a different drive.


I’m just now getting to the point where I feel like I’ve recovered from the game. We spent all day eating, drinking, watching, drinking, eating, watching … and then the jumping, yelling, hugging, drinking, eating…

To be more specific: Fred brought over about 37 pounds of homemade sausage to keep us going all day. Everyone else brought food as well, to help with the consumption that was bound to occur when the game got tight.

And it got tight, boys and girls, just as an Ohio State-Michigan game should. The thing is, I’ve found that my whole outlook on this rivalry has changed since the Cooper era. As hairy as it got in the fourth quarter, I’m no longer expecting bad things to happen. Someone’s going to make a play, and we’re going to win. It’s almost as certain as it was ten years ago, when I just knew someone was going to screw something up.

You say the words “The Drive” to a Browns fan, and you conjure horrible visions of John Elway. So if I go to Ann Arbor and mention “The Drive” to a Michigan fan, are they going to see Troy Smith hitting, I think 7 of 8 passes? Are they going to see Anthony Gonzalez getting jacked up but coming down with the ball at the Michigan four yard line? Are they going to see Antonio Pittman neatly sidestepping a tackler and pretty much walking into the endzone for the winning score?

Hope so. Because that’s what Uncle Crappy is going to remember.

The wife had to take in the last five minutes of the game from the front deck of the house, because she and the Coochie Doctor were having a hard time dealing. That meant I had to dash out to the side of the house after each play to let them know what happened and then run back to my seat in front of the television to take in the next one. When the drive began I basically didn’t sit down.

And then, pandemonium, first for the Gonzalez catch, then the touchdown run, and then, a couple plays later, when the UM tight end cut back towards the field instead of getting out of bounds. Champagne materialized. And that was it. We didn’t spend a ton of time watching Penn State and Michigan State, because we all felt more like watching our own postgame highlights on TV.

So now we wait for a couple more weeks to see what happens with the BCS. A game against Notre Dame in the Fiesta Bowl is still a pretty good possibility, and that would be just perfect.

But not as perfect as Michigan 2005 was.

6 thoughts on “a different drive.”

  1. Answer me this, How much sausage did you guys actually eat? Can you break it down by lbs/person, lbs/margin of victory and lbs/OSU’s take for a BCS bowl appearance?

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  2. Let’s see … Fred made something like 15 pounds of sausage (a hot italian, a kielbasa and a barbecue-spicy-kinda thing). So we’d be at something like a pound-and-a-quarter person … three and three-quarters per point … and the BCS thing is to be determined.

    I can say this for sure: I had more than my share.

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  3. ooh. The sausage thing sounds good.

    I think the Fiesta Bowl officials are pretty much wetting their pants at the chance for an Irish v. Buckeye matchup.

    The Irish don’t have much of a chance. They may have God on their side, but we have Woody.

    How many times have you watched the game? I just finished my fourth. It is just as exciting each time.

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  4. How Fred got to be so good at making sausage is kind of a mystery. When I got to know him, he had been a pretty hardcore vegetarian for many years. So he and Ethel take a trip to Italy together, and, when they return, we hear that Fred’s fallen off the wagon rather violently, starting with some kind of capicola on the plane to Rome. So in a span of about seven years, he’s gone from vegetarian to Sausage King. It’s been a Michigan day tradition for, um, three years now, and it looks like it needs to continue.

    I’ve watched the game three times now, enough to know that Lloyd was talking out his ass when he said Tony Gonzalez wasn’t forced out of bounds. Last year, the dogs … and now this? Please.

    And the Fiesta Bowl. They could get better television ratings for Ohio State-Notre Dame in a BCS game than the championship game would get. If they don’t do it, they’d be nuts.

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