A friend of mine solicited my thoughts on Saturday's OSU-Michigan football game. I wrote up a lengthy response to him and mailed it off, and then it occurred to me that I had not posted here in some time, and my dissertation on the Buckeye win was probably Chestnut-worthy, most notably because it's about time somebody got on ABC's case about their programming. And no, I'm not talking about Desperate Housewives.
So here it is (please note in advance that it is peppered with obscenity):
"OK. Let's do this. On ABC: I called their fucking local affiliate earlier in the year to ask them why the fucking hell they don't EVER play the games that the regional map says they're going to fucking play. I got screwed with OSU-Marshall, and I got screwed with OSU-Penn State. I don't think in either case the substituted game even had regional relevance. One of them was a fucking ACC game, and the other one had USC in it. So fine, maybe the USC game was a better matchup (Virginia-North Carolina certainly wasn't, in the season's second week), but the stupid map advertised the OSU-Penn State game, and I about lost my shit when they didn't run it, and I called Channel 5 to complain.
In the sports bar that week I found out that when the stupid local affiliate bumps games, they land on UPN. You know, because ABC and UPN are totally the same company. They're not, and it doesn't make any goddam sense, but whatever. That's where the OSU-Penn State game was. So when the happy lady from the local affiliate's PR department called and left a happy message on my machine offering to explain their arbitrary and capricious college football programming scheme, I said fuck it. I didn't have three hours to go over the whole tortuous fucking business, and my game would probably land on UPN if it happened again.
Then Saturday came along, and the game everybody in the goddam country wants to watch every fucking year — OSU-Michigan — was to be broadcast by ABC. They would NEVER mess with that, I thought. It's OSU-Michigan. I mean, Jesus. Then I turn on my stupid-ass fucking local ABC affiliate around 12:30 p.m., and lo and behold, they're showing BC-Temple. And BC-Temple should not be on television. Big East football should arguably never be on television, and a game involving Temple should never ever ever EVER be on television. Except on closed-circuit fucking TV in goddam Temple University lecture halls when the Owls are on the road.
I started eating my sandwich. I thought, what the hell? They'll probably switch over, bump BC to UPN, or if they really want to insult me, they'll bump OSU-Michigan to UPN. I'm halfway through my sandwich at 1:00. They don't switch over. I'm still watching 'ESPN+' bonus coverage on the goddam ABC affiliate. BC predictably beating the snot out of Temple, because they're like one of two teams left in that miserable shit of a football conference. Well, let's check UPN.
Harvard-Yale is on UPN. A game of 'regional' interest. This might be true, except that anyone who goddam cares about the Harvard-Yale game is actually at the game, probably drunk, probably with their pants off waiting to streak across the field. I understand that the Harvard-Yale game is a big deal. I get that Harvard is undefeated. What I don't get is why this fucking game is on television. The Harvard-Yale game is never on television. Ivy League football is not a television sport. It's an experience. So go to the goddam game. If you don't want to go, then you don't get to see it, because other, REAL football games like OSU-Michigan are WHAT'S ON TELEVISION.
I picked up the other half of my sandwich, thought really hard about whether I was going to throw it against the wall. The Wife gave me a look. I put the sandwich down, picked up the remote, cycled through my cable channels twice, just to see if I was missing something. Oh, no — I wasn't missing anything. There's the BC-Temple game on the stupid-ass fucking miserable crapper of a local ABC affiliate, there's Harvard-Yale on UPN broacasting to an audience of twelve, ESPN is running Penn State-Michigan, some other channel is actually showing NORTHWESTERN-ILLINOIS. But OSU-Michigan isn't anywhere on the goddam cable dial.
I lost my shit. I shouted, I screamed, I yelled. I went through the cable channels again. I saw that NBC had its usual Saturday religious programming — not the Notre Dame home game against some terrible service academy team, but even worse: NASCAR. And specifically, that part of NASCAR where they have a prayer at the racetrack before the fucking race. I expanded the scope of my shouting and screaming to consider the miserable state of the nation we live in, how our TV programming — which was the last citadel of secular sophistication — is getting goddam taken over by the hyper-Christian stock-car freaks from North Carolina.
The Wife threw me out of the house. After I left, she probably put Judging Amy on the TiVo.
I went to the sports bar, still seething, managed after a few minutes to find a seat at the bar in front of a television that was actually showing the biggest college football game currently being played within this nation's borders. I saw that OSU had scored on a 68-yard touchdown pass that I missed while I was in the car. The guy next to me kept asking the open air why BC's quarterback was no longer in the Temple game. I sipped my Diet Coke, managed to suppress my every instinct, which was to turn to the guy and say:
Who gives a rat's ass about BC's quarterback, you stupid stupid fuck? They play inconsequential games in an inconsequential conference that they'll be glad to leave next year so that real football teams can kick the living shit out of them in the ACC for years to come. They're wandering stupidly into a BCS bowl because their sad-sack conference still gets an automatic berth, for reasons unknown to me, you, and the goddam stupid assholes who preempted OSU-Michigan with this shit-for-brains Temple game. Shut the goddam living fuck up about the BC quarterback, because my team is now down 14-7, Michigan just downed a punt on the Buckeyes' 1-yard-line, I've got to sit here and listen to obnoxious Michigan fans cheering for their team (when if I could I'd be at home, by myself, watching this game), and if things get any worse, I'm going to take a big steaming shit on this bar and go crash my Volkswagen through the front windows of the Harvard Business School.
And then something really crazy happened. Troy Smith and the Buckeyes marched down the field, largely unimpeded by the Michigan defense, and scored a touchdown. OSU fans in the bar erupted. I hadn't seen them before. They had had no occasion to cheer since I'd got here. I thought about that 99-yard drive. That doesn't happen, I said to myself. That hasn't happened all year. My attention centered itself once more on the television. I was intrigued, and more than a little concerned. What was that I just saw? An offense? Because I hadn't seen anything quite like that in quite a long time — and that's including the 2002 national championship year.
I kept watching. And it kept getting better. The defense stiffened up, swarmed on Mike Hart, pressured Henne to make plays, forced three-and-outs, and the offense moved the ball and scored. It was unbelievable. I ordered myself a caesar's salad and boneless buffalo tenders. When these plates arrived I was allowed to forget my half-sandwich at home, which I'd left behind when the Wife threw me out. A Michigan fan took the seat beside me and swore a lot. He kept yelling, 'Throw the ball to Braylon!' He was also wearing a jersey with the number 1 on it, and he seemed a little bit like a groupie. I hated him. We watched the game for a while in silence.
Finally, I turned to him and said, loud enough that the idiot on the other side of me could hear: 'What the hell is that stupid-ass local ABC affiliate doing playing the goddam BC-Temple game?' The Michigan fan said it was an absurd development, and that it had caused him to leave the comforts of his own home to watch the game here. He continued to swear a lot, but we talked a little more. I was surprised to learn that he wasn't an absolute asshole, and actually kind of a nice guy, though I could afford to be magnanimous because OSU was up 34-14.
Of course, in the fourth quarter Tressel reverted to the usual 'run the tailback into the back of the tackle and fall down' playcalling, which allowed Michigan to get back into the game by simply throwing the ball to Braylon, as the guy next to me had prescribed. I started to feel the buffalo tenders kicking around in my stomach. Why why why why why? Why not actually try to get a first down, Tressel, and burn the clock that way? I mean, are you totally chickenshit? Run the ball outside, for crying out loud. Ultimately, of course, it all ended well.
And I went home happy and hugged the Wife and apologized to her about the outburst."
