Bowl Me Over
With the finish of the Orange Bowl on Tuesday night, another football college football season official came to an end. But I thought it might never finish. It was around 1 am when that game finally wrapped up. The game was really over by half time when USC was ahead of Oklahoma 38-10. But there were still 2 more quarters that was required to be played. Two more quarters of USC spanking Oklahoma up to a final score of USC 55, Oklahoma 19.
High scoring games like this last forever because the winning team just doesn’t use up the clock becuase they keep getting first downs and scoring, both of which stop the clock. And like I mentioned in the entry about Tennessee’s big win over Texas A&M (It’s How You Play The Game, January 2) if it’s an easy win, the game gets pretty boring and that makes it seem even longer. Then you’ve got the halftime show. Normally a college football halftime show is each school’s band marching around forming the outline of their home state then getting the hell off the field. But becuase it’s the big national championship game (the college equivalent of the SuperBowl), the halftime show is some combo of pop singers and dancing corps of teenager girls in spandex outfits with these fluttering wing type things off the shoulder of their costume. I swear every half time show that features dance teams wears that same outfit as they prance around “B-list” singers like Kelly Clarkson and Ashlee Simpson. The SuperBowl had Janet Jackson’s exposed tit. The Orange Bowl had Ashleee Simpson’s exposed vocal chords. I think even the religious right was crying out for a tittie at that moment. Anything but Ashlee Simpson. She even got booed by the crowd.
Even the coin toss before the game was turned into some elaborate ritual. I felt like I had somehow gained entry into the mystic world of the Shriners or Masons the way they described the special coin that was made specifically for the Orange Bowl and what each face represented, blah, blah, blah…play some football already! The quarterback’s arm has cooled down by now. Add to all that the “TV time-outs” for commercials and you are end for a looooong night. I think you could screen all of the “Lord of The Rings” in that amount of time. Although that could be the one thing more boring.
But I would have to say it was the Oklahoma players who suffered the most from the slowly ticking clock. After all, they had to know as early as the rest of us that it was over. There was no way there would be enough time, no matter how slowly it passes, to score enough points to win. So there they are, little voices inside them crying “God, just let it be over.”