A Beard's Perspective on Last Night's Game

I was going to type this out in a comment, then realized I had more to say than would reasonably fit in one. Then I realized I was too drunk to put coherent thoughts together. Then I passed out for several hours, and am now awake and sad.

Full disclosure: that was the first Tech game I've watched on TV in several years. Normally I just listen to the games, because in addition to stressing me right the hell out, I have it on good authority I turn into a raging asshole whilst watching, whether the good guys are winning or losing. Luckily, last night I was surrounded by several other raging assholes, so it was all good.

But that was not all good last night. That first quarter was such a tease. Such a bloody tease. I don't know if I just completely forgot recent history or what but I expected us to roll at the end of it. Then came the rest of the game, with the turnovers and the bad penalties and the defense starting to get gassed, then gashed. As we kept self destructing and UT kept capitalizing on it, the word that popped into my head over and over again was 'immature.'

You might not buy into this line of thought. That's fine. I'm just a tangled mess of facial hair that may or may not even still exist on BDC's face, after all. But it looked for all the world, from body language, facial expressions and the rest of it, like the guys psyched themselves out and got too up when it was 14-0. Then, once they got down, they stopped believing they could win. This would not excuse certainly but help to explain some of the undisciplined penalties we saw throughout the last three quarters. This was exacerbated by Cornelsen more or less completely abandoning the passing game for a long stretch of the 2nd half, whether because they were scheming to take it away or what, I don't know. So that didn't help. And neither did the epidemic of fumblitis currently plaguing this team. Fix it. Just fix it. These are fixable problems, and once they do get fixed, look out.

Now to address the good: once this offense clicks, we'll hang points on anybody. I was thoroughly impressed with our ability to move the ball throughout the game (which made it even more frustrating when we'd shoot ourselves in the foot). Keeping that offense rolling will help the defense, and lord knows it's about time they got some help. I think this team will gel. It just didn't happen last night.

Now to my state of mind as a fan: I fully admit to getting caught up in what I'll refer to as the shit abyss (thank you, Trailer Park Boys) last night. Yet another big game loss. Yet another time where everyone looks at us like we're a joke. This whole damn game is rigged against us. The refs are in the tank for Tenn. It's like rooting for the Chicago Cubs (well, up until about a year ago at least). At my most macabre, my mind would wander to things like well, we couldn't beat them on the field, so I hope some of their trash fans get beaten in the stands. (Remember what I said up there^ about "raging asshole?" Yes, TKP, even your resident clown has his moments.) You may have noticed I was fairly active in the game thread last night. When I recognized the asshole awakening, I attempted to comment less. If I contributed to the negativity in any way shape or form last night, I apologize.

TL;DR: We could hang with Tennessee, but somewhere along the way stopped believing we could. And rooting for these guys isn't easy, but I'll be damned if I ever stop.

I think we'll beat some teams this year we failed to beat the last few. One of these weeks we're gonna put it all together. Look out. Here we come.