A freezing bucket of Gatorade never felt so good
I had to wrap my hands inside hat held on by a scrunchie. I had to hold my jacket over my face so the wind would stop stinging my cheeks. Yeah, it was freezing outside. But as I stood at the top of the student section looking down on to the field of Nippert Stadium as the unusually large crowd poured on to the field to blanket the celebrating football team, I knew I had just seen something great.
The Bearcats made every mistake they could to lose the game. They fumbled a punt. The jittery backup quarterback fumbled an early snap. The list goes on. But Rutgers, previously undefeated and ranked 7th in the nation, was up to the task of matching, and surpassing, each and every one of those mistakes, as the Quarterback seemed to throw the ball to black jerseys more than he did to his own friendly whites.
Up I-71 a little less than two hours away, the Buckeyes wrapped up a crucial victory of their own. No doubt there were many Cincinnatians who were too wrapped up in this game to see their own team turn a historical corner. Mark Dantonio though, the UC coach who won a national championship as defensive coordinator of the Buckeyes, seemed to savor the UC victory as much as any Ohio State win.
How do I know? He smiled. He smiled even as he was drenched with ice cubes and purple Gatorade. For someone who's constantly projecting the image of a complete bad ass, standard square jaw-line and perma-scowl included, that's a stretch. When the student body answered his call, perhaps a few weeks too late, to not only be in attendance but to be enthusiastic, he must have been too overwhelmed to play the bad-ass all night.
Congratulations UC football! It's the first big win of many.
The Bearcats made every mistake they could to lose the game. They fumbled a punt. The jittery backup quarterback fumbled an early snap. The list goes on. But Rutgers, previously undefeated and ranked 7th in the nation, was up to the task of matching, and surpassing, each and every one of those mistakes, as the Quarterback seemed to throw the ball to black jerseys more than he did to his own friendly whites.
Up I-71 a little less than two hours away, the Buckeyes wrapped up a crucial victory of their own. No doubt there were many Cincinnatians who were too wrapped up in this game to see their own team turn a historical corner. Mark Dantonio though, the UC coach who won a national championship as defensive coordinator of the Buckeyes, seemed to savor the UC victory as much as any Ohio State win.
How do I know? He smiled. He smiled even as he was drenched with ice cubes and purple Gatorade. For someone who's constantly projecting the image of a complete bad ass, standard square jaw-line and perma-scowl included, that's a stretch. When the student body answered his call, perhaps a few weeks too late, to not only be in attendance but to be enthusiastic, he must have been too overwhelmed to play the bad-ass all night.
Congratulations UC football! It's the first big win of many.
