Sandwiched between the Thanks Day gluttony and the Old-Oaken-Binge was the fourth installment of the Turkey Bowl.
Frigid…that's the one word that sums up TB IV.
It was so cold, you could milk a cow and get ice cream to come out…of course that’s assuming one of the Glinke’s hadn’t already kill that same cow earlier that morning.
“Half time” was actually changed to “three-quarter time” this year because of the bone-chilling weather. Attendance was up, temps were down.
Actually, frigid doesn't even begin to describe how frigid it was out there this year…especially for the fans.
You can ramble about the pageantry until you’re blue in the face, but it doesn’t matter when the fans can’t even stick around because their own faces have turned blue.
But we'll save the literal weather talk for the water cooler, this game also had a lot of warmth. Warmth in its sportsmanship, warmth from the fans, and I think Tom actually had some warm pee running down his pants after seeing Bad Brad Williamson’s blitz on a crucial fourth-and-goal play. Game changer! Just when you thought Tom was rougher than a pinecone toilet seat, Bad Brad put him on his rump and changed the tide of the game…and possibly the entire day.
Like bringing in a freshman class and parting ways with the Seniors you’ve come to know, there were plenty of new faces. Williamson joined a rookie class alongside the likes of Mad Dog-Matt Thiele, A-Ron, Dicey Dave Hmurovich, and Alex Dane’s jean jacket…as originally popularized by Jay Andrew and his spike mullet circa 1988. The Gord finally made his triumphant return, but some of the old mainstays were noticeably absent. Let’s face it though, Tye would’ve been dressed exactly like Mansfield, Zach’s legacy is sealed with his “Jeffy, Jeffy” balls-in-a-vice-grip moment, and Adam’s so old that his career dates back to when the Dead Sea was only sick.
Sibling rivalries were maintained, with the Glinkes, Donaldsons, and Thieles divided as much as possible, but that’s about the only constant from the Turkey Bowl’s infancy to its toddler years. Even the flags were gone. Just when you thought two-hand-touch was some evil plot by Mr. Williams that you never had to do again, it came back. Since the humble beginnings on the Highland Park (Big) Triangle and its terrifying landmarks, to the Jeff practice field, and now the second year on the big-boy field, this event is growing faster than Groupon. However, the most distinguishing difference from year-to-year is that fact that not one person can seem to remember the rules established a mere twelve months prior. The Turkey Bowl learning curve never bends.
Also noticeably different from years past was the revolving-door “store hours” approach to kickoff time. It was as if the emails read “Open From 10:00 – 1:00”. Despite a clearly stated 11:00 kickoff, players showed up whenever the hell they felt like it…which somehow worked out well with the flow of the game. Mansfield was an hour late, but had immediate impact. The Thieles were a full hour early, which isn’t surprising considering a Turkey Bowl history of performance enhancers (last year Biss found empty 5-hour energy in Josh’s pocket mid-game...and let’s just say the nickname “Mad Dog” didn’t come out of thin air). This year’s moles also found credible information of Thiele boys running practice routes at Mollenkopf just one day prior. Even if we don’t know kick-off time, everyone knows there is a strict no training rule for the Turkey Bowl (OB’s knee-push-ups excluded).
Speaking of Todd, somehow with the Rudy theme music mysteriously playing in the background, as Crazy-Legs O’Brien stepped foot into Scheumann Stadium, he stated, “Hey this place is really somethin’ else huh? Someday I'm gonna come out of that tunnel and I'm gonna run onto this field.” A bit befuddled, Clay said, “Well, it ain’t gonna be this day…?” To which Todd replied, “I’m here to play football for the Bronchos.” Templin overheard this and didn’t really have the nerve to tell him that his opportunity to play for the Bronchos had actually lapsed thirteen years ago. Not to mention that OB actually peaked athletically when he banked in an ill-advised 3-pointer for the Broncho freshman B-team. But fortunately Jake put it in perspective for him when he told Todd, “I can tell your mind can see the move it wants to do, but the rest of your body just can’t keep up.”
Unfortunately, OB isn’t the only TB “athlete” with this limitation. The game itself was another battle of the wills, but it really can’t be overstated how f’n cold it was out there. In fact, I kind of blacked out the details of the game itself. Besides, with rule changes on every possession and a rotating door attendance policy, the game itself had the fluidity of a bizarre dream sequence. The field itself even doubled in size over the course of the game. But the real story of this year was the fans. Somehow they still managed to come out in droves despite the frigid atmosphere. Tickets were scarce. We still don’t know what the going ticket rate was with the scalpers this year, but our research team has determined that tickets were nowhere to be found on Stubhub in the week leading up to the game. The Andrews were once again the fans of the game, Frankie D wins the endurance award, and we even had sightings of the Late Great Cate Hmurovich and Darcy P.
Beside the Williamson blitzing bonanza, the biggest surprise of the game came when Jake Knott decided to steer clear of playing quarterback. This created an opening, and the first look the defense got of the revised offense showed Crazy Legs OB at quarterback. At this point, the defense was paralyzed. What could they do? This was like squaring up to the Crane-Kick or seeing the Flying-V coming down your throat, there is no way anybody saw that move coming and there was nothing the defense could do but stand there frozen. Obviously, this strategy threw a wrench in the defense…fortunately, it did the same for the offense. From that point on, Mad Dog Thiele and Squash ran their respective teams at quarterback with Jake stepping in for sh*ts and gigs. The game ran with fluidity from there.
For whatever reason, the bickering and boneheadedness of years past didn’t show up this year. Nobody got in a fight, nobody spiked the football mid-possession, and not one person panicked and punted on second down. The game was mostly competitive, but, as always, came down to the ever so tense “next score wins” scenario. Every single person out there had the internal battle of what it meant to be a true Turkey Bowl champion and go down in Lafayette lore…or whether to just go get a beer somewhere warm. For many, it was, without question, the latter.
So when push came to shove, it came as no shocker that Mad Dog pulled away with an interception and ran it back to forever place himself in Turkey Bowl history. Another one of the books.
Final score: 40-25, good guys!
Thanks again to everybody that came out and supported the “athletes”. As the planning for the event seems to decay with each passing year, we hope to see everybody out there next year…I’m sure we’ll get an email out sometime before you’re eating leftovers.
