It was a full weekend of football for at least some parts of our family this weekend. Here’s a breakdown.
Friday was a big local high school game. Cathedral, where our girls will go, was playing their biggest Catholic school rival, Bishop Chatard. BC has the most state titles in Indiana history. Cathedral is second. I believe Cathedral leads the stat in total wins and championship appearances, though. Or something like that. They play in different classes – Cathedral is roughly twice the size of BC – and Cathedral also draws from a much larger area, so they generally dominate the rivalry. St. P’s sends roughly equal numbers to each school, so Friday at St. P’s was a spirit wear day where kids got to wear the gear from their favorite high school. Apparently the halls were filled with trash talk throughout the day.
M was very excited to go, because a bunch of classmates were going to be there. It was her first high school football game hangout, OMIGOD! So I carted her, a friend, and L to the game.[1] The only issue was that we were in the early stages of our 48-hour rain event. When we got to the stadium, it was raining in torrents. It had actually started pouring right after school. Then I asked the girls if it was still raining this hard at game time would they still want to go. They responded with a quick “YES!” so that was that and we got thoroughly soaked just walking into the stadium. It was raining so hard that even the artificial turf surface was filling with large puddles in low spots. It was an utterly miserable night.
Fortunately, it stopped raining suddenly late in the first quarter. It drizzled a few more times, but the heavy rains held off again until after the game.
Unfortunately for the first time in quite awhile, BC was clearly the better team. Cathedral was kind of lucky to even be in it late before a last-gasp drive fell short. It was the first win for BC in the rivalry in six years. I’m sure there is no trash talking in the St. P’s halls today. M had a really good time. She has several friends at BC and ran into them at halftime. She was warned not to go over to their student section, because she would be greeted with chants of “YOU DON’T GO HERE!” because of her Cathedral shirt, which she thought was great. And she mocked some friends on Instagram afterward, so I think she’s prepared for her high school years and some of her best friends going to BC.
Saturday it poured here pretty much all day. We have a drainage area in our front yard that filled as high as we’ve ever seen it.[2] So why not lay around and watch college ball all day? I flipped around a lot; I’m still getting used to where our channels are on Comcast, plus trying to figure out what second-tier sports channels we had on Uverse that we no longer have. But I kept my remote thumbs busy.
The big game, of course, was the epic clash in Mt. Pleasant, MI between Kansas and Central Michigan. Coming off the loss last week to Nichols State, there was not much reason for optimism. It was more a question of how much we would lose by and if that lose would force the firing of head coach David Beaty.
Little did I know that Central Michigan might be the only D1 school that is shittier than KU. It helped that top recruit Pooka Williams was finally eligible and ran all over the Central Michigan defense. I fully expect to hear soon that Pooka never should have been cleared, we forfeit the win, and he never plays another down at KU.
But for one afternoon, KU fans around the world could revel in not only a win over a D1 school, but a road win no less! The first in nine seasons. This was no joke, people. America sat up and noticed. The CBS crew gave props to the Jayhawks after the Georgia-South Carolina game. ESPN chose the win as their “Mayhem Moment” as the fine Clemson-Texas A&M game closed. Things might finally be happening for KU football!!!!
Well, we’ll see about that. I think the most likely outcome for the season remains one win, although I don’t think this week’s opponent, Rutgers, isn’t all that great either. It seems like Beaty is a good guy who is trying to do the right thing. The problem is just bigger than him, and he was woefully unprepared to tackle it. This should serve as a nice pre-parting gift for him. An acknowledgement that he took the mess that Charlie Weis left and worked his ass off to try to get it turned around. Pooka Williams, and some of the other young guys Beaty has brought in the past two years, will be the stars when the next coach squeezes out a 6–6 season and goes to some shitty, December 21st bowl game.
Sunday Andrew Luck finally returned. We were in the midst of some house projects right at 1:00 kickoff time, so when I turned the game on it was just in time to see Luck about get his head knocked off. Yep, Colts are back to normal, doing their best collective effort to get the franchise player killed.
However, the bigger football event of the day was M cheering at her first CYO game. We had to make a trek about 45 minutes south to go stand in the persistent drizzle and chilly breezes so she and her classmates could root on the 7th–8th grade team. The cheer squad’s new uniforms are not in yet, so they wore their gym clothes for the game. I would have approved of them being given a pass until the uniforms come in, but the girls seemed excited about getting out there and getting the fans and team pumped up.
I had never been to a CYO football game before, so had no idea what the rules were, how long the game lasted, etc. It didn’t help that the host school’s scoreboard was not working because it got a little wet.
I quickly learned, though, that CYO football games are quick. They wrapped things up in exactly an hour, which is about as long as I wanted to be outside. There are no kickoffs, either. After a score the opposing team takes over at the 5, which seems a little deep. The field had goalposts but I never saw a PAT or field goal attempt, so not sure if both teams lacked kickers or the coaches just weren’t interested in kicking in the slop.
St. P’s won fairly easily. I have no idea what the score was, though. Because, you now, the scoreboard wasn’t working. Their best offensive play seemed to be moving everyone to one sideline after the snap, then having the guy with the ball cut all the way back to the other side and then race up the sideline. That worked for 40+ yard gains like four times.
Also, CYO football seems to be kind of shitty. I say this as someone whose mom made him stop playing football after fifth grade when I would have had to start playing tackle, so I don’t have a lot of personal experience. But, man, these kids couldn’t run, catch, throw, block, or really do much other than run into each other.
After the game, the St. P’s coach told his players to go thank the cheerleaders and give them high fives. I began muttering, to the other parents of cheerleaders who were huddled around me, “Nope, no touching of the cheerleaders. Just stay away from them…” Yep, we’re getting to that age where I’m starting to worry about idiot boys touching my daughters.
Sunday night I stayed up to watch the Chicago-Green Bay game. If you stayed up, too, you know that was one that we will never forget. Aaron Rodgers doing something to his knee in the first half and leaving the game on a cart only to come back in the second half and lead a furious comeback that ended with a 75-yard, game-winning throw to Randall Cobb. The dude is amazing. And we’re going to find out in a couple hours his ACL is shot or something and his season is over, right? The NFL is terrible.