We believe College Football Odyssey has a unique claim to fame: we go to more doubleheaders than any other human. Saturday, game #1 was in downtown Atlanta as Georgia State hosted Army. By Atlanta standards, the heat was not oppressive but that did not induce more fans in the stands. The ongoing degree of apathy was disappointing for a home team that was highly touted. Perhaps, some would-be fans were siphoned away to the upcoming Miami-Alabama game at Mercedes-Benz.
Or perhaps they knew that the Panthers were going to play the stinker of stinkers. As the game progressed, it became clearer and clearer that the wrong team was favored. A week ago, the Odyssey was touting Georgia State. We profusely apologize for journalistic idiocy. Our lawyers are currently preparing defenses for the inevitable claims of football quackery.
The game turned on an amazing sequence of plays. Trailing 7-0, Georgia State was forced to punt. Army’s returner fumbled the punt. Georgia State recovers. OOPS! A holding penalty forces the redo of the punt. Then the strangest deja vu ever witnessed by the Odyssey. On the second punt, the Army returner again fumbles a punt. Georgia State again recovers! DOUBLE OOPS! Yet another Panther holding penalty nullifies a potentially game-turning turnover.
Army methodically built a 21-7 lead and pinned Georgia State deep in their territory on the 7 with 1:22 to go in the first half. We reflected that Georgia State’s QB, Quad Brown, could charitably be categorized as an erratic passer. His first two passes of the game were barely in the same zip code as the intended receiver. Regardless, the Georgia State brain trust made a reckless decision to have him throw on first down. Interception. Army scores and you have a 27-7 deficit against a team that chews up clock like no other with its ground and pound offense. Good luck with that. The Cadets ultimately had 42 minutes of possession time.
We also disliked another decision by the Georgia State coaches. Down 33-7, with 4:24 to go in the 3rd quarter, facing a 4th down and 11 from the Army 15, the coaches elected to kick a field goal. By making the kick, the Panthers were now down 33-10. Whoopee!! Sure, some math geniuses can point out that the field goal made the game a 3-possession affair. Sure, if the sputtering Georgia State offense could rally with 3 TDs and 3 2-point conversions, while contending with Army’s clock-chewing offense. Fantasy land!
Meanwhile, the Odyssey admired how well coached Army was. In addition to minimizing opening-game miscues, Army usually had a defensive “spy” on Brown. Brown is clearly more effective with his legs than his arm. Todd Monken versus the Georgia State staff proved to be the biggest coaching mismatch of the opening weekend. Did we mention that Georgia State was favored to win the game? A 43-10 verdict rendered such notion a farce.
Leaving Atlanta with a bad taste in our mouth because of the small crowd and Georgia State’s total dud, we were thrilled to find the antidote. We traveled to Auburn for Bryan Harsin’s debut. The student section was beyond awesome even an hour before game time in the late afternoon heat. Seeing the crowd go wild with the entrance of the War Eagle is always worth the price of admission and then some. Auburn’s impressive, 60-10 stomping of designated patsy, Akron, gave the passionate fans many opportunities to cheer. The Odyssey believes that the Auburn student section outshines all others in the 100+ stadiums visited over the past 50+ years. To boot, the light shows during the game were major fun. Arguably, Auburn has the quickest trigger finger in firing coaches. On the Plains, after the game, not even one complaint was heard about Harsin. Refreshing!!
Another anecdote regarding the passion of Auburn fans: I wore an orange polo shirt so the friendly locals understandably assumed that I was a fellow Auburnite. In such cases, the strangers totally excised the words “hi” and “hello” from their vocabulary and substituted the following two words: “war” and “eagle”.
In the press box, we experienced both agony and ecstasy in following Big Sky games. In our Friday article, we predicted that at least one of Montana and Montana State would give fits to quality FBS teams on Saturday. Turns out we were too cautious. Montana stunned a ranked Washington squad, 13-7. Montana State led for much of their game against Wyoming, before succumbing, 19-16, thanks to a 21-yard Cowboy TD pass in the final minute. We hope this restores our credibility to readers after our embarrassing gaffe in extolling Georgia State’s virtues a week ago. Plus, the Odyssey did predict that UCLA would upset LSU. Even the Odyssey can’t get ’em all right!