[today’s run: watson road 3.2 miles]
My brother-in-law contacted me yesterday about going to the MSU LSU game today. I think they have two season tickets and sometimes no one in their immediate family (and whoever else might be on the standby list) wants to go.
So I went and sat by him. He and I had gone to Iowa State games as students long ago. So we have seen a lot of mediocre football together.
Mississippi State U is having some rebuilding pains. They were doing great the last couple of years. But the head coach suddenly died toward the end of last season so they moved up one of the assistants to the head position.
They were 2-0 going into the game. One was a smaller school and the other was Arizona, who they defeated in overtime.
They have had trouble beating LSU the last few years and today was no exception.
The old coach had a fast moving game with lots of passing. The new guy wants to go back to a more staid approach. Whatever the problem was, they had nearly zero offense until the last 3 minutes of the first half. They did a bit better in the second half, but I think some of that was because LSU was putting in down-string people.
It was sunny and when the breeze blew it was ok. When the breeze didn’t blow I was dripping sweat. There were a lot of people at the game (at least for the first half) and the lines for concessions and such were very long.
The end score was MSU 14 LSU 40-something. It was a blowout.
MSU had a couple of good plays and the kick returners had some excitement.
There was a call by the referee against MSU for “targeting”. An LSU guy was running with the ball. He leaped into the air. An MSU defender was under him while he was in the air and he came down on the defender’s helmet. So they called the MSU guy for targeting. The crowd vigorously booed that call. If that is the way the rule works, it needs to be adjusted not to apply to airborne players.
I’m thinking it probably was a mistake to go with the assistant guy and not do a search for a new head coach. I guess time will tell.