January 2nd, 2011. I sat thinking deep dark thoughts about College Football. Alabama's defense had injured both of our starting quarterbacks on their way rolling us 49-7 or 1000 to -3 which would have been more reflective of the actual state of affairs. With four first round draft picks and a conscience pure as the driven snow and no impropriety whatsoever, Alabama destroyed MSU in the bowl game. The memory of a magic 11-1 season was soiled in a flash.
An obvious *alleged* cheater had won the Heisman and was en route to winning the national title. We all smiled for Cam Newton, who honestly doesn't seem like a bad dude, just you know a cheater, *allegedly*. Auburn went on to win with it's future vacated national championship against Oregon who by the way *allegedly* went out and purchased the services of Lache Seastrunk. So Cheater V. Cheater. Who to root for: Asteroid. Interesting side note: If Auburn and Oregon have to vacate their 2010 wins, wouldn't that make TCU the national champion? Think hard about which rules to selectively ignore NCAA. MSU got dicked out of the Rose Bowl(I'm not implying we'd have won either, but I'd have liked to find out) by OSU's cheating scandal.
It was a dark January and the Lions were on the uptick. I thought about abandoning it all and rooting NFL from here on out and admiring both NCAAF and NFL from a distance. We pay thousands of dollars between season tickets, parking, tailgate supplies. * Every year, we spend 2000 dollars on activities related to Spartan Football and finally I saw last year for the first time, the game is rigged. The SEC is the king, not because of SEC Speed ™ but because of looser admission standards, shoddier self-reporting of violations, oversigning and the improper use of Medical Disqualifications *allegedly*. As the off-season progressed Yahoo aka the NCAA watchdog, reported violations of the major sort at OSU, Miami and Oregon. Notice who's missing there? But I digress.
* - For those of you who read this, the Mrs. has considered putting up the occasional tailgate recipe on here, thoughts?
Then the long hot football drought of summer set in and it began creeping back in. MSU picked up some recruiting wins, news started coming out of camps and I started getting back that itch. As I got tired of summer, I started thinking about how much I enjoy watching Big Ten football while you have a fire going in late fall. Remembering how much I enjoy walking in with the band because it sounds like they're marching in from hell. How you walk across the Red Cedar and you turn to your left and see the Stadium for the first time through the trees. How the tailgate is your own personal cheers and you say hello to your tailgating neighbors all over again. How my wife had contractions for our second baby after Little Giants. How we watched Larry Caper run right to set up a field goal, but instead run right over a Michigan defender on his way to the end zone.
Today is a day where I can relate to being a fan of ANY College Football Team, from USC to Coastal Carolina to Michigan. I know what this day means to me, and what it means to so many other college football fans. We wait and wait and wait and today we're no longer waiting, it has arrived. The deep dark thoughts of the offseason don't matter today(although they have made me a different fan this year). The predicting and tea leaf reading don't matter anymore either, now it's watching our favorite sport unfold in one of our favorite places in the world.
It's A Beautiful Day For Football.
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