Fiesta Bowl

Hi!

Brandi and I went to the Fiesta Bowl last night between UT and OSU. Great game! You can read the details on ESPN's web site, so I won't get into them here. I'm sure you're wondering how we got tickets to such a game. Well, my association with Desert Sun has results in the acquisition of more than cockroaches. One of the parents is the CFO of the Fiesta Bowl and donated a bunch of tickets to the school. The Directors, in their infinite wisdom and charity, offered them to faculty, staff, and board members. Accepting a pair was a no-brainer. Many thanks to my mother and grandmother for watching the kids... Anyway, here's a picture I took of the field:



There was a lot of traffic, so we were a bit late. We missed the first two minutes or so of the first quarter, but didn't miss much. The first half was pretty lame. By way of comparison, had we missed the first two minutes of the Insight Bowl on New Year's Eve, we'd have missed two touchdowns! By the end of the first half, only three FGs had been scored. Both offenses really seemed to struggle. During halftime, both bands played. Here's a video of the OSU band:



The main reason I show this video is because shooting it totally drained my battery, so I had no juice to take anything as the game went down to the wire. I had only charged the battery once after receiving the camera as a gift from Brandi for Christmas. I should have charged it. Oh well... I was hoping to record a game-winning FG. At least the TDs late in the fourth were a bit of a surprise, so there's no way I could have anticipated them and had the camera going. The best way I can describe the end of the game is that "Texas snatched defeat from the jaws of victory, then shoved it back down its throat." I swear the UT fans in front of us threw up over the rail when OSU scored a TD with two minutes left, then the OSU fans did the same when UT scored a TD with :26 left.

The guy next to me seemed to know as much as I do about football, but that's not saying much. However, when OSU was driving down the field toward the end, we were talking about time management. It really didn't seem that OSU was planning to get the ball back. They had a 2nd and 2 at the UT 15 when they ran for the TD. Had they gotten the first down and used more time on a few more plays before a score, they'd have taken the lead with only a few seconds left. After the run, Brandi asked me whether two minutes was enough for UT to score a TD. I said, "Sure, it happens all the time." Sure enough, it happened last night.

Take care!
Matt