[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.
2 replies on “Football”
State-related university football is really a big deal. I think some are into it as fans even though they never attended, let alone graduated, the university they root for. That puzzles me. Also, the students who are on the field aren’t necessarily from the state that they play for. That puzzles me, too. (This vs. high school football.) Going from memory, 30 years ago in Wisconsin (where I studied) the new chancellor put major emphasis on football and cut funding for less lucrative sports like baseball (meaning alumni didn’t follow the sport) and got top notch staff in the football area. It was a big deal and upset a lot of people but paid off with attendance and alumni funds pouring in – which was the point. The chancellor was only around five years and left to eventually serve in a high level cabinet role for the president. So she wan’t necessarily loyal to Wisconsin career wise. I wonder if she watched UW football games after leaving? (I never went to a game personally or watched on TV.)
I haven’t attended a game in person since I ‘retired’ from being the statistics computer input person at UF a couple years ago. I keep thinking I should use our tickets and go some time but its such a big time commitment that I always end up watching the games on TV. When I was running the computer I was very thankful for the many TV timeouts; there was always something to go back and double check or fix in the game statistics. But it seems like there is a lot of dead time for the people in the stands.