From Where I Sit: Bowl Bound
11/16/2010 10:34:06 AM | Football
Nov. 9: Tradition
Oct. 26: Revenge Tour
Oct. 19: Moving On
Oct. 12: Searching For Greatness
Oct. 5: Get Your SU Fix
Sept. 28: The Only Way to Pre-Game
Sept. 21: How Fans Are Made
Sept. 14: Emerald City Blues
Sept. 7: The End of Summer
As I drove south on 81 towards New Jersey on Friday night, the darkening horizon over the valley of Onondaga was tinged with Orange. It was a beautiful sight and a fitting start to the weekend.
The weather the next day was what they call “perfect football weather”. Sunny and warm in the early afternoon and then gradually cooler as the game wore on until the air had a refreshing chill to it.
The game was a slugfest with two offenses off their game and two defenses playing hard and fast.
When the third quarter ended, our players raised four fingers above their head as if to say, “this is our time.” Just minutes earlier, Ross Krautman, quietly having a tremendous freshman year, tied the game with a 48-yard field goal. The players could have been nervous, they could have felt the pressure of possibly losing another close game and putting off bowl-eligibility one more week, but it was the exact opposite.
They smiled and laughed and bounced in excitement, ready to finish the game and bring the win home. Winning begets winning. And these players are now experienced winners. They know what it takes --Nine months of preparation and 60 minutes of playing your heart out.
With 1:07 left in the game, Krautman kicked his second field goal of the day and got this program over a proverbial hump, only it was more Everest than Mole Hill. My daughter and son asked me what a bowl game was. One was a pre-schooler and one was a baby the last time we went to a bowl game. But it's worse than that, because not only haven't we been to a bowl game in six years, we haven't even really talked about the possibility much.
As the clock ticked to zero, and the Rutgers fans quietly filed towards the exits, our players sprinted on the field and celebrated en masse. They may be experienced winners now, but not a one of them has ever been to a bowl game. It was as if all the futility, all the doubt, all the disappointment of seasons past had faded from memory. They were winners, when few believed they ever would be, and they were bowl bound.
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