"Don't throw, don't throw, oh damn..."

So college football is in full swing, and with the Chiefs in their usual early season swoon, we must pay homage to the hedgerows, Hail to the Victors, and the Rock Chalk chant. What better way to do so by taking a trip to Toledo? That’s what I thought too.

The journey began at 10 am or so. The night before I had celebrated a fellow law student’s birthday and watched the West Virginia v. Maryland game. Since law students rarely drink, and do so only moderately when they do, I had no problem getting up and getting started on a 8-hour road trip. But I couldn’t help but think back on the night before, and think maybe it was a bad idea to tell my Latvian friend, who happens to be Jewish, that it may have been better if Russia had not rolled over the German army so quickly at the end of WW2. He pointed out that it had really worked out better for him as the Germans would have likely wiped out his whole family. I’ve really got to do some reading on this Hitler guy, he may have been an asshole.

Oh, but West Virginia is nasty. Major Harris, take a seat. There’s a new hero in Morgantown. Steve Slaton is a bad man. He had 195 yards on 21 attempts for a gaudy 9.3 yards a carry. Maryland sucks, but West Virginia is fast and has Vince Young, Jr. at quarterback. Too bad their schedule has them playing Wichita State 10 times. They’re going to get shut out of the championship while going undefeated, and that sucks.

But enough about West Virginia Cletus! On to Toledo. So my gallant friend Tim Slovik agreed to ride along and to suffer through D-2 football (his words, not mine). He even paid for his own ticket! What a trooper. On the long drive, we had plenty of time to analyze the important issues of the day. We agreed that Star Wars Episodes I through III stink, except for the last 20 minutes of Episode III. And no one has made a really kick ass movie about Satan. Maybe a movie version of Anne Rice’s Memnoch the Devil would work.

We eventually found our way to the Glass Bowl, the home of the illustrious Toledo Rockets. We felt a little nervous about walking up to the stadium with our Kansas shirts walking with a couple of thousand Toledo people. There was not another KU person to be seen. But once we got to the stadium, there were quite a few. So we relaxed a bit.

KU football is at a crossroads. Mark Mangino has a new $1.5 million a year deal. That’s some grip when you live in NYC, and that’s some serious grip in Larry. You can buy a lot of Mad Greek gyros with $1.5 million, and it’s clear that Mangino has done just that (face! There’s your fat joke). He’s taken us to two bowls in the past three years, which sounds good, but the bowls sucked. We got trounced by NC State in the Tangerine Bowl, and beat Wichita State (this is my code word for shitty college football team that doesn’t deserve mention) in the Fort Worthless Bowl. And it would be nice to win a road game, which we did not do once last year.

Getting into the stadium was a bit of a pain. We circled the thing a couple of times before we found will call and our gate. One of my friends bailed on the last minute, so we sold her ticket to Cletus for $5 for a nice loss of $25. The stadium itself was quite nice. A bit like a high school stadium, which when I pointed that out to Tim, he said, well, that’s what it is. Ha. But really, it was like a really nice high school stadium.

One end was a bowl, which they filled with the students. Without a giant ass track around the field, the stands are quite close to the field. They did give out thunder sticks, which should be a punishable offense in my opinion. The stadium was built out of sandstone looking stuff, and probably held 30,000. It was fairly full, but certainly not sold out.

We sat down in our section, which was around where most of the KU fans were. We were in about the 20^th row behind the KU bench at about the 40 yard line. It was really great to have such close seats. We were high enough to see the whole field, but close enough to hear some of what was being said on the sideline, especially when the coaches would yell. Very cool. We had a couple sit down next to us right after kickoff that were KU people. The guy reeked of Jack Daniels. What a jerk, who drinks a bunch of whiskey before a college football game? He wanted to fight these two dorks with KSU hats on (yeah, who knows?), so I thought it might be a long night. But he settled down and all was good.

On the first drive of the game for KU, we rolled down the field and Kerry Meier ran in a touchdown. I like Meier a lot. He played with a lot of poise and threw the ball much better in the second half. I think we have a very good team that is bigger and faster and better than any KU team I’ve seen since Mason’s team. We just totally crapped our pants. Meier was a part of that with his picks, but I don’t really blame him for them. We’ll get to those though.

The highlight of the first half was when Rodney Allen, senior defensive end, had a clear shot at the Toledo QB and failed to bring him down. He came off and got an earful from Mangino. He then took his helmet and chucked it at the bench and stomped up and down the sideline. It was cool. Some KU students sitting behind the bench then yelled him encouragement and Allen got very fired up.

The other key moment of the first half was Aqib Talib (or Muhhamad Ali the terrorist from Saudi Arabia as the Toledo fan behind me called him, I wanted to point out that he was actually from Texas but instead just let it go) limping off the field and heading to the locker room, which was quickly and predictably followed by Ronnie and Donnie Amadi watching a hail mary pass go over their heads for a Toledo touchdown. This just confirmed the knot in my stomach. When you dominate, ok, or just outplay, a team and you don’t put any distance between you and them on the scoreboard, you set yourself up for, oh, I don’t know, mind numbingly dumb calls that lead to turnovers that get you beat.

At halftime we stood in line in a steel cage type thing to get a pretzel, which led to the question of who designed these concession stands, Heinrich Himmler? Two Nazi references in one post, what a deal! We also stood in line with the KU cheerleaders as they bought old pieces of cheese pizza, which led to the question of can’t we get these kids a per diem? Come on Lew, there’s 19-year-old girls in skirts without proper sustenance! Then there was some fireworks at halftime too (the rocket pictured at left didn't get launched, it's just a statute).

The second half featured the Toledo quarterback getting repeatedly Trent Greened, and was knocked out of the game at one point which led to the backup Toledo QB coming in with the ball on his own one-yard line and predictably getting sacked for a safety. KU’s defense was dominating Toledo (who had no first downs in the second half and about 10 yards), and the offense was moving the ball just a little bit at a time. Surely we could just stay cool, keep our lead, smack the Toledo QB around, and kick a couple of FGs when you have a chance. Where’s Herm Edwards when you need him? Then Drew goes home happy with a dominating defense and a young promising QB.

But no, offensive coordinator Nick Quartaro hates freedom, puppies, and winning with defense. Much could be said if it was Meier who made bad throws, but you can’t make the calls to throw dangerous passes when you’re deep in your own territory and you can’t make dangerous passes that cost you points! But whatever, I hate my life for a few days and then I’ll watch the South Florida game.

Mr. Slovik, however, thinks the Rock Chalk chant is boring, that our mascot looks like a big cartoon bird (featured at left with the B-team Erin Andrews Heather Cox), and that waving the wheat is dumb. I told him he is dumb. But we had a good time.

Up next… the tour continues in Ann Arbor (what, the game is in South Bend?!).