I think we all know what I’m going to talk about today.
The return of sweatpants as a legitimate item of clothing.
Except I’m not going to talk about that because THE AGGIES ARE 6-0.
We haven’t been 6-0 since 1994. That is the fall after I graduated. In other words, a lifetime, three head football coaches, a husband, and a child ago.
Saturday basically was the perfect day. (This article about Saturday is so great.) I got to sleep in until about 10:00 a.m. and woke up to P cooking breakfast. I visited with him while I drank my coffee and then made my way to the T.V. to watch ESPN Gameday broadcasting from College Station. (I record it because as much as I love it, why would I get up at 9:00 a.m. to watch it when there is such thing as a DVR?)
I knew I wasn’t going to be able to watch the Aggie game in real time because Caroline had a soccer game at 3:00 p.m. which means we had to be at the fields by 2:15. Since the football game began at 2:30, I had to make a decision to either follow along online or to go radio silent and watch it from the beginning once we got home. I chose the latter and even turned my phone off so that I wouldn’t be tempted to check the score.
Caroline’s team tied 0-0, but this was a team we’d lost to in the past so the tie felt okay and the girls played really well. And then we got home about 5:30 and turned on the A&M game. We were able to fast forward through all the commercials and replays and, ultimately, by the time we arrived at halftime I was feeling pretty good about life and the game. Until I remembered this was Tennessee and their hallmark this season has been second half comebacks.
The third quarter seemed to last forever, even on fast forward, but things were still looking pretty good going into the fourth quarter. The Aggies hadn’t been able to do anything on offense, but our defense wasn’t letting Tennessee score either.
At this point it was almost 7:00 and P announced he was going to check the final score so he could go ahead and start grilling burgers. But when he checked the score, he realized the game was still going and not only that, there were six minutes left. And that was about the same time our recording caught up to real time. So we watched the last six minutes as they actually happened.
Here is what that looked like. Trevor Knight runs in a touchdown. Tennessee responds with a touchdown. Trayveon Williams breaks away for a touchdown…but wait…the ball is knocked out of his hands and results in a touchback which is a college football rule I’ll never understand. And then Tennessee scores again and the game is tied with about a minute left. This was me.
And then we drive back down the field into field goal range. All we have to do is kick a field goal for the win with eight seconds left. And our poor kicker totally shanked it.
The game headed into overtime. Tennessee scored a field goal. Then we have to kick a field goal and I hate to admit what little faith I had in that moment but I looked at P and said, “This has all the makings of a soul crusher.”
But our kicker is resilient and he nailed it. So I was like this.
And then it was Tennessee’s turn. Josh Dobbs threw a long pass and Armani Watts INTERCEPTED. I screamed out loud “ARMANI WATTS INTERCEPTED THE BALL! ARMANI WATTS INTERCEPTED THE BALL!” and maybe did some version of this in my living room.
Then we ate the burgers P grilled and watched more football and, lo, it was about as perfect as a Saturday can be.
I mean, sure, we have to play Alabama in two weeks and I don’t know how that will go. But this team is special and in a year filled with presidential election drama and clowns and just a lot of sadness, I have found watching this Aggie football team to be a delight. They may cause me to have to color my grays more often than usual, but they are never, ever boring.
Gig’em Aggies.
One last thing, this makes me laugh out loud every time. Well played.
This song makes 6-0 even better! #Aggies #WreckingCrew
Made by your's truly pic.twitter.com/5zrrtmCOUl
— Ryan MacKay (@RyanMacK95) October 10, 2016