Jason's Untimely Thoughts

Happy Thursday, Tiger fans! The happiest time of the happiest time of the year is here, as our beloved Tigers host the South Carolina Gamecocks for Homecoming. Kickoff is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. as the Tigers look to improve to 7-1.  I say 38-21 is the final outcome. 

It’s shaping up to be a perfect day for football on Saturday, especially Homecoming. Perfect weather is forecast, lots of people back in town for the game, the fall colors are in full bloom (anti-bloom?  decline?), and the Tigers host a football team with a bird mascot with an idiotic name. It’s like homecoming was invented for this weekend. The Messers are bringing pulled pork and some sides, we’ll have some sides and some Lutz’s chips as well.  As always, friends, sides, and desserts are good options for things to bring.

Last year I attended my first game at South Carolina. I was told beforehand (many, many times) that I had to go in early to watch their pre-game and “Sandstorm” festivities. While it is true that having a stadium full of people do anything simultaneously is cool (all Texas A&M traditions excluded, whoop!), this was basically just a bunch of people waving white towels around as a bird mascot was unveiled on the field. By “unveiled” I mean there was black plastic on a cart of some sort that semi-dramatically fell away to let us see their mascot. It was something, I guess, but I can think of way better things to do with a bird mascot on a football field.

The literal white towel waving continued into the game, which conveniently meant the college girl in front of us was smacking me in the face with her towel incessantly. After a few minutes of towel-to-the-face, one in our group commented that if she was going to keep dancing around like that, he was going to go get some $1 bills. She thought it was a little funny, her mom thought it was mildly funny, her dad had a different opinion. There was a moment where you could see him considering his options, then another moment where you could see him figuring out how many of us were laughing, then the waving of the white towels became metaphorical instead of literal. The Tigers marched 96-yards to score the first touchdown in a big win, the section of South Carolina fans around us gradually left, and all was well.

Speaking of all being well, screw ku.

p.s. I don’t know what the Boone County Bank buttons say this week, but if it’s not Happy Homecocking someone should be fired (or I should be hired).