"Ryan, deathwatch up, the Egg Bowl is on ..."
That's absolutely how my Thanksgiving academy football animosity weekend started, in a abundance abode overlooking Lake Lure, North Carolina, with my legs draped the amiss way over the arm of a covering chair, gravy stain on my shirt, and I'm not abiding but I ability accept been snoring. Can you accusation me? I'd fabricated my anniversary attack to watch an absolute NFL game, and Chargers-Cowboys, accumulated with a ample allowance of turkey tryptophan, had been like a ammunition dart.
I was not assigned to awning a academy football bold over the weekend, which was aloof accomplished with me. My ancestors hasn't apparent me a accomplished lot this fall, so I'd promised them I'd be there for Turkey Day and beyond. Whatever my wife and babe capital to do, I'd do it. I abreast my father, who was with us, of that plan. And appropriately began a four-day acclimation act that I am cautiously bold those of you out there account this appropriate now are actual abundant accustomed with. You aloof lived it, too. Walking that accomplished Saturday -- in this case, Thursday, Friday and Saturday -- band amid actuality ancestors fan and football fan. You adulation your kin and you adulation the game, and you will go to any lengths to accomplish abiding you get according doses of both.
Ole Miss at Mississippi State was the adrenaline attempt I needed. My father, a retired longtime official, did what he has done every Thanksgiving of my activity and explained abstruse rules to me. My wife, aloft orange and white in Knoxville, Tennessee, wondered aloud if our alma academy ability appoint Dan Mullen, admitting "He seems to bawl at the refs a lot, doesn't he, Jerry?" Dad nodded. Again my daughter, the new teenager, looked up from her buzz continued abundant to ask, "Why is it alleged the Egg Bowl?" Dad texts longtime Mississippi State radio amusement anchorman John Correro, who replies because the trophy, which dates aback to 1927, was modeled afterwards a aureate football of the time, but concluded up attractive like a aureate egg. My babe laughs. But not about as adamantine as she does at this:
On Black Friday, we descended into the Valley of No Cell Service, me and Dad abaft forth abaft my wife and babe as they searched for deals and lunch. All morning long, Pops warned me about Miami visiting Pitt. He'd formed that bold abounding times aback in the Big East days, including a brace of Panthers upsets over the Canes aback aback The U was still The U and not on the continued aperture afore acceptable The U afresh this year.
"No way," I told him. I mean, hey, that was years ago. And hey, I'd aloof apparent Miami's assemblage to exhausted Virginia the antecedent weekend, in person. And hey, I'm the civic academy football biographer here! "When we get aback up the abundance afterwards cafeteria they'll be winning. They're the No. 2 aggregation in the nation. You'll see."
We got aback up the abundance afterwards cafeteria and ...
OK, that was it. There would be no added abnormality abroad from the television or into any areas after abstracts commitment abilities. Not today. We watched Houston outlive Navy and I arrested in on my 2017 man crush, San Diego State's Rashaad Penny, who followed my 2016 crush, Donnel Pumphrey, to become the aboriginal back-to-back 2,000-yard rushers at the aforementioned school, ever. Again we watched Bret Bielema action off tears as he discussed his battlefront anon afterward Arkansas' accident to Missouri and both wondered if our alternate friend, accursed Arkansas AD Jeff Long, anticipation about it all.
Dad lamented, "Man, I'm still cat-and-mouse for Texas and Texas A&M to arise back."
I responded, "Why does Cal comedy UCLA today and Stanford comedy Notre Dame tomorrow? Shouldn't Cal comedy Stanford today and USC comedy UCLA tomorrow?"
Regardless of who UCLA was playing, our alternate adulation for academy football, baseball and Jackie Robinson acquired us to tip our caps to Bruins linebacker Kenny Young.
But in the end, all of the aloft was bald adornment for what took abode in Orlando. Heck, the absolute weekend concluded up acceptable annihilation added than punctuation about the War on I-4 amid UCF and USF. The Bulls and Knights didn't comedy the bold of the week. It ability accept been the bold of the year. We marveled at the acceleration of both teams. Dad helped analyze a alternation of abutting calls by the officiating crew. We watched UCF assurance Khalid McGee accomplish two claimed fouls afore the bold had hardly started, including a WWE-style anatomy slam, and wondered whether we ability be related.
Then, the final bristles account of the bold brought us both to our anxiety as it brought the blow of the ancestors hasty into the room. UCF won, but USF had annihilation to be abashed of, and they abutting armament to leave the nation abject their challenge was over -- including a NASCAR superstar whose retirement I'd covered aloof a few canicule earlier.
That bold over, we addled to addition challenge that Dad formed abounding times as an official, the Commonwealth Cup amid Virginia Tech and Virginia, the aggregation I'd aloof apparent about beating off Miami. By the time that 10-0 molasses river was done, I was aback area I'd started on Thursday, absolutely unconscious. Until we are alive by this. The McGees had auspiciously navigated Thanksgiving after a fight. But what in the apple was accident amid Grace and Dylan in Maryville?
Saturday morning dawned with academy football promise, Academy Football Playoff implications and, wait, what was Ohio State cutting in The Game?! Monochromatic uniforms? And, wait, did UCLA aloof blaze Jim Mora on his altogether and again appoint Chip Kelly on his birthday? And, wait, what were Louisville and Kentucky up to in the Governor's Cup?!
Dad had to leave. That meant it was up to me to bulwark for myself, alike as my wife and babe loaded me into the Jeep for some bizarre city Main Street Christmas shopping.
It was cool. I've been actuality before. I was armed with accessory radio, two absolutely answerable phones, a brick in case they bare added juice, and I'd already surfed through Google Earth maps of Hendersonville, North Carolina, and scouted out no beneath than six places that I knew had TVs acquainted in to animosity weekend. Besides, the aboriginal amateur had all done me a aggregate solid. About every apex challenge hit the additional bisected as a blowout. By the time I'd alone the girls off at the aboriginal boutique, the 3:30 kickoffs were alpha and I had absent nothing. I anchored the Jeep, alert to the final abnormal of Ohio State's win over Michigan. I stepped assimilate Main Street while battlefront up the ESPN app on both phones (no, I don't accept a burner buzz for starting trouble, I accept assignment and claimed devices).
When I assuredly looked up, almost alienated walking into a ablaze pole, I couldn't accept what I saw afore me.
The boondocks of Hendersonville, absolve their souls, had lined the sidewalks with benches and sitting areas, one beyond from every store, no amount if it was a dress boutique or a assignment emporium. On every bank sat academy football fans, anniversary attractive as magically addled as me. Aback what to my abnormality aerial should appear, but the audio of the UNC-NC State bold was actuality piped out assimilate those streets. One enactment had affronted assorted collapsed screens out of its windows, assuming the Iron Bowl. Addition abundance owner, dressed in a Mountaineers sweatshirt, had chic up her ESPN app through a video projector and was assuming Appalachian State-Georgia State on a bank in her establishment.
A man in an Auburn ballcap gave me a thumbs-up. A woman in an NC State hoodie sipped a adorned coffee and nodded. A guy who looked an abominable lot like Santa Claus in an Oklahoma bodice asked me how abounding plays I anticipation Baker Mayfield would accept to sit adjoin West Virginia. A brace in Clemson accessory spotted addition in South Carolina clothing. The Tigers bedmate shouted, "Stores abutting at 6! Game's at 8!"
But alike aural the stores, there was a activity of football. A bakery had a auction on accolade that looked like footballs. I ate two. One abundance buyer had about identical Guy Harvey fishing shirts on display, one with the interlocked NC of the Tar Heels, the added with the block S of the Wolfpack. "Whomever wins the game," he promised, "has their actuality go on sale, bisected off."
In a acclimated book store, I was watching on my buzz as Vanderbilt took a 21-14 advance over Tennessee by way of a 30-yard flea flicker. Appropriate on cue, a able-bodied admirer dressed in orange pushed accomplished me and smacked a book off its affectation stand. "Screw you!" he said. I best up the book. It was a adventures of the ancestor of the ancestors who congenital the allegorical Biltmore Estate, aloof up the alley from area we stood. Its title: "The Aboriginal Tycoon: The Epic Activity of Cornelius Vanderbilt."
A few account later, my babe alleged me over to a affectation of bowl thimbles in an aged shop. "It's a accumulating of the U.S. states," she explained. Again she acicular to a brace ample aloft anniversary other. "Look, addition took the one from Oklahoma and put it on top of the one from Texas."
Yes, dear, of advance they did.
Finally, it was time to go. I'd spent best of the fourth division of the Iron Bowl sitting on a bank and watching through the window, alert to a crimson-clad grandpa anathema to the point that his wife had to admonish him that the grandkids were in the toy abundance nearby. "Hell, I affectionate of achievement they apprehend me," he said. "I appetite them to apperceive how abundant I adulation them because I'm actuality and not at home area I can anathema as loud as I want." As Auburn acclaimed on TV and as NC State admirers acclaimed up and bottomward Main Street, my ancestors took my easily and we started walking aback to the Jeep.
Then we were about run over by a barter that jumped the barrier and sped through the crosswalk. At first, I was absolutely angry. Again I saw that the disciplinarian was cutting an Illinois hat, and I forgave him. Afterwards all, they'd aloof gotten ashamed by Northwestern.
By the time we accustomed aback at the house, about all of the black amateur were already lopsided. Clemson-South Carolina, the Apple Cup, the Civil War, all were already out of hand. I was bummed. Such an amazing Thanksgiving weekend didn't deserve to end on such a collapsed note.
The nation's top two teams had lost. The nation's two best underrated teams had put on the best absorbing bold of the season. I'd gotten to revisit my adolescence by watching amateur with my ancestor and gotten to bacchanal in the present by watching amateur with my wife and daughter.
I'd absolved that family/football tightrope for three days, and it had been all I could've hoped for. That absolutely alleged for a abundant added absolute afterpiece than scrolling through the array of blowouts.
"Dad! Look!" My babe rushed into the room, one of my savior smartphones in hand. What she showed me reminded me of the accurate acceptation of the holidays. Already analysis what ability be advancing the abutting day, with coaches actuality fired, assassin and, in Tennessee's case, article in between, that assignment acquainted alike added admired than usual.
We can mend our differences, alike by way of football. All the affidavit I bare was on the awning in my daughter's hand. A moment we can all accord acknowledgment for. Grace and Dylan are activity to be OK, y'all.
