Gameday: St. Louis, Missouri

Tigers vs. Fighting Illini
Edward Jones Dome
September 5, 2009

Tiger AP ranking: unranked.

My favorite football players are linebackers. I've thought they were the coolest ever since one of the networks asked some head coaches which position would make the best assassins, and they all said linebackers. Plus, linebackers are funny. If you don't believe me, rent an old NFL film of Dick Butkus talking about how much he enjoys hitting ball carriers so hard that snot flies out. Lawrence Taylor once went to a team meeting still wearing the handcuffs a couple of call girls had slapped on him the night before. Linebackers are funny, and they're good assassins.

Quarterbacks, conversely, suck. The good ones are arrogant pricks. Joe Theisman always sounds like he's jonesing for a mirror. Steve Spurrier has made a career out of insulting opposing teams, throwing his visor, and strutting around like Mussolini. And Dan Marino, well, here. So I've jumped to the (correct) conclusion that you want a miserable jagweed as QB on any team you root for. And with the Tigers breaking in a new, 5-star recruit at the position, the time for that jagweed to show up was now.

I arrived in St. Louis the night before the big game and took Mom to dinner at Lo Russo's restaurant, a favorite of my old man's. When the owner, Rich Lo Russo, turned up at my Dad's wake with a platter of mortadella, salami, and assorted cheeses, it was a sound business move if there ever was one. Mom dug into her Amaretto Sour with the sort of devil-may-care gusto I hoped to see on the field the next day. She told me about her new exercise class. I'm proud of her for staying active, but when she mentioned the stripper pole I pantomined the "cut her off" finger-across-throat motion to the bartender.

Afterward, we made the short trek to Ted Drewes Frozen Custard, a St. Louis landmark on what was once Route 66. Mom ordered the hot fudge, fitness gods be damned. I had the Terramizzou, which tastes nothing like the dessert it's punned after, but with chocolate, caramel, pistachios and the aorta-challenging creamy goodness of real custard, only a quarterback would complain. I couldn't risk any other menu option the night before the season opener.

The next day I made it downtown to the same bar I'd kicked off the 2008 season, the Dubliner. Dave "News" Hughes was there, but Tim "Buddy" May did not make the trip, claiming new job responsibilities. Actually, several friends had bowed out for sundry lame excuses (work, vacations, children), forcing me to sell two of my seats on stubhub.com. After a round, "News" decided we should move outside to his brother-in-law's tailgate.

You never want to spend a lot of time locating a tailgate. There's nothing more depressing than navigating the labyrinth of a parking lot looking for somewhere you should have been a half hour ago. News couldn't get his brother-in-law on the phone. Then, he couldn't get a cell phone signal. In my mind, having just left the cozy confines of an Irish bar, he wasn't doing nearly enough. I wanted to see a compass, a beer divining rod, and the Verizon mobile team. After either ten minutes or an hour and 20 minutes--only embarrassing and defrocked Chief Illiniwek can tell time by the sun--I shrugged and told News I'd meet him inside.

My niece stopped by my seats before kickoff and filled me in on the new Tiger QB, Blaine Gabbert. Her sources told her that he might be a bit of a prima donna. There were whispers that Gabbert's father had no reservations about "advising" the coaching staff on how best to handle the 6'5", 240 lb. blue chipper. This information gave me hope. Maybe he would be just the insufferable bastard we needed. We had lost six players to the NFL, after all; some pompous ass needed to step up and say, "everybody look at me."

The Tigers made the game look as smooth and easy as custard squeezing out of an extruder. In his first start, allegedly first-rate dick Gabbert threw for three TD's and ran for another. The defensive configuration was something called "The Scorpion" that dropped as many as seven players into coverage, practically begging Juice Williams to throw. He did--underthrowing, overthrowing, and behind-the-receiver throwing. The new walk-on Mizzou kicker, who nobody could remember the name of, booted field goals of 32, 44 and 41 yards. The Illini never seemed to be in the contest. I don't want to sound giddy about our program, but basically nothing went wrong and it looks like the Tigers are going to the National Championship, which they'll win.

How much must the Illini and their fans hate the Edward Jones Dome? Rhetorical question. They've never beaten the Tigers there, not in five tries since 2002. Juice Williams has started four games against Mizzou and lost every single one. Ron Zook, the head coach, looked like he was getting his brains drilled out by one of those Phantasm balls. The Vagini, as some sophomoric fans more callous than I refer to them, must now play OSU, Penn State and Sparty--all within a month. Ron Zook will be the first name on those "Coaches on the Hot Seat" lists that come out in October.

Sean Weatherspoon, a linebacker in the classic mode of funny assassin linebackers, had sent out a Twitter "tweet" a month earlier, proclaiming his anxiousness to "squeeze the pulp out of the Juice." The last thing coaches want is to supply bulletin board material for the other team, so Sean got mildly but publicly reprimanded. But as I finished off a victory $9 domed stadium beer, I looked up to the video board to catch Spoon at the end of a play, one hammy fist on top of the other, squeezing clockwise and counter-clockwise, like he was wringing out a towel. I'm not sure what the juicers look like in Spoon's house, but I would have gone with the upper hand facing down, making more of an "opening a jar of Jif" motion.

A nit in an otherwise perfect performance. And our rat bastard, son-of-a-bitch QB looks like the real deal.

Game Day: Ames, Iowa

Tigers vs. Iowa State Cyclones November 15, 2008

Tiger AP ranking: 12th

The 2008 football season entered its 12th week in far less topsy-turvy fashion than the season before. Perennial powerhouses Texas, USC, Alabama and Florida beat their second-division brethren with the reassuring dependability of an atomic clock. Replacing the 2007 mayhem, the country’s economic meltdown provided the nation with its giant-fall-down-go-boom fix. The $700 million government bailout of financial institutions didn’t budge the credit market. The Big 3 Auto CEOs flew to Washington in private jets, groveling for a handout. Triple-digit Dow plummets became commonplace, leading to citizens reacting to “brokers with their head in their hands” photos with a collective, blasé shrug.

No longer did economists argue whether the nation was in recession. The D word got thrown around a lot, too. Across the U.S., people completely stopped buying cheap crap that breaks easily—a frightening prospect for retailers with the holiday season fast approaching.

An economic slowdown of gargantuan proportions calls for decisive action. My bold plan: to crap my drawers and stop spending money. The austerity program would begin with Missouri’s game against the Payless Shoe Store of the Big XII, Iowa State University.

There are lots of discretionary costs that can be cut from attending football games. Do you really need a cushy cushion and seat back? Cousin Jimmy would say yes, but the austerity program responds with “Bring a blanket, or sit your ass on the metal bleacher and take it.” Must you buy beer? Not if there’s an unattended cooler (code word "UC") in the tailgating lot.

The biggest single cost to attend an away game, of course, is travel. One downside of the Tigers’ recent popularity involved the late announcements of kickoff times. If a game took place in some god-forsaken outpost—let’s call it “Waco”—you didn’t know whether it would start at 11 a.m. or at 7 p.m. until after your travel plans were locked in. Often, the only viable option involved getting to town on Friday night and staying Saturday night. That was my plan—until the austerity program.

ISU and Mizzou were set to line up for yet another night game, this one kicking off at 5:30 p.m. I decided to drive from my lean-to in Chicago to Ames, watch the game, and drive back, all in the same day. According to Google maps, that’s 722 miles of my sexy America.

It may come as somewhat of a jolt that it’s not easy to find a driving companion for 361 miles of flatness each way to see a game in 20 degree weather where your team is a four-touchdown favorite. Heavy D turned me down. The Dude guffawed and asked if I was really going to drive both ways in one day. I assured him that the austerity program calls for sacrifice, and that driving a long distance in a warm car, on an interstate highway, does not equate with Evil Knievel jumping the Snake River Canyon.

The night before the trip I met up with David R. to discuss the automaker bailout. On the way there I left a message with another friend, on the hope that he might be prone to an impulse road trip. A text came back immediately:

“When are you driving tomorrow? I’m a big believer in helping pass highway time. And there are things we need to discuss."

The hook had been set. I relayed the particulars, including the chilling but necessary “wheels up at 10 a.m.” part. My friend immediately switched to radio silence. By the time I asked David R. if he was interested, I wasn't even serious about it. After several beers, we concluded that bringing back the El Camino could well reverse America’s economic fortunes.

I loaded my M3 with warm weather gear and Trader Joe snacks and backed out of my garage into the borderline freezing weather. The possibility of snow never materialized save for some sparse flurries. As I drove down the Kennedy Expressway out of Chicago, I noted that gasoline in the city cost $2.95 a gallon. I am turning into my father.

Beside me sat the kitty. Not my friend Kitty—she laughed at the road trip idea, too—but rather an envelope containing four $20 bills, one $10, one $5 and five ones. On road trips, the kitty allows all the participants (me, in this case) to enjoy a jolly ride without thinking about money. The kitty works like any ante system: Everyone puts in the same amount, and then all group expenses are paid out of the kitty. If there’s money left over, it’s split evenly. If the money runs out, everyone re-kitties.

Once free of Chicago's gravitational traffic pull, I opened up the E46's 333 hp, heading west on I-88. The tollbooths began piling up by the buttload. That’s why you need the smaller kitty bills. I always take tolls as a sign that you can speed, because all of the law enforcement is concentrated around making sure that no one runs the toll gates. This reasoning gets me plenty of tickets.

Road trips on the austerity program require the purchase of gas in places like Rock Falls, Illinois, where it’s 87¢ less than Chicago. With the money you’ve saved, look for a deli with a reclining dill pickle on its logo and you're in for some fine road dining. Arthur’s Garden Deli in Rock Falls sells a turkey and cheddar sandwich that sets you back less than three large. The austerity program not only builds character, it includes haute cuisine, so long as you can eat it while driving. Excuse me, brother trucker, may I borrow your Grey Poupon?

After visiting some of the finest bars the Big XII has to offer, am I concerned about missing out on the nightlife of Ames? Not really, because Ames nightlife is pretty much an oxymoron. There’s rumor of a reverse curfew in Ames to encourage the townspeople to stay out past 8 p.m. Like the Missouri Tigers, executing my austerity game plan with a minimum of drama requires singular, pinpoint focus.

The drive across Iowa takes me past towns with names like What Cheer. The picturesque barns and golden fields may look boring to some, but I find them beautiful. Monet spent months in fields such as these, painting the same stack of hay at differing times of the year and different times of day. Many of us spend our days in ergonomic chairs, in antiseptic offices, and think artists crazy. Monet knew otherwise.

To get to Jack Trice stadium, you hang a Ralph at Des Moines. I didn’t allow myself much pre-game time, lest I be drawn into sin and depravity by the siren song of the Ames honky-tonks. Parking across the street from the stadium costs $15 and is worth every penny, because this is where you want to be prior to an ISU game. Ames proper may be duller than laundry day, but the opposite holds for the flood plain surrounding the field. ISU tailgaters always arrive in force, unorganized and spirited, many in team color striped bib overalls. As I pulled on my Soreil boots and trudged across the grass lot, I passed students shotgunning Bud Lights with one hand and heaving cornhole beanbags with the other (they missed on both ends). Their team hadn’t won a conference game, and the faithful could not have given less of a flying fuck at a rolling donut. Walking through the grinning, sometimes painted faces, you couldn’t help but feel sorry for fans who root only for frontrunners. Cyclone fans rock like a hurricane.

Dusk fell on a game day temperature that felt cold but not bitterly so, thanks to the modest wind. Important, because the stadium’s wedge design and sparse surroundings turn the slightest breeze into a whipsaw gale force. I tracked down Mizzou Alum Association President-elect Jackie Clark’s tailgate. Jackie's the Holly Golightly of tailgating, always showing up at the right party with a tiger boa and a joke. This gathering featured a 22-long converted hearse limo with gold pinstripes down the side and a life-sized tiger affixed to the roof. The beer, cheese and crackers were all gratis, fitting the austerity program budget like the Thinsulate gloves I was wearing.

The Iowa State Cyclones have been housed in the same conference as Missouri since 1908, but it’s a friendly rivalry. ISU posted losing records in 2006 and 2007, and at 2-8 coming into this game, they had locked up a third. But during that time they’d largely defanged the Tigers. In 2005, Mizzou quarterback Brad Smith got knocked woozy by the Cyclones, and a freshman named Chase Daniel had to come in off the bench to lead the team on two touchdown drives, salvaging a 27-24 OT win—the second year in a row the Tigers beat the Cyclones in overtime. In 2006, Mizzou provided ISU with its only conference win as a potentially game-winning touchdown was called back on a controversial holding call that the Big XII later admitted was a boo-boo. No matter the state of the Cyclone program, they seemed to play the Missouri Tigers even up. Head coach Gene Chizik (“the Chizzer”) was donning an official ISU stocking cap for his second year, and the fan base seemed genuinely excited about their young team. Between the cold weather and ISU’s weird voodoo that they do on ol’ Mizzou, it was difficult to find a Tiger fan expecting a blowout.

Stadiums named after people can generally be divided into two categories: those honoring benefactors and those where a legendary coach has been chiseled into the façade. Jack Trice was neither—he was the first black athlete to play for Iowa State. On October 6, 1923, the night before he started his first game, he wrote a letter. “Everyone is expecting me to do great things.” it read, “I will.” The next night he suited up against the University of Minnesota. Early in the game, he broke his collarbone. He continued to play, but was trampled by three Minnesota players. He still insisted that he could play but was removed from the contest. Trice died three days later from internal hemorrhaging. His legacy was sadly forgotten until ISU students discovered a dusty plaque commemorating him in the 1970s. A groundswell to rename the stadium gradually gained momentum, and in 1997 Cyclone Stadium was renamed Jack Trice Stadium—the only NCAA Division 1-A stadium honoring an African-American.

Jack Trice would have been proud of the effort his team exerted this cold November night. They hit hard, blocked well, pursued the play until the whistle blew, and several other coaching clichés that actually win football games.

But the Cyclones were also inexperienced and prone to mistakes. The Tigers took the field with the knowledge that Texas had methodically crushed Kansas earlier in the day, meaning that if Mizzou prevailed they’d clinch the Big XII North Title outright. The team played like they were in a hurry to claim it. Maclin returned the opening kickoff 37 yards to the 41. Daniel completed his first 16 passes. Early in the second quarter, Mizzou led, 14-0. The ISU student side, which never came close to filling up, began to empty. The smart money said that several shotgunning, cornholing tailgaters never made it inside.

This represented my first time viewing the new ISU uniforms in person. The team’s old uniforms fell just a mite short of the understated Penn State look. The pre-2008 red helmets featured a red cyclone with the head of a cardinal (the ISU mascot has been a cardinal for years, perhaps because dressing up an undergrad as a weather system is cost-prohibitive). The team used to bow to the temptation of wearing all red—or, officially, cardinal. Red jerseys, red pants, red helmets. If you think that might look clownish, bingo. But now the unis featured the retro-Iowa State combo of red jerseys and gold pants. Classic. So classic, in fact, that if you didn’t notice that the Cyclones jumped offside constantly, you might mistake them for the USC Trojans. Replacing the Cyclone on the helmet was the new “I STATE” logo. Unimaginative, but a boon to the merchandising department.

ISU did not go quietly into the soft, cold night. Early in the second quarter they picked Daniel off on a deflected pass that should have been caught. Three plays later, though, William Moore returned the favor, stepping in front of a receiver and batting the ball to himself, gliding in 17 yards to make it 21-0. For all practical purposes, that was the football game. But the Cyclones never let up, performing like a team that wanted desperately to improve. They moved the ball through the air—with the large deficit, they had no choice—and ended up posting 336 passing yards, only two less than the Tigers. Other than the precision of the Tiger passing game, the story of the night belonged to Derrick Washington. He averaged over 11 yards per carry, including one against the grain cutback for 52 yards, with Maclin providing an escort into the end zone.

At roughly 9 o’clock, Mizzou cornerback Carl Gettis intercepted the Cyclones again. With the score 45-20 and Missouri grinding out a final drive, it was time to start the long ride back. I skedaddled back to my car, beat traffic out of town, and loaded up on cheap gas and cheaper coffee as I listened to Mike Kelly and John Kadlec call the final minutes of the game through Sirius.

The winner of the Missouri-Iowa State game receives arguably the stupidest trophy in sports, the Telephone Trophy. It came into being following a cross up in the lines to the press box that allowed the coaches to hear each other’s plays during the 1959 game. The problem was fixed before the game started, but Ma Bell decided that their screw up was worthy of commemoration with a phone on a wooden block. The cradle of the phone is painted Mizzou colors on one side and Iowa State hues on the other. A trophy is a trophy, I guess, and the players embrace the weirdness.

More important, The Missouri Tigers had won the Big XII North title and would take on either Texas, Texas Tech, or Oklahoma in the championship game on December 6th. But the Big XII North trophy did not make the trip to Ames, so, boys, rally 'round the telephone.

For long stretches, I had 88/80 all to myself. I bumped up the cruise control and made the most of the fuzz’s absence. Even more tolls stood in my way than the front end of the trip, and the change rattled in the kitty envelope. Rolling into Chicago around 1:30, I trudged up my back stairs to greet my dog, Georgia. She is not on the austerity program, and had earned raw hamburger as a treat for her patience. I slumped in a chair and tallied the cost:

• Gas $57
• Tolls $12
• Lunch $3
• Parking $15
• Brat & hot chocolate $5
• Road coffee & sandwich $4

I slapped the $3 and change remaining in the kitty on the kitchen table, and crawled upstairs into the fart sack. The austerity program, like all character-building activities, isn’t for sissies.

Game Day: Columbia, Missouri

Tigers vs. Kansas State Wildcats

November 8, 2008

Tiger AP ranking: 13th

At 10 p.m. on Tuesday, November 4th, Wolf Blitzer took center stage on the CNN set and announced that Barack Obama had been elected the 44th President of the United States. Following a gracious concession speech by John McCain and a brief moment in the sound-proof booth provided to all new Presidents so that they can scream “WOOOO! I CAN NUKE FRANCE!” Obama greeted his supporters in Chicago’s Grant Park. The warm night drew a quarter of a million supporters, the air crackling with energy and hope. I briefly considered attending, but knew that Oprah might be in the audience and didn't want her runny mascara to ruin a perfectly good shirt.

The next morning, it was impossible to find a Chicago newspaper. Sure, you can get news from the internet, but when a major story breaks the online experience lacks the permanence of an old-fashioned press run. And while you can take your laptop into the toilet, the screen doesn’t fold well.

So in the wake of the election, most citizens of Chicago were news-deprived about nearly everything else. Mid-afternoon, I received my first non-presidential headline in the form of a text from Tim “Buddy” May:

“Ron Prince out at K-State.”

Criminy. Mizzou has faced rashes of teams immediately after those squads’ head coach had stepped down, and history has shown the Tigers don’t handle ambiguity well. Former Kansas State head coach Bill Snyder announced he was hanging up his headset on November 15, 2005, and Missouri obliged his retirement party by handing him his first victory in the hurriedly-renamed Bill Snyder Family Stadium—only his second win in conference play that year. In 2006, Iowa State coach Dan McCarney pulled the same stunt, going public with retirement plans the weekend before the Cyclones played Mizzou. He didn’t get a stadium named after him, but his team won its only Big XII game, knocking the Tigers out of contention for the North division title.

Of course, there’s a pronounced difference between a coach stepping down and a coach being shitcanned with several weeks left in the season. From all reports, Ron Prince’s firing was, as college football icon Martha Stewart might say, a good thing. K-State drove its busses into Columbia sporting a 4-5 record, a three-game losing streak, and a stumbling performance against Kansas the weekend before. The Tigers only seemed to struggle against emotionally-charged teams, as when a beloved coach rode off into the sunset. Still, the K-State players might feel that they cost their coach his job. No telling what mental state the Wildcats would show up in. My hope was drunk and sleepy.

The Tigers had their own Klennex moment to contend with. November 8th marked Senior Day, the last appearance of the most successful class in terms of total games won in the school’s history. Twenty-three upperclassmen would run from the Faurot Field tunnel to embrace their coaches and parents. A touching, bittersweet moment, but nonetheless one followed by a proverbial “must-win” football game. Still, you had to like the Tigers’ chances. Against inferior teams—and K-State certainly qualified—they had proven about as emotional as professional assassins.

This would be my last trip of the year to Boone County—a dollop of blue surrounded by red on the election map and a school where the elite liberal media were taught to walk, talk, and lob cynical asides at Republicans. It also happened to be my birthday weekend. Far better as an alumnus than an undergrad, when my birthday seemed to always land the day before mid-terms. AD flew in from Los Angeles and I picked her and her 500-lb. suitcase up at Lambert Field in St. Louis. We made it to Columbia in time for a fancy-pants dinner at a restaurant called Sycamore. The temperature had dropped like a General Motors pension fund over the last 48 hours, and the wind whipped up to 20 mph. We followed my friend Heavy D’s edict of ordering the cheapest wine on the menu. There’s sound logic behind this: All dining establishments know that many patrons are on a budget yet still want a bottle of vino. It’s just good business for them to enjoy that bottle and want to return. Therefore, the cheapest wine on any upscale menu, without fail, is a carefully-selected one worth far more than its price would indicate. Still, any need for the vintage to “breathe” was trumped by my need to warm my belly as fast as possible.

I was doubly pleased to note that Sycamore offered a beet salad. A lot of my friends think beets taste like dirt, which draws into question how they came to that conclusion. I believe that beets can’t be beat. They’re full of vitamins and, besides, how many deep magenta foods do you get the opportunity to gnaw on? Bonus points to beta vulgaris for producing a far scarier special effect encore than asparagus.

Dessert arrived with a candle in it—the whole meal was AD’s treat. As I enjoyed my coffee and made my wish (a BCS bowl bid over something hard to measure like world peace), I glanced up just in time to see a Marching Mizzou trumpeter double-timing it down the sidewalk. I grabbed AD—she had paid, hadn’t she?—and double-timed it after the tardy soloist. Sadly, we arrived at Harpo’s just in time to hear the closing strains of the Missouri Fight Song coming from inside. Apparently lots of other band members missed the wake-up call, too, as there were several of them milling about outside with us. AD took it all in stride, assuring me that she caught the gist of the performance. She’s either incredibly low-maintenance or doesn’t give a stale beet about Marching Mizzou. Quite likely, both.

The next morning’s gray skies rolled in even colder. Over furnace-stoking hotcakes at the Broadway diner, the counter topic of choice involved the layering of clothes and an end to the near-perfect weather the Tigers had enjoyed thus far in the 2008 season. Tonight’s game would be contested in temperatures dipping well into the 20’s. This represented a drop of over 60 degrees from the previous week, with the stiff wind rendering lip balm and snot rags de rigueur. We browsed the Tiger Spirit store in search of a stadium blanket. I opted for the Mizzou plaid, “the official plaid of the Missouri Tigers.” Let it be noted that the official plaid of the Missouri Tigers features an Oklahoma crimson stripe, a KU blue stripe, and plenty of holiday evergreen. Maybe there’s some obscure tartan code that plaids must adhere to, but count me among the traditionalists who contend that Mizzou plaid should be black and gold on a white background, and that, in addition, there shouldn’t be something called “Mizzou plaid.”

AD asked me what I would normally do to kill time before a game. Um…er…that would be drinking. But with a post-game drive back to St. Louis in front of us, responsibility reminded me of just how much fun you can have on a college football weekend without alcohol: somewhere between “none” and “hardly any.” I strategically incorporated stops to Booches and Shiloh’s under the guise of warming up. We also made a hot chocolate run that made me pine for the peppermint schnapps of my undergrad days. Walking through Greektown toward the stadium, I felt confident that between the blanket and the four layers of clothing I wore—the bottom one comprised of cutting edge wicking material—there would be no problems with the weather.

The senior introduction went as expected, which is to say there wasn’t a dry eye in the house (in fairness, some tears may have been triggered from the cold). Undergrad football players lined the field leading out from the tunnel and the parents of the seniors waited at the end of the run. Lonnie O’Neal, father of the late Aaron O'Neal, came out first, to an ovation that he did not or could not acknowledge. The three Chases—Daniel, Coffman and Patton—were each given their bleacher-rattling due. The crowd showed Jeff Wolfert just how much it appreciated his boring automatic placekicking. Athletes and parents mingled and hugged—as private moment within a public one. The next day’s papers would show the emotion contorting Coach Pinkel’s face as he put his hand on O’Neal’s shoulders and, moments later, embraced and sent his Heisman-candidate quarterback to the field for the last time.

As one could expect after such a ceremony, the game began sluggishly. Less expected was that it would remain that way. Daniel took a hit as he released his second pass—a long sideline patter—and the underthrown result was picked off. The Tigers punted on their second possession. On the third, the offense began moving the ball, maybe because their eyes were finally clear. The Missouri defense forced six first-half punts, one of which they blocked. The majority of the others forced Jeremy Maclin to call for a fair catch.

If Maclin was stymied on punts, he took it out everywhere else. Finding a seam in the defense, the speedster turned a modest pass into a 42-yard foot race, and he doesn’t lose those. On the next series, with the team’s big toe, Chase Coffman, on the sidelines nursing his big toe, Maclin did his best Chase imitation, snaring a 16-yarder while falling backward in the corner of the north end zone.

Mizzou chugged into halftime with a 21-point lead. My date looked increasingly blue, and I knew that I’d have to balance my desire to watch the Tigers annihilate an opponent with hers not to lose any appendages. I wrapped her tight in the Mizzou plaid blankie and headed for the bathroom. The men’s room line snaked out the door and down the concourse, no doubt slowed by the layers needing to be shed to take a squirt. It looked like a Flomax commercial casting call, and once inside the urine fumes could fell a rat. The experience got me to thinking, how bad can adult diapers really be? Based on the convenience factor alone, Depends would seem a wise game day decision at any age.

The third quarter unfolded in proper Mizzou-rah fashion with the team driving down to the six yard line, stalling, and kicking a field goal. 24 points up, and the Mizzou plaid blanket was creeping up higher and higher on AD’s face. If the Tigers could just score just once more, we could leave. The Wildcats punted. Then, the Tigers punted. Then the Wildcats punted again. Then the Tigers punted again. The wind swept through the stadium like an Apache attack copter. I looked out of the corner of my eye to see AD staring straight ahead, her eyes barely visible over the blanket, shivering.

Once upon a time, on the studio backlot used for Gilligan’s Island, we produced a commercial for Budweiser that required us to shoot at night. The script called for the main actor to be thrown into the lagoon and then resurface with a funny expression. Warm California days can turn into bone-chilling nights, and after a few dunkings the director pulled me aside and told me that the talent may be becoming hypothermic. My response was that actors are pussies and we needed another take or five.

I knew then that I would never see the actor again. In tonight’s situation, if we didn’t leave with a 24-point lead and 3 minutes left in the third quarter, I might never see AD again, and the choice would be hers, not mine.

Walking across campus, our brisk pace masked my desperation to get to a car radio. By the time we buckled up and tuned in, Jeremy Maclin had taken a direct snap from center and rushed 56 yards for a touchdown to start the fourth quarter. Maclin would finish the night with three touchdowns and 278 all-purpose yards. The red-shirt sophomore may as well have run out with the seniors—projected as a first-round NFL draft pick, this was probably his last game in Columbia.

Warm as toaster waffles and barreling down interstate 70 ahead of the crowd, the biggest surprise left in the game was when Ron Prince, the lame-duck Kansas State head coach, called for an onside kick while trailing 41-17 with just over a minute left. Bold strategy, Coach Cleats. Don’t let the angry mob of alumni kick you in the ass on your way out.

Back in St. Louis, we found a late-night kitchen open in the Central West End. AD, her lovely form somewhere in the 98-degree range again, toasted the official advancement of my age at midnight. We crashed in the Union Station hotel, slept in, and scarfed down pancakes and bacon in bed the next morning.

Under any circumstances, getaway day is best done quickly. I dropped AD off and trudged to my gate.

There’s a scene in “Defending your Life” in which Albert Brooks’s character rationalizes his decision to spend his birthday by himself.

Brooks: You were born alone, you should celebrate it—celebrate aloneness. That’s what birthdays are for.
Friend: Gee, I never thought of that.
Brooks: It’s a pitiful theory.

I bought an airport turkey sandwich and sat down to wait for Southwest flight 2838. The skies remained overcast, and for the first time all weekend I felt old. Albert Brooks is right.

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.

Bye Week Saturday

While the Tigers took the weekend off to prepare and heal their owwies, I had a free day. Opening the door to an already warm morning, I found an empty 40 ounce bottle of Camo Silver Ice “High Gravity Lager” on the patch of grass outside my house. This sounded like just the sort of exciting new product I would have to make it my business to try.

ESPN GameDay broadcasted from Athens, Georgia, where the #3 Bulldogs would square off in the evening against the #8 Alabama Crimson Tide. I couldn’t in good conscience be upset about GameDay skipping Columbia when there was no game being held there. The show opened with a blatant ripoff of the Hank Williams, Jr. “Are you Ready for some Football?” Monday Night Football number, this one titled, as best as I could ascertain, “Yes, we’re Cominnnnn’…to your Cit-aaaaaaaaaaay!” The song, or, really, hoedown, was delivered via the country-western duo Big & Rich while a cute girl with perky breasts pretended to play the fiddle. The lyrics consisted of reeling off a bunch of college town names, none of them Columbia. I'm no Simon Cowell, but by any prudent standard the performance sucked at a level normally reserved for Milli Vanilli reunions.

The Georgia campus appeared fired up and black. Not the people, who were mostly white, but rather what they wore. This had been designated a “black out” game, meaning that fans were encouraged to wear that color (or absence of) instead of their usual red. Same for the players, except that it wasn't optional for them—otherwise, the Bulldogs might take the field looking like a checker board. In theory, this fashion turn gives 20-year-old football players a mental edge by providing a tangible sign that they’re playing in a big game. And it often works—for the other team. Every time Notre Dame switches from blue to green jerseys, they get ground into a turfy paste.

So Athens, normally awash in red on football Saturdays, looked like a Ingmar Bergan film cast with perky girls. Every student seemed to hold a sign, and the TV crew did an amazing job of showing the non-offensive ones (the ones that use sentences beginning with “E,” “S” “P,” and “N”) and cutting away just when “Lee Corso eats fromunda cheese” floated into view.

Because I’m watching the program, I could safely assume that I’m the target of the commercials, too. That’s the marketing goal, right? So at several station breaks, I was steamed to discover that apparently I enjoy the Olive Garden. By any entertainment standard, Olive Garden commercials underwhelm even more than their food, which is prepared by the renowned chefs who comprise their randomly-selected focus groups. One of today’s efforts features a table of well-groomed, suburban 20-somethings preparing to order. Just prior to the fine dining experience, there’s this exchange:

DOUCHE BAG 1: “So, I’m doing the math on this never ending pasta bowl—42 different sauce and pasta combinations!
DOUCHE BAG 2: “You do the math. I’ll do the alfredo!”

Everyone at the table cracks up at this cutting-edge zinger. Somewhere in America, an Olive Garden brand manager must be smugly smiling, satisfied that in the clever guise of dinner banter, a hard-hitting copy point enumerating the ways Olive Garden can give you diarrhea was unleashed on an unsuspecting public.

Back from break, Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit and Lee Corso run through their predictions for the day’s contests. Even though the Tigers weren’t suiting up, they garnered several mentions. Fowler pronounced the team “Missour-AH” one minute and “Missour-EE” the next, flip-flopping like a Show-Me State gubernatorial candidate. Chase Daniel hooked up for a phone interview and did his level best to say nothing controversial, inflammatory, or funny, inadvertently providing an audition tape for an Olive Garden commercial if this football thing doesn’t work out.

After about six hours of college football coverage and games, I get off the couch, my ass completely flattened, and take my semblance of exercise for the day—a 2-mile jog around Palmer Square that I've christened the “Hairy Palmer.” Thank you, I’ll be at my laptop all week.

Early that evening, I met my Cornhusker friend Heavy D for a Nebraska-Virginia Tech pub crawl. With the Huskers next on Mizzou’s docket, they merited my rooting interest. I wanted to ensure that they’d show up undefeated, ranked and ripe for a letdown next weekend. As we bellied up to the bar, the Georgia-Alabama game appeared side-by-side with Nebraska kickoff on the flat screens hanging above us. David R. was absent, sequestered in his Man Cave watching the Bulldogs and cursing the fact that his team took the field in black jerseys with plunging red necklines.

In rapid succession, both Nebraska and Georgia fell behind. The music in the bar grew louder in anticipation of the evening crowd and we suddenly felt ravenous. We made our way to Buffalo Wild Wings, proving that either a) I’m a hypocrite, and lame chain restaurant advertising actually works, or b) we wanted chicken wings. Nebraska trailed by 8 at the half but the blackout in Georgia had backfired to the tune of 31-0. Reminding myself to wash my hands several times so as not to remove my contacts with hot sauce-encrusted fingers, Heavy D and I called an audible, cabbing to the sports bars of Southport Avenue.

En route to our new destination, we received a text from a distraught David R. He predicted a biblical Alabama smackdown of 103-0. Further, he threatened to catch up with us before the Tide hit the century mark, an unprecedented evacuation of the Man Cave that would parallel Gus Grissom ditching the space capsule in The Right Stuff. Heavy D and I had our own problems. Surrounded by TVs, we could no longer find one showing the Nebraska game. We asked for help—every Chicago bar has someone in charge of the universal remote—but received none. My corn fed amigo fumed. Consumed with rage, he ordered nachos.

David R. caught up with us at Southport Lanes, a collared button-down covering the shame of his traitorous black t-shirt. The sports ticker indicated that the Nebraska game concluded with a 35-28 Husker loss. An uneasy feeling came over me. My friends’ schools had just lost their first games of the year, and I was the bastard sitting there undefeated. It’s akin to hitting a hot streak at a blackjack table while your friends sitting next to you pay for the casino’s lighting bill. You’re a dick by association.

By the time I hit the fart sack, sleeping on a compost heap of chicken wings and nachos, three teams ranked in front of the Tigers had gone down to defeat. Of the five teams featured on regional pre-season Sports Illustrated covers, Missouri now stood as the only one without a loss.

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.

Gameday: Columbia, Missouri

Tigers vs. Nevada Wolfpack
September 13, 2008

Every election year, the politically inclined keep score as to the degree their preferred candidate is getting the shaft from either the “liberal” or “right-wing” media. Mizzou fans—steeped in the paranoia of a journalism curriculum that exposes malfeasance in local dogcatcher elections—know that if you stacked all of the slights afforded McCain, Obama, Biden and Palin together, they would pale in comparison to the towering media dung heap shoveled upon the Missouri Tigers.

The liberal right-wing media’s preferred tactic for showcasing their open disdain of our program? Ignoring it altogether.

Exhibit A: ESPN College GameDay, the popular show hosted by Chris Fowler, Lee Corso and Kirk Hirbstreit. The plucky trio broadcasts each Saturday in the fall from wherever the big game of the day is played, effectively designating that campus, for at least that afternoon, as the center of the college football universe. GameDay’s tailgate atmosphere (each week raucous fans can be seen behind the set) gets ratcheted up by the fact that the location isn’t announced until the week prior. Like the Monkees, they may be coming to your town.

Except that, since GameDay’s inception in 1993, that town has never been Columbia, Missouri.

On September 6th, 2008, GameDay made its 11th trip to the University of Florida campus. They’ve made 10 trips to Ohio State and 9 to the University of Michigan. The cruelest snub of all came October 28th, 2006, when the crew passed on #19 Oklahoma vs. #23 Missouri to broadcast from Columbia. Columbia, South Carolina.

Someday, Oliver Stone will direct “College GameDay, The Movie,” exposing the evil that lurks behind the smiling corporate façade. Revenge will be served cold, with Wilford Brimley playing the part of Corso and preening peacock Dane Cook portraying quarterback pretty-boy Hirbstreit. Variety will break the story of Bill Pullman declining the role of Fowler.

In the meantime, the center of my personal college football universe remains Columbia, Missouri, and this week’s top media story involved not the College GameDay conspiracy, but Hurricane Ike. Making the 6-hour trek to the Missouri-Nevada game, each news broadcast led with the evacuation of Galveston and low-lying parts of Houston, causing me to wonder why the NCAA considers Native American team nicknames politically incorrect but killer weather system names (Miami Hurricanes, Iowa State Cyclones) hunky dory. Also, why Ike? Dwight Eisenhower was one of this country’s most popular presidents, expertly residing over the Cold War via a strict policy of playing many rounds of golf. Why name Hurricanes at all? If meteorologists insist that they be named, then why not name them after people nobody likes? I'll volunteer my old girlfriend, Hurricane Mean.

I had left Chicago early Friday morning to break the gravitational pull of the city’s morning traffic, but the driving sheets of water Ike was pushing through the midwest slowed me down. At one point I’m relatively certain I passed a twister, with Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton (who also turned down the role of Fowler) in hot pursuit.

But like my hero Barry Manilow, I made it through the rain, pulling into a garage catty-corner from Harpo’s in time for lunch. For decades, Harpo’s has been the most popular beer joint in Columbia—Sports Illustrated ranked it #2 on the list of best college sports bars. It’s getting a run for its beer money these days from cheeky upstart Shiloh’s, but it remains the old school heavyweight champion. When students tear the goalposts down, they end up here.

And so do I, taking a welcome break from sitting on my ass in a car for six hours by sitting on my ass on a barstool--a decided upgrade. I order a Bud Light and a cobb salad, both of which are served by an stupefyingly attractive bartender—another Harpo’s trademark. I dug into the Columbia Tribune, the arch nemesis of the Columbia Missourian. While newspapers die everywhere else, they hang on here.

What’s changed at Harpo’s since I was in school? For starters, there’s far more advertising on the go cups. Behind the bar sits what my bartender friends would call a Kevorkian—the Jaggermeister shot machine featuring three upside-down bottles feeding into it. And several additional beer tap handles. Other than that, nothing’s materially different, except that I no longer order Long Island Iced Teas.

A cute girl walked in the front door and asked the cute bartender if there were any (probably cute) keys left last night. The bartender chirped, “No, sorry—good luck!” A waitress carrying a tray of food and beverages cheerily excused herself around a fat guy blocking her path. Girls in Columbia are nice.

Dennis Harper, one of Harpo’s original owners, still works there. He stopped by several tables—and my barstool—to make sure everything was up to standards (i.e., your drink was cold and the food barely edible). He lingered a while at a table against the front door, and a few minutes later one of the waitresses made her way over and said, “Lunch is on Dennis.” It was then I realized I was sharing my barely edible lunch with Heisman trophy candidate Chase Daniel.

This wasn’t a complete surprise. I had read that Chase and his parents ate lunch at Harpo’s before every home game. If you're thinking, “where does hard-hitting investigative reporting end and stalking begin?,” rest assured that, other than making sure that Chase wasn’t taking hits off the Kervorkian, I had nothing to ask him.

Generally speaking I feel it’s a sound policy to leave strangers alone, especially those you only know from TV. Which may be why I struggled in Los Angeles, where you’re supposed to hand them screenplays. Truth is, many celebrities actually want to be noticed, which explains why Susan Sarandon once asked me where the elevator was while I was standing in front of it.

I paid my bill, leaving a tip which would be considered generous but not creepy, and ducked into the Harpo’s bathroom. It retains the same stench it emanated in my undergrad days. If you took a dump there, you would not hesitate to throw your pants away. A newspaper hung over the urinal and as I held my breath I read about the demise of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Re-entering the relatively fresh atmosphere of caked-on beer and Lysol, I strolled toward the front door. Unbelievably, that fucking Daniel family reached it at the same time. Looking back, it makes complete sense that they would park in the same garage I did, since there were no street spaces available. The ride up in the garage elevator confirmed that Chase is funny (a kid in a SEMO shirt couldn’t believe he had run into Daniel while wearing it, and neither could Chase) and a legitimate 6 feet tall—a bone of contention considering that most listed heights in athletics are padded.

The elevator ride took too long for me to maintain my silence. “Keep the ball dry tomorrow, Chase,” I sagely warned. He leveled a glance and solemnly replied, “oh, yeah.” I had done my part to ensure zero turnovers.

The Tiger Spirit store on 9th street was sold out of black-and-gold ponchos, so I had more time to kill before their afternoon shipment arrived. The logical place to hit next was Booches, a bar and billiards parlor that’s been around since 1884. I finished my Busch long neck, turned to head to the bathroom—and walked straight past Coach Pinkel, who was eating lunch with three other men. Rusty roofing nails protruded from his burger.

What were the odds of running into both the quarterback and the head coach within minutes of each other, I wondered rhetorically as I held my breath in the even more horrible Booches’ bathroom. Fueled by three lunch time beers, I was now a seasoned veteran at annoying my heroes. “Good luck tomorrow, Coach Pinkel,” I wisely intoned. “Thank you! I appreciate it!” he beamed. I think we both wanted to explore this conversation further, but I had a poncho to buy and Coach had last minute game plan tweaks to make.

The poncho still wasn’t there. I gave them my cell phone number and headed for Brady Commons, the student center housing the campus bookstore. They wouldn’t have ponchos, either, but if you want to know what it’s like to have a team that was #5 in the country, you have to see how t-shirts are selling. The answer came in the form of the line that snaked from the cashier to the back of the store. Everyone—students, professors, parents and college football stalkers—felt the urgent need to stock up on Mizzou scarves, pajama bottoms and face stickers. Finally, the poncho call came. I picked out a beauty.

Nevada, our weekend competition from the WAC conference, was no pushover. They had extended Texas Tech the week before, holding dark horse Heisman quarterback Graham Harrell under 50% passing and picking him off twice.

They’re also no Nebraska, so the bars on Friday night were well-populated but not shoulder-to-shoulder. I headed for Shiloh’s to watch the Kansas-South Florida game. Several patrons chatted me up, sensing my afternoon encounters with Chase Daniel and Coach Pinkel. South Florida came back strong after trailing in the first half, and when they took the lead, an excited fan knocked my beer over, drenching my arm and the bar. It was a classic enthusiasm spill, and the play was in front of me—I should have anticipated it.

I scanned the bar. Here’s a sign you’re getting old: you no longer have any concept about the workings of 21-year old breasts. Can they possibly be both that impressive-looking and real? Were after-market upgrades all the rage, even here in mid-Missouri? Could bra technology have advanced that much since you were an undergrad?

The KU-USF game entered the fourth quarter. Back at Harpo’s, a mini-contingent representing Marching Mizzou—complete with a tiger-striped tuba—strolled in around 10:30 and played a fight song medley, the patrons singing along. Now figuratively as well as literally juiced up, the crowd sensed a Kansas loss, which is the only thing Missouri fans relish more than a Tiger win. Malkon Bonani, the South Florida kicker, hooked a 43-yard field goal just inside the right upright with no time left on the clock. As the referee’s hands went up, conservative, churchgoing midwesterners chanted, “FUCK KU! FUCK KU!”

Perfect evening, and with an 11:30 a.m. kickoff, nothing left to do but turn in.

The next morning, the rain hadn’t hit yet, but looked like it could any minute. The humidity dictated that I change T-shirts several times from my hotel room to my car. I met my niece for breakfast at the Broadway Diner and headed to Faurot Field. Poncho? Check. Tickets? Check. Alcohol?

I had forgotten to make a run to South Side liquors. My preferred drink is beer, except for college football games. Too hard to sneak in. You can only accomplish it while wearing a big coat, and even then you’ve got to string the cans (always cans) around your torso like a bandolier. Plus, beer doesn’t mix with giant concession stand soft drinks. No, beer is for tailgates, a pint of Seagrams for the game.

But I had neither beer nor Seagrams, and anyway, what I really wanted was a bloody mary. It was around 10:30, and the tailgates were in full swing. I called Jackie Clark, the president-elect of the Mizzou Alumni Association who also answers to "Tiger Lady" due to her procurement of all manner of Bengal attire (boas a specialty and undergarments, I'm told, also MU-themed). No luck—she was partying in a sky box, as president-elects of all stripes are wont to do.

I decided to watch the game sober, convincing myself that it would be a character builder.

Inside the stadium, the rain finally came. Then, it stopped. Then it started again. My $7.99 poncho performed admirably, the hood flipping effortlessly up and down as advertised. As football games played in crappy conditions go, this was only about a 3 out of 10. Never did the soggy elements affect the play on the field, mainly because of my wise admonition to Chase Daniel.

On the fourth play from scrimmage, Derrick Washington broke a 59-yard run to make it 7-0. On the Tigers’ fifth play from scrimmage, Daniel hit Jeremy Maclin, who turned a nice gain into an 80-yard touchdown sprint. The Mizzou offense was operating better than it did against SEMO the week before, scoring every time they had the ball. The secondary continued their alarming trend of giving up a cheap touchdown late in the second quarter to make it Tigers 38, Wolfpack 17 at the half.

The second half opened with Jeremy Maclin drawing single coverage on a fly pattern. Here’s what that looks like: A cornerback running stride-for-stride with Maclin, Chase Daniel putting the ball well out in front of both of them, and Maclin separating by several strides and hauling the pass in like a Transformer in a Michael Bay movie. If I were that cornerback I would have tripped and fell and then cursed an imaginary seam in the turf so that nobody could see how much slower I was.

With the outcome well in hand, Chase Patton and Blaine Gabbert substituted for Daniel and rotated series, just as they had the week prior. They both directed scoring drives and played well, except that following Daniel, who was 25-for-28 passing, a normal completion rate makes the quarterback look like he’s struggling.

The rain came harder, and as the Tigers tacked on an early 4th quarter field goal to make the score 62-17, my niece clearly wanted to leave. She was right, of course, except that she doesn’t know the experience of watching the Tigers on the wrong end of games like this. We compromised, watching the end of the game at Booches over a celebratory burger and my delicious first beer of the day.

Afterward, I received a guided tour of the new journalism school addition. The unveiling the week before had coincided with the program’s 100th anniversary, and the detritus from visiting dignitaries remained. I asked her if the journalism professors seemed to favor Obama over McCain, and she told me the presidential campaign didn’t come up all that much. Then we walked past a photojournalism display of black-and-white pictures. One featured Obama looking resolutely into the future, his wife and children in fuzzy focus behind him. Next to it stood a shot of John and Cindy McCain being wanded for metal as they passed through airport security.

Driving home, the weather continued to deteriorate. The ESPN scoreboard update marveled at the Tigers’ offensive output, and Chase Daniel in particular. He had now directed scoring drives in his last 13 possessions—12 for touchdowns—vaulting him to the front of early Heisman trophy discussions. Maybe GameDay would make it to Columbia this year after all.