When Barker went down versus New Mexico State, in a drizzling rain, tied 14-14, with a stadium one-third empty, I sat near a wheelchair friend, and two complete strangers from the Air Force, under the cover of the luxury boxes, pissed off, with my arms crossed.
Right before kickoff, two young guys approached, wearing no Blue. They were active military, Air Force, and it was military appreciation day, so I grabbed two empty chairs and asked them to sit with our little crowd, under cover. I told the nearest usher the dudes were active military and he helped work out arraigning the seats.
I had hoped to regale then with my bullish!t: neither had ever been to an SEC game. One youngster was from Alaska, and was blown away by a “crowd” of 45 thousand, it being the biggest sporting event he had ever attended.
And then the wheels fell off.
Barker looked awful and could barely walk when he left the field. We already had lost to Southern Miss at home, at Florida by 30 plus, and are tied with an “overmatched” NMSU.
I could have regaled my new buds with the story of a QB breaking a leg at Houston in 1964, derailing a season and an era; I could have told them about Sonny Collins’ injury plagued seasons, or Al Baker’s ankle at Riverfront Stadium, but that isn’t excactly the bullish!t I had hoped to entertain them with.
A regular member of our little group asked if we would win any more games: I said we’d beat Vandy and the FCS on the schedule.
And I sat and silently stewed as a QB I had barely ever heard of took the field, along with a tailback who was an equal mystery to me.
My new Alaskan bud asked who the back was. I glanced at the free listing and said, “Benjamin Snell from Georgia . . . a freshman.”
He took a harder look and said Snell was from Ohio.
****************************************************
Two hours later my old friends (who could stand) and my new friends were worn out from standing and high-fiving.
My bullsh!t finally came to the fore: “This is the highest scoring regulation football game in stadium history . . . Snell’s late third quarter 5 yard run breaking 7 tackles was the greatest power run I had (have) ever seen.
And Whotf is Stephen Johnson??
What a bizarre turn of events: in one game we lost the gun we had anticipated would get us over the hump, to suddenly find unknown heroes who actually did get us over the hump.
I was nearly as low in 2019 when we lost our QB’s, and we turned to LBJ. Now we all know, had we turned to LBJ sooner, we might have had a ten win season in 2019.
We have the programs longest Bowl streak, the SEC’s longest bowl win streak and the nation’s longest out-of-conference winning streak.
And all these things sort of began on that rainy day in September of 2016, when all looked lost, and we had to rely upon unproven youngsters to make a comeback.
Pre-season, 2018, we lost our only 5 Star, Landon Young. He was walking pretty good in civilian clothes in January 1st, 2019, when we beat Penn State in the Citrus Bowl.
On January 1st, I strutted into the Citrus Bowl expecting us to blow Iowa away. Then a guy sitting next to me showed me the list of players out: our starting LT, top tackling LB, best edge threat, second string TB, etc., etc.
And Iowa made it interesting.
Will we lose Crod?
I don’t know.
But Stoops’ team history says we’ll be OK.
Right before kickoff, two young guys approached, wearing no Blue. They were active military, Air Force, and it was military appreciation day, so I grabbed two empty chairs and asked them to sit with our little crowd, under cover. I told the nearest usher the dudes were active military and he helped work out arraigning the seats.
I had hoped to regale then with my bullish!t: neither had ever been to an SEC game. One youngster was from Alaska, and was blown away by a “crowd” of 45 thousand, it being the biggest sporting event he had ever attended.
And then the wheels fell off.
Barker looked awful and could barely walk when he left the field. We already had lost to Southern Miss at home, at Florida by 30 plus, and are tied with an “overmatched” NMSU.
I could have regaled my new buds with the story of a QB breaking a leg at Houston in 1964, derailing a season and an era; I could have told them about Sonny Collins’ injury plagued seasons, or Al Baker’s ankle at Riverfront Stadium, but that isn’t excactly the bullish!t I had hoped to entertain them with.
A regular member of our little group asked if we would win any more games: I said we’d beat Vandy and the FCS on the schedule.
And I sat and silently stewed as a QB I had barely ever heard of took the field, along with a tailback who was an equal mystery to me.
My new Alaskan bud asked who the back was. I glanced at the free listing and said, “Benjamin Snell from Georgia . . . a freshman.”
He took a harder look and said Snell was from Ohio.
****************************************************
Two hours later my old friends (who could stand) and my new friends were worn out from standing and high-fiving.
My bullsh!t finally came to the fore: “This is the highest scoring regulation football game in stadium history . . . Snell’s late third quarter 5 yard run breaking 7 tackles was the greatest power run I had (have) ever seen.
And Whotf is Stephen Johnson??
What a bizarre turn of events: in one game we lost the gun we had anticipated would get us over the hump, to suddenly find unknown heroes who actually did get us over the hump.
I was nearly as low in 2019 when we lost our QB’s, and we turned to LBJ. Now we all know, had we turned to LBJ sooner, we might have had a ten win season in 2019.
We have the programs longest Bowl streak, the SEC’s longest bowl win streak and the nation’s longest out-of-conference winning streak.
And all these things sort of began on that rainy day in September of 2016, when all looked lost, and we had to rely upon unproven youngsters to make a comeback.
Pre-season, 2018, we lost our only 5 Star, Landon Young. He was walking pretty good in civilian clothes in January 1st, 2019, when we beat Penn State in the Citrus Bowl.
On January 1st, I strutted into the Citrus Bowl expecting us to blow Iowa away. Then a guy sitting next to me showed me the list of players out: our starting LT, top tackling LB, best edge threat, second string TB, etc., etc.
And Iowa made it interesting.
Will we lose Crod?
I don’t know.
But Stoops’ team history says we’ll be OK.
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