Toilet Bowl Promises

As I sat in the stands of FIU Stadium this past Saturday watching the Golden Panthers rally past Arkansas State, my head screamed at me for not keeping myself properly hydrated while tailgating all afternoon. It reminded me of all the nights I’ve spent hugging the toilet, cursing myself and promising God and anyone else who might be tuning in that I would never drink again.
You see, I approach college football tailgating with a vigor unlike anything else. The Xterra gets packed on Friday night and Tina and I spend most of the evening in the kitchen preparing Saturday’s feast. Usually I make my own special variety of wings in three flavors--hot, hot w/minced garlic, and extra hot--and Tina makes something fancy and healthy. For Arkansas State she made some turkey bacon club wraps and festive bean dip while I took the week off from making wings and just brought hotdogs. Of course, what tailgate would be complete without a cooler full of beer?
At my age, I’ve learned to become a smarter drinker, not only for the sake of others around me, but for my own sake as well. As I down beer after beer, I mix in a bottle of water here and there. Usually, I try to keep the ratio at a 3 beers to 1 bottle of water minimum. This not only prevents me from getting embarrassingly drunk, but it also helps to quell any potential hangover. Unfortunately, this past Saturday I forgot to keep up with the water intake.
I was fine up until halftime. Tina, our friends and I were in the student section chanting, cheering, romping and stomping. We went crazy when Paul McCall connected with T.Y. for an 84 yard catch and run play and booed when ASU scored. After the half was an entirely different story. Seeing that we’re all a bit older than the average student, we decided the atmosphere in the student section was a bit too frenzied for our taste and relocated to the visitors seating. Apparently, someone forgot to tell the ASU faithful that there was a game.
That was when the exhaustion set in. I suddenly felt like I had gone a week without sleep. My head started hurting and my legs were nowhere to be found. It wasn’t an early onset hangover, this was different. I chased down a soda vendor like he owed me money and bought a Powerade. After gulping that down I felt better, briefly. A good game was being played between two teams fighting for third place in the conference and a potential bowl game and all I could do was stare at my feet: my eyes couldn’t take the lights. I didn’t miss the wide receiver end around-fumble-option-pass to end the game, though.
I felt so bad that I couldn’t help but think back to the night that some friends and I did eight shots of Jagermeister, each. That night cost me about two days worth of toilet bowl promises, including a promise to never do Jager shots again, a promise I have kept to this day. Tina dragged me to a friend of hers divorce party once, and I proceeded to drink margaritas like a fish drinks water. There were many promises made that night, too. For my 34th birthday, when it seemed like everyone inside Buffalo Wild Wings bought me a shot, I promised myself that I would never tell my boss that I would come in on my day off again, especially when that day off falls on the day after my birthday.
Saturday night wasn’t nearly as bad as any of those times. The way I felt was caused more by exhaustion and dehydration than it was excess alcohol intake. When we made it back to the parking lot following the game I was able to down a few bottles of water and I felt better almost instantly. Although the exhaustion was still there, the headache went away once I got some H2O in me. Unfortunately I found that someone had stolen our mini-grill. There were no toilet bowl promises to be made that night though, only celebration of another Golden Panther victory, the fourth of the season so far. Not bad for a team projected as the worst in the country at the start of the season.

A Week of Firsts

Sorry for the lack of posting last week, but I had my first test of the semester and spent a lot of time studying for that. Now that I’ve entered the realm of upper division classes, I’m having to make some adjustments to my study habits. I’ll address that issue in Wednesday’s entry though. My wife was pretty sick last week, too. I spent one of my days off last week driving her to the doctor’s office and then to the pharmacy.
For now, I would like to talk about the week that was in FIU sports. The volleyball team continues to spike the competition. Sorry, I couldn’t resist the cheesy pun. They started conference play this past weekend and won both their matches, making them 2-0 in conference play, 12-3 overall. The men’s soccer team notched their first victory of the season on Sunday. In the 66th minute, defenseman Corey Kendall tallied his 2nd career goal for the Golden Panthers. I had to mention that since I had a Spanish II class with Corey over the summer. Despite playing some tightly contested matches, the lady’s soccer squad continues to search for their first win of the season. They also opened conference play this past weekend, falling 2-1 to Middle Tennessee and tying Western Kentucky 1-1.
Finally, the football team went up to Toledo and grounded the Rockets (I just can’t stop). The offense finally seemed to get it going, although it doesn’t hurt when you start four drives inside the opponents 30 yard line. T.Y. Hilton continues to spark the team. Besides Toledo turnovers, T.Y.’s returns on special teams were the reason the offense benefited from excellent field position most of the night. Not only was the offensive line able to open up holes for A’mod Ned (one touchdown) and Julian Reams (three TDs), but they gave Paul McCall the time in the pocket he has so desperately needed all season. He took advantage of it too, completing passes of 22 and 27 yards to Eric Kirchenberg and Greg Ellingson, respectively. He also threw a 37 yard touchdown pass to, who else, T.Y. Hilton. Hopefully this quiets the QB controversy rumblings.
The defense continues to shine. Not only did they force four turnovers, one interception and three fumble recoveries, but they held a team that put 54 points on 25th ranked Fresno State the week before to 16 points. The four forced turnovers gave the team a +2 turnover ration on the season. Of all the football stats that are kept, I consider that to be one of the important ones. You don’t find a lot of 1-3 teams that have a positive turnover ratio, which tells me that this team is better than its record indicates.
The Golden Panthers now begin conference play on a roll. When I did my football preview at the beginning of the season, I said that FIU might be able to steal a win at Toledo or North Texas. Now that they’ve won at Toledo, I don’t think that it is out of the realm of possibility that they win again this week. How nice would it be to have the Golden Panthers come home riding a two game winning streak?

FIU @ Iowa

The Golden Panthers will face another tough test on Saturday, this one in the form of the Iowa Hawkeyes of the Big Ten.  FIU, as you know, is coming off of a 40-10 loss at the hands of then #14 Kansas while Iowa drubbed Maine last week, 46-3.

The key to this game for FIU, as cliche as it may sound, will be the play of the offensive line.  Paul McCall did not have a lot of time to throw last week, spending a lot of time on the run, which is not the strength of his game.  If the Iowa defense spends a lot of time in the FIU backfield tomorrow, look for the more agile Wayne Younger to see some significant play time.  The O-line will also need to open bigger holes for A'mod Ned as well: 42 yards won't cut it.  In order to run Bill Legg's spread option offense properly, FIU must establish at least a threat of a running game.  Just ask John Parker Wilson and Alabama what a successful ground attack can do for the passing game.  Based on last week's game, the Iowa Run D may be just what the doctor ordered for FIU.  The Hawkeyes surrendered 137 rushing yards to the Black Bears. 

On defense we need to see more of what we saw last week, which was Golden Panthers wreaking havoc.  The Golden Panthers D forced two fumbles and made one interception while combining for nine tackles behind the line of scrimmage for losses totaling 30 yards.  Those tackles will come in handy this week against an Iowa offense that relies heavily on the run.  In their rout of Maine last week, the Hawkeyes ran for four touchdowns and 245 yards on 44 carries.  They were led on the ground by Shonn Greene, who carried the ball 22 times for 109 yards.   

Iowa started the season using a two-quarterback system.  Jake Christensen and Ricky Stanzi had very similar stats last week.  JC finished 9/15 for 122 yards with a touchdown and an interception while RS was 9/14 for 90 yards and no TDs.  Neither quarterback, based on their rushing stats, seems incredibly mobile.  That means the Golden Panthers may have an opportunity to get to the passers and  disrupt the offense of Iowa.  If the Hawkeye receivers have seen that hit that "Buzzsaw" Scott Bryant laid on that unfortunate Jayhawk last week, they may be a bit reluctant to run patterns across the middle of the field.

Overall, I'm looking for FIU to have a much better showing against Iowa than they did against Kansas.  I think that Iowa's susceptibility to the run will allow Paul McCall to properly run the offense and I would be will ing to bet we may have a few trick plays involving the speedy T.Y. Hilton on offense.  There is no reason not to try to get a weapon like that on the field as much as possible.  Although I do not think that FIU pulls off the upset, I think they are more capable of beating Iowa than they were Kansas.

My prediction: Iowa 37, FIU 21

FIU vs. Kansas Highlights

I found a couple of clips on youtube from Saturday's game.  Enjoy!

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