The Greatest Game

I am lucky to have been alive during the past 16 years in sports history. In the collegiate footballing arena, I've witnessed four of the greatest teams in history, the Oklahoma Sooners of recent years, the USC Trojans of this year, and the Miami Hurricanes and Florida State Seminoles of the 1990s. In pro football, I saw the great 49er teams with Young, Montana, and Rice. I saw the Broncos with John Elway, the Browns with Bernie Kosar and Ernest Byner, and others. In the early 90s, I watched the Fab Five matriculate at Michigan, the Grant Hill and Bobby Hurley show at Duke, Larry Johnson, Stacey Augmon and the basketball juggernaut known as the 1989 UNLV Runnin' Rebels...

As a corollary, I've seen some of the greatest games these teams and others have played, such as Virginia Tech-Florida State in 1999, 2001 Oklahoma-Texas, 1993 Michigan-North Carolina in the Final Four, the 2000 subway series World Series, the 2000 Rams-Titans super bowl, and, more recently, USC-Notre Dame of 2005 and and 2005 NLCS, which the Astros won, but I'll let Logan discuss that...

But once in a while, I witness a game so remarkable that it puts the great games of the past to shame. This post, my friends, is my account of the greatest game I have ever witnessed; the greatest game I have been a part of.

The setting was glorious. Austin, Texas. Early autumn. A cool, brisk 68 degrees. National television with Brad Nessler, Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit in the booth. Texas in its beaufitul burnt orange. Vince Young leading a virtually unstoppable offensive attack that makes defensive coordinators weep. The unlucky victim for this game...?

...the Brown University Bears. That's right, Brown. Ivy League. No athletic scholarships. 150-pound linebackers. Midget wide receivers. The double-wing, option-run offense...Aaron Harris, Derrick Johnson, Michael Huff, and Cedric Griffin must have been licking their chops.

Yes, young grasshoppers, I am talking about a video game I played on my PlayStation 2 today. As Brad Nessler welcomed me to another presentation of NCAA 2005 college football brought to me by EA Sports, I could feel that this game would be special. I felt confident. My fingers were nimble, my cushion was comfortable, the A/C was on, a large, cold, glass of grape juice (as opposed to grape drink, which is comprised of sugar, water, and of course, purple) lay next to me. I was ready.

A strange feeling of anger came over me as I prepared to play the game. I didn't just want to beat the Bears, I wanted to maul the Bears. So I quit the game and changed the quarter lengths from 4 minutes to a full 15 minutes. Yes! I get to fuck with Brown for a full 60 minutes. No commercials, just offense. Pure, unadulterated, relentless, offense.

After Brad Nessler re-welcomed me to another presentation of NCAA 2005 college football brought to me by EA Sports, I settled in for what would be the greatest 2 hours of my gaming career. What ensued would become the most glorious, passionate ass-whooping ever administered by one college football team to another on the field. I wanted to run up the score on these fuckers. How dare they step into my stadium and challenge me to a game! I don't care if I did select them as an opponent.

I had one thing in mind - offense. I audibled my receivers to fly patterns (translation: go deep) every play. I ran hail mary's for the hell of it. I went for 2 point conversions after every touchdown. I kicked onside after each touchdown. My defense was impeccable. I threw downfield every play...

The Bears never had a chance. I took a chainsaw to the once-vaunted Brown defense. It was a massacre on the field. The evidence is below.

Key offensive stats:

-Vince Young: 66/99 for 2266 yards (~ 1.3 miles) and 45 touchdowns, 2 sacks and 1 INT
-As a team: 59 first downs, 2296 total yards of offense, 53/61 on 2-point conversions, 61 touchdowns scored (all of these new single-game NCAA records)
-Selvin Young: 49 punts for 606 yards and 9 touchdowns

Key defensive stats:

-As a Team: forced 13 turnovers, including 9 interceptions (5 returned for TD's), 7 sacks, and a combined 6/72 on 3rd and 4th down, held Brown to 319 yards of total offense

In the end, EA sports stopped taking score when it got to be 255-0 (3 minutes into the 3rd quarter). The stats kept rolling, and I took score by hand. When it was all said and done, the Texas Longhorns defeated the Brown University Bears 479-0, in what will go down in the annals of history as the greatest performance ever by an athletic club.

After the game, I watched the Astros win the National League pennant. Logan, you have to write about the Astros.