coal bowl

so here it is, two weeks late, mind you, but here, my first beer served at mountaineer field at good ol' west virginia u.

(ideally, would've been a miller lite, but the crowd made it tough to go searching for a vendor who sold it or anything else.)

my first season opener in i don't know how long. and my first wvu-marshall football game ever.

i work very hard to not get sucked into the back-and-forth that surrounds the game basically because i can dish it out, but can't take it.

it keeps me composed.

anyway -- the crowds were mostly polite to each other, aside from the sophomoric shouting from the undergrads in the parking lot at the school's guests.

the game had its usual shock -- this time, a punt return for a touchdown. but the team got untangled by the second half and seemed to be on its way to a comfortable lead when the big storm hit.

yeah, more weirdness. spectators were ordered from the bleachers because of lighting strikes.

kris' dad and i hit the road at this point because the idea of a delay, then another waiting for game traffic to dissipate did not portend a speedy trip back to parkersburg.

back in the day, i would have hung around and commiserated with other damp fans until the game re-started.

turned out we made the right decision. after two re-starts, the game never was completed and was called at 10:24 that night.

we listened on the radio to the what turned out to be the last touchdown while getting gas in clarksburg.

final: wvu 34, marshall 13.