TXST Homecoming 2013/Pt. 2

"Chris does not know what homecoming mums are and when I showed him a pic he asked, "where does it go, on the back of your head?"  Hahaha - clearly he isn't from Texas!!" -Bianca Kapustka-



Good evening everyone and welcome back for the second round of homecoming...  Please read yesterday's entry, 'TXST Homecoming 2013/Pt. 1' if you missed it - I don't want you to feel lost...  ;)

Okay, so when we left yesterday, Gabby and I were picking on Alyssa and what she did to her poor cat, which happens to be the official mascot of this blog.  #bellethecat  (If you didn't read yesterday's post, you HAVE TO SEE what Alyssa made Belle wear for Halloween, HAVE TO!)  ;)  We were also starting to pick on my horrible football Sunday, but we'll have plenty of time for that later...

Before we get to the actual football game, we have to finish up with the tailgate.  We'll start with the fact that I seemed to see EVERY SINGLE MEMBER of the Texas State Cheerleading Squad roaming around the tailgate before the game EXCEPT for my friends Paige and Brooke, who are my two favorite Bobcat cheerleaders EVER...  I tagged them in a facebook status shortly before 3:00 p.m. to inquire about their location, and they responded that they were already in their room (inside the stadium I'm assuming, preparing to cheer at the football game, WHICH IS SOMEWHERE in our near future, I promise you)...  ;)  Missing the photo opportunity with Paige and Brooke means that you're saved from seeing my photo in two blog entries in a row, so you can thank them when you get the chance...  :)  I did take photos of them during the game and thought about posting them here, but the shots with my Droid, even from the 21st row, well..., I might as well have taken the pictures of Paige and Brooke from OUTER SPACE...  Good work though ladies!  :)

Okay, fast forward to about 4:00 p.m., when I saw a sight that pretty much summarized the atmosphere of this tailgate...  One of the fraternities (I'm not sure which) had a deejay and an area where members were dancing to the music.  Then a group of about 10 to 15 who were dancing together started spraying beer above their own heads, much luck professional sports teams do with champagne when they win championships (hopefully the Red Sox this week)...  ;)  THEN some people above the crowd dancing below (from the deejay podium I think) start throwing red Solo cups full of beverages down onto the dancers...  And this was at FOUR in the afternoon (you have to remember that I'm used to staying up til 2 a.m. when I go out - this was EARLY)...

So during the course of the afternoon I'm posting regular facebook statuses about how great this tailgate is, and my friend James, who answered my social media begging for a ticket to the game on my birthday a couple of weeks ago, asked me if I needed a ticket to the homecoming game.  Believe it or not, I wasn't begging for a ticket this past Saturday, knowing that the game was going to be shown on ESPN 3, but of course I accepted when James offered, and had a great time once again (we're really almost to the football game)...  :)  As I was walking toward the stadium to meet James and his son in a good spot, I overheard an excited tailgater exclaim, "THAT WAS THE BEST TAILGATE EVER!!!"  It seems that my assessment was correct...  ;)  Oh, and as I'm waiting for James and his son to walk up, I see a stadium attendant RUN BY the bench that I'm sitting on, and then I notice THE SMOKE from the stretch of grass that borders the long parking lot where the tailgate was held.  The way that Saturday had been going, I wasn't really surprised by anything at this point, but the small fire was put out quickly, and then..., there was a FOOTBALL GAME...

Texas State versus South Alabama for homecoming...  Our Bobcats entered this game as a two-point underdog, and the Jaguars did lose by only a touchdown at Tennessee earlier in the season, so this matchup had some promise as far as being interesting...  My friend's young son was a nice addition to our group as he was packing a tablet with him, which allowed us to watch cartoons AND look up the scores of other games in the college football world during slow points in our own football game (televised game = lots of t.v. timeouts).  The highlight of having little James with us was his dislike of mascots of any type, and his hiding under our seats when he saw 'Boko' (the Bobcat) early in the game...  :)  Back to the tablet, well..., that was the other thing about the tailgate...  I had so much fun at the tailgate that I didn't even think about the other games that were going on Saturday after I left Austin when the Texas A&M/Vanderbilt game reached halftime.

Okay, now for the game itself (really)...  The Bobcats had a one-handed "pick-six" in this contest that we thought might make ESPN's Top Ten Plays (I never watched, so I don't know if it did), but this game got VERY INTERESTING late.  With about 2:20 left in the game, we kicked a field goal that put us up 30-24.  Now as the game had progressed, the Jaguars seemed to figure out that they could have success throwing against us, and now they really needed to.  They have a receiver that had both James and myself wondering how South Alabama had successfully landed in recruiting (big target, good hands).  Anyway, as the result of a LONG BOMB, for a touchdown, a pass that our defender NEVER looked back on, and didn't even seem to know when the receiver had caught the ball (very strange coverage), we were now down a point with about 1:30 left to play.  The good news is that you don't mess with our special teams, who had already kicked three field goals in this game.  The bad news is that our kickoff return wasn't outstanding.  The really bad news is that after running the clock down twice on our previous drive, we had used timeouts before kicking that field goal, thus leaving us with only one remaining.  The worse news happened as our drive drove RIGHT SMACK INTO a 4th and 26 situation (yes, I said FOURTH AND TWENTY-SIX)...  We snapped the ball, and our quarterback, forced to leave the pocket, started rolling to his right, and then he threw the ball down the right hash marks, and his target drifted behind his defender, and CAUGHT THE BALL, and eluded a safety, who had overrun the play, and we converted a FOURTH AND TWENTY-SIX, and were now set up at the South Alabama TWENTY-FIVE yard line!!!  Prior to this play, James had made the comment that maybe I shouldn't come to any more Bobcat games, since we seemed to keep losing - everything was on the line...  :P  We ran one more play for no gain, and then we called our last timeout with eight seconds left (yeah, the 'eight' comes into play).  After the timeout, our trushworthy special teams converted the 42-yard field goal, and our Bobcats were now up 33-31, with 4 seconds left.  What could happen in 4 seconds?  OH, first off, about half of the Bobcat bench flooded the field after the field goal, resulting in a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, so we're kicking off from our own 20-yard line.  Second, because nothing was going to be normal on this Saturday, one of the return men for the Jaguars was laying in the endzone before the kickoff (we SERIOUSLY BELIEVE that he was hiding from our kickoff team, facing them from the back left corner of the endzone, like he was about to do a pushup).  Third, because nothing was going to be normal on this Saturday, our kicker boots an elevated line drive down the middle of the field, which bounces a couple of times, eludes both previously standing returners (and the third guy, who had now gotten up), and goes INTO THE END ZONE FOR A TOUCHBACK, on a kickoff from EIGHTY YARDS away...  :)  So with 4 seconds left, the Jaguars line up at their 25-yard line (James assured me this was right - I wanted them at the 20), throw a short incomplete pass to the left, and still have 1 second left.  NOTE:  WE'RE AT HOME!  CAN'T WE RUN ONE MORE SECOND OFF THE CLOCK!!!  Okay, same formation to the right this time, the pass is completed, and now the Jaguars start lateraling the ball ALL OVER THE FIELD (this play seriously might have lasted close to thirty seconds).  As they advanced down the field and lateraled the ball from left to right, and right to left, they probably advanced about as far as our 30-yard line, and then back to their own side of midfield before we successfully corralled them, and won the homecoming game!  Final:  Bobcats 33  Jaguars 31  PHEW...  :)

Thanks again to my friend James who was once again a great fan to watch the game with (VERY knowledgeable), and to his boy who was about as well-behaved as any kid of any age...  So on top of all this, James and his son drop me off on the Square, at my car, where I change into my second shirt (I can dress up kind of nice, although you wouldn't know that from yesterday's photo), and then I hit an ATM before heading to my old haunt Harper's.  And then it happens...  There's a new doorguy at the front, and when I see him talking with someone, I walk around and ask him if I'm okay.  He stops me and says that he needs to see my I.D...  YES, Coach got CARDED..., AT HARPER'S!!!  Let that sink in for a minute...  :D  I'm just giving the guy a hard time - it's great that he's doing his job (although I did tell almost every single bartender that I ran into that I got carded)...  ;)  Okay, so the first thing that I do is ask when they start selling pizza.  You do remember 2 weeks ago when I didn't eat since about 2:00 p.m. and paid for it on Sunday, right?  Oh, and I did eat an order of nachos at the football game, so add that to everything that I ate in yesterday's post - I wasn't about to make the same mistake twice...  ;)  Then I get a beer and a water from Stew, before going over to Slackers to see my friend Nick (NOT up to Slackers, as my old workplace has been changed again).  Slackers has been moved down to the first floor as the second floor is being remodeled.  My friend Red shows up and then at some point the Black Sambuca is unearthed from the walk-in, and I probably have a shot of that before heading up to the Veranda (probably)...  ;)  After arriving on the roof, I learn from George that Colleen is now 'Mama C' (formerly 'The Queen' - ;) ), and then I'm introduced to a new friend after he brings out the Fireball (Cinnamon Whisky).  Domonique, who I instantly struck up a friendship with after I found out that she's majoring in accounting, and is suffering through it like I did 100 years ago (no one ever emphasized THE HOMEWORK when they sold that major to us) simply asked, "FIREBALL?!" upon doing her shot.  Domonique works at Louie's Oyster House & Beer Garden, so be sure to visit them also when you're in San Marcos (in addition to the businesses that I mentioned in the last entry and the businesses that I'm going to mention in this entry, including Harper's Public House and the Italian Garden)...  ;)  Then I bothered D.J. Z and Mrs. Z (and yes Jerri, you can dance CIRCLES AROUND ME, and you didn't have to get a degree in/or teach dance to do so)...  ;)  When I asked Jerri if she misses her former students, she replied, "kids - they grow up..."  Yeah..., JUST WAIT Jerri...  :)  For those of you who don't know, I coached about 100 years ago...

Okay, food seems like a good time for a new paragraph...  It's now after 11:00 p.m. and pizza is being served, so back down the stairs Coach goes...  After grabbing a slice of cheese pizza (I never want to feel as bad again as I did two Sunday's ago), I was back at Slackers bothering Nick and my new friend Jess, who I also instantly clicked with (and Jess works at the Cedars Mediterranean Restaurant & Hookah Lounge, so be sure to check them out).  Jess (who went to a high school that rhymes with the word 'money' - okay, not really, but you get the idea...) is similar to me in that she's not high on people with money treating other people like garbage...  INSTANT friends...  :)  Jess also bought me a couple of shots as we chatted (it's like my birthday was held over for two weeks, huh?), but in my infinite wisdom, I still hadn't eaten enough, so back I went to get another slice of pizza from my friend Kenny.  It was at about this point that I ran into my friend Lindsey, who I hadn't seen in quite some time.  As we chatted, she asked if the pizza was good, and as I nodded I told her to try it.  Lindsey tore off a small slice and agreed that it was good before asking me if she could buy me ANOTHER SLICE (the best homecoming EVER, right?!)...  :)  I really enjoyed catching up with Lindsey and I vaguely remember turning down someone's offer to buy me ANOTHER SLICE before I left San Marcos (maybe everyone read my birthday post and felt sorry for me)???  And yes, I turned down food - shut up...  :P

So I felt completely fine on Sunday, and then football happened...  Final:  Oakland 21  Pittsburgh 18  Fantasy football going into Monday night:  Show Me Your T.D.'s 125  Bikini Hill Bobcats 82  Coach's '10 Best Bets':  2-6 heading into Monday night (ultimately 3-7).  Without any further ado, here are the top teams in my fantasy league at this point...


East

Con Juevos (7-1)
Dead Crickets (5-3)
Bikini Hill Bobcats (4-4)


West

Good Dotto (7-1)
Show Me Your TD's (5-3)
Out On Bail (4-4)


And there you have it, Homecoming 2013 at Texas State is in the books...  Have a good one and I'll see you again for Football Friday!