houston’s, an upscale restaurant chain, to grab a beer and catch the Cornhuskers beat Colorado on a 57-yard field goal to pull within a game of the Tigers in the Big XII North. Then I picked up a bottle of wine and double-timed it through the brisk night, back to the sprawling, historic house in the south Plaza area. My hosts Ginny and Morrie, with Kitty in tow, pulled into the driveway within minutes after I let myself in, effectively cutting short my plan to help myself to some silverware.

“How much money would it take for you to lick a sweaty linebacker’s asshole for five full seconds?” Ginny asked, and from the looks on Kitty and Morrie’s face, I could see that their answers had already been duly recorded. Well-publicized government bailout packages notwithstanding, I could not think of a figure high enough. The women volunteered $25,000 and $50,000, respectively—figures I found sluttishly low—and Morrie asked Kitty if her price might drop further for a middle-aged Jewish guy “fresh from the shower.”

The tone of the evening set, we plowed through my bottle of wine and a one-hitter disguised as a lipstick case and repaired to dinner. Five or six bottles of wine later, I found myself back in their living room making the argument that “Stay with Me” was the greatest rock song ever recorded. I had ingested the sort of snootful that makes one oblivious to the time, and if somebody hadn’t taken the first wobbly lurch toward bed I might still be in the living room petting their ancient dog, Buddy. We dropped eight Alka-Seltzer and careened upstairs, sans sweaty linebackers (I can only speak for myself here).

The next morning I was in a rush to get to Arrowhead, and Kitty’s family doesn’t rush. The weather had turned from cold to cold and rainy. Once we got some coffee in us and hit the pavement, Kitty kicked into gear and drove like she meant it. We arrived at Tim “Buddy” May’s tailgate about an hour and a half before the 11:30 kickoff. Tim’s dad, Missouri state representative Bob May, greeted us with a cold beer and a warm, can-I-count-on-your-vote-in November handshake. A small planetary system of Tiger fans—and a few KU relatives—scarfed Jimmy John’s sandwiches and downed shots of Hot Damn schnapps. Bob May stayed above the fray (his campaign slogan). As long as you could keep yourself reasonably dry, the weather wouldn’t be a factor. On the partially resodded grass field, however, sloppy would rule.

Two sandwich sections and a cinnamon bun later, it was go time. The stadium concourse was one big, wet Petri dish, but my $12 poncho performed admirably after being scrunched up in a ball since the Nevada game. Fans filled in slowly, with large empty patches of seats showing on the Kansas side. I took this as a testament to the weather, Mizzou as 16 point favorites, and the Kansas credo, used whenever convenient, “We’re a basketball school.”

As in the Illini game, our seats were positioned close to the players’ tunnel. At Arrowhead both teams come out of the same portal. The Kansas captains emerged in all white, without the obnoxious red socks they’d worn previously, another embracing of their Civil War butchery (the most savage, SS-inspiring branch of the Jayhawkers wore red hosiery).

The Tigers came out in yellow jerseys, confirming the rumors circulating the week before. This was their first time wearing them since the 1984 “all-mustard” game against Notre Dame, and the result was equally grotesque. For a tradition-laden school, Missouri struggles with uniform colors. Once upon a time their colors were black and old gold. At some juncture the old gold changed to “MU gold,” a color filed under "sunglow" in a 64-count box of Crayolas. Whichever yellowish mutation Nike hoodwinked our apparently colorblind athletic director into, it looked like something a high school team might turn their acne-riddled noses up at. I’m sure that many ten-year old Mizzou fans will receive gold Tiger jerseys on Christmas morning. They can be forgiven. What can’t is their parents’ encouragement of the sort of Moulin Rouge pageantry that’s come to epitomize the Nike-test kitchen fops of the NCAA, the Oregon Ducks.

Their team's record standing at 6-5, several Kansas players had stated earlier in the week that a win over the Tigers would make their season. In 2007 they finished the year 13-1, Jayhawk head coach Mark Mangino edging out Gary Pinkel for national coach of the year honors. When college football fans, especially Mizzou fans, talk about the Kansas, two things invariably come to up: First, that the Jayhawks had an easier schedule than Mizzou in 2007, and second, that their head coach is a regular fatty. Mangino is, in fact, morbidly obese, like an orange with a head on it. He is larger than Abe Gibron, the gigantic Chicago Bears head coach who, legend has it, once ate an entire lamb in one sitting. In the Xbox version of NCAA Football, game designers compassionately knocked 100 pounds off his video image. Still, any honest Missouri fan will admit that while Mangino may tear the roofs off Pizza Huts for a light snack, the man can coach.

The Tigers obliged the Jayhawks’ season-salvaging dream by coming out throwing the football in the soupy conditions. Chase Daniel misfired his first pass, the second was dropped, and the third intercepted by Darrell Stuckey (scion of the pecan log tycoons).

Mizzou game plans tend to disregard time of possession because of the offense’s quick-strike capabilities, but when those quick strikes don’t materialize the defense can be on the field a long time—like, say, an entire first half. On their third possession, Daniel ran 48 yards on a broken play, giving the Tiger what would have been their virgin first down, but Stuckey tomahawked the ball out of his mitts and fell on the fumble. The score stood 19-10 at halftime, the Jayhawks indeed playing like salvaging their dignity depended on it. Still, even in these craptacular conditions, I felt convinced that Mizzou wouldn’t keep beating themselves.

The rain turned to sleet, then snow, then a rare mix meteorologists term schlut. When the score turned 26-10, the Tigers began running the ball, darting between the resodded and unresodded (?) parts of the field. The ground game began to click, opening up the passing lanes. In quick succession, Jeremy Maclin and Tommy Saunders pulled in TD passes to make the score 26-23.

With just under seven minutes left in the game, Mizzou grabbed their first lead of the game—a pass that Chase Coffman, clearly hobbled by turf toe, gutted into the end zone. But Kansas kept the pressure on. Despite getting slammed to the ground like an actual size rag doll, Reesing kept getting back up and scrambling for time. The lead changed twice more, as the clock began to become a factor.

In the waning minute of the game, KU trailed 37-33 and drove into Tiger territory. Mizzou’s Carl Gettis almost picked off a Reesing pass but couldn’t haul it in as he crashed out of bounds. With 33 seconds left, Kansas stalled at 4th and 7 from the 29. Both sides of the stadium roared, raising the decibel level to the loudest it had been all day. Mangino called for a timeout to settle his charges. Reesing took the snap and the Tigers sent a blitz. The Thumbellina QB scampered out of trouble and short-armed a wobbly pass that found wideout Kerry Meier as he squirted past yet another gobsmacked Tiger defender.

I don’t know much about coverage schemes, but it’s a fair statement to make that the Missouri secondary had not improved since the first game of the season. In fact, they may have gotten more confused.

The Tigers got the football back with 19 seconds left. They got close, but with 5 seconds left they couldn’t risk running another play. Jeff Wolfort’s 54-yard field goal try off the wet surface knuckleballed and dribbled harmlessly through the end zone .

For the second time this season I had watched a game that had come down to one play, culminating in the Tigers’ opponent dancing onto the field. Mangino wasn’t hard to find, holding up the Lamar Hunt trophy and hugging it as if it were slathered in chocolate. Jayhawk and the fat man had showed up ready to play, and as much as it pained me to admit it, they deserved the game as much or more than the Tigers did. Mizzou played hard, but they didn't play consistently, and they turned the ball over three times.

We trudged away from the stadium. The lots were segregated, Tiger fans on one side of Arrowhead and Beakers on the other, so the celebrating could only be heard in the distance. Back at the car, I removed my prized Mizzou stocking cap and squeezed about 8 ounces of rain water from the fuzz ball on top.

Kitty drove me straight to the airport (ticket purchased before austerity program implementation). I sloshed onto the plane, still wet from the game. While I traveled back to Chicago, a private University of Wyoming plane took flight the other way, carrying with it Mizzou’s offensive coordinator Dave Christiansen. The next morning he would be confirmed as new head coach of the Wyoming Cowboys. Whether a coach's impending departure causes any lack of focus is the sort of thing a fan base always wonders about, and the team always denies. Either way, it doesn't matter--it's just the way the coach bounces in collegiate sports.

In the strictest sense, the Border Showdown game didn’t change a thing for the Tigers. They'd still play in a BCS bowl game if they won the Big XII Championship, and they'd still compete in a decidedly second tier bowl game if they didn’t.

On the other hand, we had made our despised rivals’ day, and with that, their season. Which as any fan will tell you, changes everything.

Game Day: Waco, Texas

Tigers vs. Baylor Bears

November 1, 2008

Tiger AP ranking: 14th

With the 2008 presidential election careening to a resolution, the weight of the issues facing our nation could turn even Kelly Ripa into a scowling, venom-spewing Bea Arthur. But if the cluster fuck in the Mideast, the sharpest economic downturn since pelt trading, and a $700 billion taxpayer funded bailout package that may or may not bail anything out haven’t coaxed you out on the ledge yet, that can be remedied. Join me for a trip to Waco, Texas!

Ah, Waco. Home to the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum (the law enforcement group, not the inept baseball team). Waco, where you’ll also find the Texas Sports Hall of Fame, featuring inductees like A.J. Foyt, Tom Landry, and Ernie Banks (and you thought he was Mr. Cub!). Waco, site of the Dr Pepper museum, where you can learn about the gut-wrenching 1950s decision to drop the period from “Dr.” Given this Wacornicopia of thrills, a trip there should be eagerly anticipated. But tell anyone you’re headed to Waco and will they mention any of these cathedrals of learning? ’Course not. They’ll make a joke about David Koresh and the Branch Davidians.

Waco is located on Interstate 35, equidistant from both Dallas and Austin. Rather than an eclectic mix of Austin’s liberal weirdness and Big D’s citified ways, this town somehow got handed the no-fun gene. I arrived in time for unhappy hour on Friday. Based on the headline in that day’s edition of the Waco Tribune-Herald (“Trio of weekend fires ruled as arson, linked”), the townsfolk still can’t get enough of that burning things down thing.

I enjoy the 23 flavors that make up a refreshing Dr Pepper as much as the next parched throat, but I’m not here to sightsee. Waco is home to Baylor, the largest Baptist University in the world. In other words, Par-tay. The Baylor Bears hold the distinction of fielding the only Texas football team in history that does not include the word “Texas” anywhere in its name. The Bears’ football fortunes have been modest, to put it delicately. They historically reside in the cellar of their division and have failed to garner a win against four different conference teams since joining the Big XII conference in 1996. Given the success of Brigham Young University and Notre Dame, you have to wonder if God doesn’t have it in for the Baptists.

But this year Baylor fans found faith in something secular. An argument could be made that freshman Robert Griffin may be the most talented first-year quarterback in the country. Gary Pinkel compared him to Brad Smith, the All-American Missouri QB who preceded Chase Daniel. Smith possessed maddeningly elusive running ability but proved inconsistent passing downfield. Griffin, conversely, had yet to throw an interception in his first eight games. The extraordinary freshman notwithstanding, odds makers had posted Mizzou a 20-point favorite.

Friday happened to be Halloween, and I was hungry for steak, a beer, and a glimpse of Baylor coeds dressed in something that would cheese off the church elders, much as Kevin Bacon's dancing had managed to accomplish in Footloose. The steak part was easy—those could be found at the Lake Brazos Steakhouse, overlooking, luckily enough, Lake Brazos. One rib eye, a side of fried okra and a Budweiser later, I was handed a bill that read, “Go Cowboys!” Clearly, the Bears faced an uphill battle here.

My Austin-based friend Manny had given me the names of two bars in Waco, and I managed to find one of them: George’s. It had the meandering look of a gin joint that opened in the first half of the 1900’s and added editions periodically as Waco’s liquor laws relaxed. Almost everyone drank from fishbowls called “The Big O,”—so named because students in the repressed ’50s used the word “orange” as code for beer. The Big O cost $2.75 and contained 20 ounces of golden nectar. Malt beverages, as we all learned in Econ 101, are recession-proof but price elastic—meaning that people trade down from Anchor Steam to PBR during economic downturns. Put another way, when the stock market loses 900 points and our government considers granting Grand Canyon naming rights to China, the Big O is the way to go. The Big O did have a downside: hefty, with an extra wide mouth, prudence dictated that it be anchored to the bar rather than sloshed around a packed bar and spilled on a good ol’ boy.

Considering the date, 95% of the patrons weren’t wearing costumes. This made the fat guy in the Fred Flintstone outfit sitting at the end of bar far more surreal looking than he otherwise would have been. With game day looming and no naughty costumes in sight (Wilma Flintstone disappointed), I called it a night as the strains of Charlie Daniels Band’s “Drinking my Baby Goodbye” followed me outside.

One of the problems with following your team every weekend and subsisting on Big O’s and stadium food is the disgusting physical condition you end up in. I had decided ahead of time that Waco would be boring enough for me to fit a run in. I’d jog for 5 miles, or until I saw a church, whichever came first. After about half a mile I came across an airplane hanger-sized house of worship dubbed the Praise Temple Assembly of God—a featureless monolith constructed of yellow corrugated metal. A satellite dish hung from the back. I’m not against shaking down willing congregations for money, but for God’s sake (literally), put up a statue or some stained glass. It doesn’t have to be Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Theresa—that’s clearly too much skin for Baptists, anyway—but give the flock something to look at while they ponder eternal damnation. This joint looked like they’d have Fatheads of NFL stars where the Stations of the Cross would go in a Catholic church. I figured that three laps around the building (for the Holy Trinity) constituted a workout. Did I voice a silent prayer for the Tigers while Just Doing It? That’s between me and Funky J. Separation of church and gridiron.

It was Baylor’s homecoming, and as I drove around looking for breakfast, I took a wrong turn and nearly impaled my car on an abstinence-themed parade float. The Baylor campus looks modern, austere, and well endowed—in the generously-funded sense of the term, not the giant wiener one.

Missouri holds pep rallies before most away games. My friend and President-Elect of the Mizzou Alumni Association Jackie Clark gave me the coordinates and advised me that the administration had requested that any alcohol consumption be “discreet.” As I crawled down South Valley Mills Road toward Floyd Casey Stadium (named after Floyd the Barber from The Andy Griffith Show) I searched for a properly discreet liquor store. Less than a mile from the stadium, gleaming like an oasis of buoyant camaraderie amidst scowling repression, stood Frank DiCorte’s Bad Bear Liquor Emporium. Frank offers quality products at competitive prices to suit all of your discreet tailgating needs—Bad Bear Styrofoam coolers, Bad Bear Ice, Bad Bear cozies, and recession-friendly Busch Light tall boys six-packs for $5.25. So inspired was I that I splurged and bought a Bad Bear bobble head, which featured sunglasses, a Hawaiian shirt and jauntily held a highball aloft to toast the disapproving Baylor administration.

The Mizzou tailgate party was just getting underway. Jackie expertly hit all the talking points in her stump speech, landing hard on the factoid that Tiger athletes led the nation in academic performance. Athletic Director Mike Alden took the stage next, providing a strategic roadmap for winning the game: Stop Baylor's Robert Griffin. The Tigers needed to put pressure on the gifted young field general, yet not over pursue lest he dance outside for big gains. The band didn’t make the trip, but the cheerleaders did, and someone popped in a cd to lead the gathered throng through a fight song medley. It would be a stretch to describe any of these modest proceedings as raucous—except in contrast to the Baylor tailgates, which were nonexistent. Baylor fans visited with each other, politely drank Dr Pepper, and whereas at most big schools you have to keep your eye out for errant nerf footballs and drunken beanbag throws, no projectiles interfere with your walk toward the stadium here.

The National Anthem was preceded by an invocation, a ramrod-postured minister from the school addressing the crowd from the field:

“Lord, as we prepare to begin this athletic contest, watch over the participants and the fans gathered in this stadium. Spare the athletes from pain, or if pain be thy will, at least make it only a slight hamstring tweak. If our groins be pulled, grant that they be pulled in a manly fashion, and not by homosexuals. Finally, may the Lord Jesus Christ, who anoints all gridiron sacraments, lead us to victory over the Godless heathen from a land grant university whose existence emanates not from thy will but from a land mass granted by that fey wig-wearing liberal Thomas Jefferson. Amen.”

The introduction of the Baylor team starts with the “Baylor Line,” a tradition in which students, all wearing shirts depicting their graduation year, storm the field before the team comes out. This day, to pump everyone up for homecoming, the team entered from the stands rather than the locker room. The team and the Baylor line mingled together on the field, a few students donning uniforms if the player wearing it could be overpowered. The effect looked like a swarm of directionless bees.

Mizzou received the opening kickoff, with Jeremy Maclin running the ball out to the 35. The offense picked up their score-at-will pace set the previous week in Colorado. They marched for touchdowns on their first two possessions. With the score 14-0 and the Tigers driving at the end of the 1st quarter, it appeared that they’d build up a big lead and then, with Baylor forced to play catch-up, put pressure on the Bears’ young quarterback. Then, taking the snap on 3rd and goal from the Baylor 8 yard line, Chase Daniel threw an interception right into a Baylor player's midsection.

Seizing the chance, Griffin led Baylor down the field, mixing runs up the middle with sideline horizontal passes. He legged in a score to make it 14-7, and the crowd—only around 35,000 in a stadium that held 50,000, began to sound like 70,000. Missouri answered the touchdown, with Daniel directing the Tigers from their own 7 to make the score at halftime 21-7.

The Floyd Casey concourse defines "bare bones." I bought something identified only as “sandwich” and walked to the gated-in exterior, which is far more pleasant. The Texas sun had been bearing down on the field, making the game day temperature of 80 degrees seem warmer. On the stadium’s perimeter, though, it felt far more temperate. The contest seemed reasonably in control for the Tigers.

Missouri kicked off to start the second half. Using the same offensive game plan as the first half—runs and horizontal passes—Griffin led the Bears to another score. The Tigers didn’t respond, punting after a sack and two modest gains. The Bears took possession at their 34, and twelve plays later the score was tied. Baylor was playing ball control, and with the sun acting like a magnifying glass on the Missouri defense, it was working.

Jackie Clark ditched her President-Elect obligations and showed up at the beginning of the 4th quarter. The first words out of her mouth were “What the f?” The crowd roared its approval as we watched the two teams trade touchdowns again, knotting the contest at 28. When, in the next series, Daniel was picked off on a tipped pass, the prospect of spending an evening in Waco after blowing a 14-point lead seemed a very real and depressing possibility.

But with the aid of an offside penalty, the Mizzou defense forced a Baylor punt. Just under 9 minutes remained in the game as the offense began moving down the field and trying to eat clock in the process—something the Tigers almost never had to do. The noise level peaked as the Baylor faithful tried to will another turnover. The Bears flushed Daniel from the pocket and a diving interception attempt near midfield just missed. The Tigers kept driving. At 3rd and 5 from the Baylor 15 yard line, Chase took the snap and rifled the ball toward Tommy Saunders, who had over 100 yards in receptions on the day. A Baylor safety stepped in front of Saunders. Eyeing nothing but yard markers between him and a go-ahead touchdown, he dropped the ball.

Fourth down and five yards to go from the 15-yard line. Two minutes 31 seconds left. A tired Missouri defense. Plenty of time for Baylor to drive down the field. It was decision time—kick a field goal or go for a first down.

There’s nothing automatic about a late fourth quarter field goal in a tight game. The next best thing may be to send Tiger walk-on kicker Jeff Wolfert into the game. At one point in his career, Wolfert converted 90 consecutive chances in conference play. He stands to obliterate the all-time NCAA record for kicking accuracy. So the decision for Coach Pinkel was an easy one. After a fruitless “icing the kicker” time out, Wolfert drilled a perfect 34-yarder to make the score 31-28.

Baylor took the ball at their own 21 with no time outs left. After an incompletion and a 2-yard gain, Robert Griffin stepped back, planted his feet--and threw the first interception of his collegiate career (an NCAA record for most attempts without a pick to start a career). Brock Christopher squeezed the pass tight and fell to the ground. Mizzou would survive.

The Tigers wearily trudged off the field, Chase Coffman visibly limping. Jackie talked me into waiting by the team bus. We found Jeff Wolfert’s parents and congratulated them. His mother told me that, because the score was tied rather than the Tigers trailing, there seemed a little less pressure on her son to make the kick. So that’s where he gets the ice water in his toe.

Chase Daniel appeared, obliging cell phone photographers and autograph-seekers. Coach Pinkel, hair still wet from the shower, looked like Churchill’s proverbial man who had been shot at without result. Mike Alden wore happy relief on his face, telling us that all he cared about was that the team was 7-2, not 6-3. The Tigers looked anxious to get the hell out of town.

Back at George’s, the Big O's have never tasted so frosty cold and delicious. Most of the Mizzou fans had left for Austin or Dallas, leaving Jackie Clark and I to watch the 7 p.m. Texas-Texas Tech game. The presidential election stood three days away, and the flat screens featured last-ditch commercials for several local candidates. In one of them, a candidate’s opponent had “100% WRONG!” stamped across his face. Not 75% or even 90% wrong—this unscrupulous varmint literally had done nothing correct whatsoever.

The Tigers came into Waco and, depending on who does the tallying, may have been as high as 49% wrong. Still, against a rising Big XII South team, on that squad’s home turf, that was plenty good enough. In football, as in politics, even a one-point winner takes all.

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.

Gameday: Evanston, Illinois

Tigers vs. Buffalo Bulls
September 20, 2008

Tiger AP ranking: 5th


Today the Chicago Cubs clinched the National League’s Central Division, once again providing hope for their long-suffering fans.

It seems appropriate to look back and examine how the once-powerful Missouri Tigers became their doppelganger in defeat, before, like the Cubs, reclaiming a winning attitude.

For decades, the Mizzou football program elicited respect. They led the nation in rushing using Don Faurot's innovative T-formation. The Tigers were the only major college program to lose no more than 3 games a season during the 1960s. In the 1970s Mizzou gave oddsmakers fits, upsetting favorites Alabama, USC, Ohio State and Notre Dame—all on the road. In 1981, they celebrated their fourth consecutive bowl appearance by beating Southern Mississippi in the Tangerine.

Then came September 14, 1985.

On that day, I walked out of Wrigley Field after a Cubs-Cardinals game and crossed Sheffield Avenue to the popular bar Murphy’s Bleachers. The bar's doorman was engaged in an animated conversation with another patron. As my friends and I passed, he blurted out, “Did you hear? Northwestern beat Mizzou!”

The news hit my stomach like a tainted hot dog. In the early 80s, Northwestern didn’t beat anybody. A few years earlier the Wildcats had set a modern NCAA record by losing 34 consecutive games (when they broke the mark, NU fans stormed the field and tore down the goalposts, chanting, “we’re the worst!”) Northwestern students were admitted to games free in a desperate attempt to fill the stands. Many decided against the gratis admission, spending entire games tailgating rather than submitting to watch another crushing loss. As game after lopsided game slipped away, the students who did attend would regale opposing fans with the cheer,
“That’s alright, that’s OK, you’re gonna work for us someday!”

Losing to Northwestern in 1985 meant that your team was terrible.

Woody Widenhofer was the new Tiger head coach that year. Widenhofer maintained that if the Tigers wanted to beat Nebraska and Oklahoma--and we did--he was the man for the job. It was hard to doubt a Missouri alum who owned 4 Super Bowl rings from his tenure as defensive coordinator of the Pittsburgh Steelers. He urged Tiger fans to “get on Woody’s wagon.” After a single losing season that resulted in the dismissal of his predecessor, fans were anxious to give the dorky slogan a try. This despite the fact that Woody looked like Chumley the Walrus from Tennessee Tuxedo.

The Tigers went 1-10 in 1985. Widenhofer, amidst rumors that he had no interest in getting on any wagon, lasted four years, ignoring the entire time another slogan, the one where Missourians say “You have to show me.”

By the time Widenhofer waddled off, the football program stood in shambles. Mizzou and their fans suffered through 13 straight losing seasons—hundreds of thousands of students entered school as freshmen and graduated without ever cheering on a winning team. Many of the loses came in such an excruciating manner that they were given names. The "Norman Conquest," a 77-0 loss to Oklahoma. The “Fifth Down Game” against Colorado. The “Flea-Kicker” defeat to Nebraska. The Tigers lost blowouts, they lost heartbreakers, but mainly, they just lost. Because of the high-profile or bizarre nature of some of the defeats, they began to resemble the hapless Chicago Cubs. Once a force on the national stage, the Tigers became a question mark as sports pundits wondered aloud, “Can any coach win at Missouri?” And the death spiral began with that loss to Northwestern.

How does a team lose the stigma of “Cubness”? Or worse, the college football equivalent of the Cubs' “Billy Goat” curse? One could argue that the Tigers’ demolition of Arkansas in last years’ Cotton Bowl eradicated it. But just to be absolutely, Jeff Wolfert extra-point certain, I decided to visit Ryan Field, home to the Northwestern Wildcats. While watching the team that jump-started Missouri's downfall, I would look into my heart and forgive Woody Widenhofer, the Warren Harding of head football coaches.

I gave my Mizzou-Buffalo tickets to my classmate Fly, who has to my knowledge never screamed in his life but assured me he would, at the top of his lungs, this game. After two straight weeks of crushing lesser non-conference opponents, there was no reason to believe that we wouldn’t roll over this last one before we opened the Big XII schedule two weeks hence.

The Tiger game, inexplicably, wouldn’t be carried anywhere on TV. While I admit that Mizzou didn’t exactly schedule the New England Patriots, the Tigers are the number 5 team in the country and TV should be a given. The Auburn-LSU game scheduled that evening would be aired nationally, and no one in the Midwest gave a monkey’s spank. College football, like identity politics, is personal.

Northwestern's opponent was the 0-3 Ohio Bobcats. If this game was on TV while Mizzou was not, I’d be furious--so I didn’t check. The Wildcats could move to 4-0 with a win, just as Mizzou was in a position to do. WHY AM I WATCHING NORTHWESTERN? I SHOULD BE IN COLUMBIA WATCHING THE TEAM I CARE ABOUT! DEEPLY! WHAT IN GOD’S NAME HAVE I WROUGHT, AND WHY AM I USING THE WORD “WROUGHT”?

A few deep breaths from the diaphragm later, I sat in my purple padded seat cushion. NU’s defense looked solid, as one would expect from head coach Pat Fitzgerald, a two-time Big XII defensive player of the year. With a 9-0 lead, the ’Cats finally crossed the goal-line late in second quarter, heading to the locker room with a 16-0 lead.

At halftime, I walked with my friend The Dude to “Touchdown Terrace,” an elevated area at Ryan Field overlooking the north end zone where families can take their kids to hit each other in the head with nerf footballs and their out-of-shape dads can strike Heisman poses. I leaned over the railing, watching the Wildcats stream out of the locker room and begin warming up for the second half. The weather was as perfect as it had been crappy last week. With the warm early autumnal scene before me, I gazed the length of the perfectly-manicured field, took a deep breath, closed my eyes—and forgave Woody Widenhofer. Somewhere, managing a Long John Silver's into bankrupcy, he sensed my selfless gift.

For a nominal fee, the Tiger Sports Report will text you the score at the end of each quarter of Mizzou games. Normally this is a worthless service, as you’re already watching the game and the phone vibrating in your shorts detracts from the viewing experience. The situation this day would make my subscription worth it.

The Mizzou contest kicked off at 1:00 p.m. – two hours after Northwestern started. At 1:47 p.m., I received this:

Quarter 1 ended. Tigers lead by 3. MISSOU (sic): 10 BUFF: 7

“MISSOU”? Was I getting updates from a temp in India? More alarming was the slow start, considering the pinball numbers the Tigers had put up thus far this season. I began ignoring the game in front of me and, since there wouldn’t be another update for a full quarter, pumping friends for a more information. Tim “Buddy” May texted, “Bad game. We only lead 17-14 and just fumbled.” “News” Hughes told me that we our receivers couldn’t hold onto the ball.

Quarter 2 ended. Tigers lead by 6. MISSOU 20 BUFF: 14.

The head coach of Buffalo is Turner Gill, a former Nebraska quarterback who’s nothing if not familiar with beating the pants off the Missouri Tigers. I texted “WTF?” to three different people I knew were listening to the game. Two of them texted back that despite the tighter-than-desired score, Chase Daniel was delivering one of his best performances ever.

After allowing the Buffs to hang around at 27-21 in the 3rd quarter, the Tigers began to pull away. Daniel finished 36-for-43 passing, at one point completing a conference record 20 in a row.

Relaxing in Tommy Nevin’s pub after a 16-8 Northwestern win, the details of the dog's breakfast of a Mizzou victory began to dribble in. The Tigers had fumbled three times in Buffalo territory. Their special teams allowed a 97-yard kickoff return. A roughing the kicker penalty extended a Buffalo drive—a drive that culminated in another breakdown in the Tiger secondary on a 32-yard TD pass. Dropped passes held Daniel’s completion percentage to an embarrassing 83.7%

I ordered a pint of Harp. In 1985, there were no bars here in Evanston, Illinois. Home of the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement, the town was dryer than a seminar about caulking. In the 80’s, the city council would have rather donated their kidneys than hand out a liquor license (the closest bars were the seedy P.M. Lounge and Tally-Ho Pub on Howard Street, the dividing line between Evanston and Chicago). Slowly, the devil’s lure of liquor tax revenue changed all that. Tommy Nevin’s massive Irish bar opened in 1990, paving the way for other public houses. With no reason left for Evanstonians to make the trek, the bars on Howard Street became more derelict than ever.

On one of the several flat screens not featuring Missouri Tiger highlights, the Cubs got the final out against the Cardinals and began celebrating their second-straight post-season appearance.

Times had changed for the better since 1985. For Evanston, the Cubs, and the Missouri Tigers.