Wow! What a Saturday to be a college football fan. The Luck of the Irish falls short as USC wins at South Bend, Meatchicken pulls off the improbable 1-second-left-in-the-game upset of Penn State, and of course the Buckeyes rolled to a 35-24 win over the Spartans of Michigan State.
I was at the Horsehoe again today and the first 40 minutes or so of the game were gut wrenching. It looked like OSU was going to give another game away with turnovers and bad plays. When Troy Smith fumbled the ball and MSU had a chance to go ahead big on us, I started getting really nervous. Sick-to-my-stomach nervous. But, oh, our Defense! Sure they gave up a lot of yards to the second best offense in the country but they clamped down when they were put in bad situations. After MSU missed their second field goal, things started looking better. And easier on my stomach.
Tedd Ginn and Santonio Holmes both had big games (finally!) and both did their best to drop everything that was kicked their way. Talk about heart-stopping moments. With 4 lost fumbles, we had a lot to worry about, but in the end, the good guys prevailed.
A cool thing happened while we were at the game. My wife was sitting next to an older gentleman who was wearing a 2002 National Championship ring. The thing was fricking huge. In passing, she mentioned what a nice ring he was wearing. Turns out, he was Michael Stafford’s (who was a senior OL, #50, who played on the 2002 OSU National Championship team) dad. It was pretty cool to see something like that up close. They don’t skimp on the jewelry for the winners. It was cool to see a piece of history like that.