I am very thankful I saw the first half of that game. My clothes were actually uncomfortable on me, so tingly with adrenaline was my skin. I was hoarse within ten minutes. Seventeen to freakin’ three. We dominated. Bradley called at half. “Talk to me.” He’d been at work. He knew the score, knew most of the stats. But hadn’t seen it.
We look good, baby, we look good. I can’t believe it. I don’t know if it’s a pretzel and I’m just so damn hungry its filled me up, or if it’s a t-bone and I’m legitimately stuffed. Yeah, he looks good, man. Yep, been in the whole game. He looks comfortable, yeah, it’s good. I don’t know what’s happened. Whatever, we look good, we look good. We kicked a freakin’ on side kick! Oh man, War Damn Eagle. Alright, call you later.
And then the second half. And Bradley thinks I’m a liar.
Oh man, fresh off the vicarious Friday night with Coach, fresh off the Finebaum-Franklin not-really-that-bad tell all, what was it going to be? What would happen? What twists and turns in the cold Appalachian Thursday, what blood would fill our veins and how?
Thursday is over. And the truly tragic ink of the L has dried quickly. The first meeting with West Virginia – lost. We have to live with it.
A quick thought on a contributing factor, a nauseating trend: The quarterback debate has raged, the Franklin fiasco unfolded, but this anguished season has also been marked with what now, eight games in, appears to be habitually shoddy 4th quarter clock management. For years the dice have been rolled properly against all odds and Tuberville would vanilla the hell out of the 4th quarter and we’d hang on to win or come behind at just the right time. This year, the Plinko is screwed up. Maybe it’s just me, but a strange complacency seems to rule our come-from-behind strategy, as if a 5th quarter will flicker on the scoreboard and eventually make wise an uncalled timeout or a decision not to go for it – only four yards – down two scores with six minutes (or even eight minutes on the possession before!) left and facing a most unpleasant and unstoppable greased midget able to spin broken plays into 30 yard runs at will. There was just no way, no way in the world we were going to score twice the way things were going.
But… be that as it may… I am thankful for that half.
It’s the most excited I’ve been this season, the warmest I’ve felt. Which is sad, in a way. But I choose to be happy. It’s not our year. But we have our quarterback. And we will have our game.
THE WAR EAGLE READER 
I’m glad to see i’m not the only one maintaining a sense of enthusiasm in our team. Yeah, we kind of blew it in the second half, and by kind of i mean totally, but i saw it, in the first half, it was there. That missing piece, that coming together, that spark that will ignite our offense and our entire team. I hate that it took eight games for it to show up, but better late than never. I still believe we would be in a completely different situation if Kodi was allowed to play the entire first game, or even the entire half, he just needed to get warmed up, calm down, and play football.
And it wasn’t just the offense, it was the ENTIRE team, and the coaches. The defense bent a little early, but still refused to give up a touch down in the first quarter. We now know that we have multiple threats in our return game, and in a strange twist Byrum made a short field goal, but missed a long one,go figure. I liked the onside kick, which was executed perfectly, i just wish we could have got some points out of it.
Then the second half came.
But all is not loss as some are most likely proclaiming. We saw potential last night, we saw a team in the first half that could have beat every team we’ve played soundly, and a team that can finish the season without another loss. Far fetched? Naive? Crazy? Maybe, but we can do this.
Only two game until Amen Corner.
Have faith.
Hope.
WAR EAGLE!