HOOTY HOO

Uncle Urban Wants You!!! To Buy Ohio State War Bonds.
T Minus 24 Hours

MO CLAW

The night of January 3rd, 2003, is not a night that lives in infamy. Although my grasp on self control may have been tenuous at best and more realistically ungrasped, frayed and fluttering away from me in a strong wind while I shuffled after it, it still is one of the best nights. Ohio State played Miami for a National Championship that night.

The game was very even. Neither team could do much with the ball. A couple eked out points here and there would be a very apt description of it. My strongest feeling at the outset was the inevitability that Miami, a team that hadn't lost a game in years, was going to sooner or later do something to crush Ohio State's chances. But as the game wore on, that wasn't happening. The teams were too evenly matched. And then Ohio State's QB threw an interception to this destroyer of athletes, Sean Taylor, who used to make even the biggest baddest players in his future cut short career in the NFL look like little school boy bitches. Taylor was racing up the sideline, I was slowly sinking back into my seat, thinking that whatever sea change was occurring was not a good sign for Ohio State, when out of nowhere, Maurice Clarett ran Taylor down and snatched the ball out of his hands like Taylor was some drunken fool that doesn't need his last beer as much as Clarett did. It is my favorite moment of any sporting event that has ever happened and may ever happen. The unlikelihood of it ever happening in the first place is so remote and outlandish, that all anyone really could do was sceech like I do when I encounter a spider by surprise.

And that play also probably sums up why I love college football so much. It is chaos theory. If the NFL is the control in an experiment, then College Football is the variable. I don't know if that metaphor actually works because I am not a scientist, as much as it sounds cool to be one. But it sounds good so I am not deleting it. Maurice Clarett should have by no means been able to track down Sean Taylor on a football and stolen the ball from him. But it happened. And something like that happens most every year. And I can't wait for tomorrow when it starts.

PS: Ohio State won that game fair and square. Fuck all y'all that say otherwise.