I nearly missed the big game on New Years Eve, the second of two big games broadcast on ESPN.  Michigan played TCU at 4:00pm, then Ohio State and Georgia at 8:00pm.  Cheryl booked a dog-friendly cabin for the holiday, five nights in Blue Ridge, Georgia, and invited her sister, Jeanne, husband Steve, and their two daughters.

Billions in China could care less, likewise our cabin.  Elyssa spent one night, Eve’s eve, with us before roadtripping to Athens to ring in ’23.  A junior at Oglethorpe, she plans to transfer to UGA her senior year.  Football no bearing, Elyssa is a film major, and her good friend attends.   Audrey is a high school senior, heart set on SCAD, Savannah College of Art and Design.  I’ve watched Audrey perform grand jetes in the school Nutcracker, but otherwise can’t recall a sporting interest.  Audrey stayed up for the ball drop.  Jeanne’s high-pressure, pharma sales job has her on the road a lot.  She read in bed.  Cheryl, who spent her frosh and sophomore years at UGA, couldn’t tell you who was playing or why.

Frankly, missing the game was my plan too, but old habits die hard.  My seventeen year-old self was interested, and so too my students, who’ve kept me in the loop.  So too, my twenty- and thirty-seven year-old selves.  At fifty-seven, I’d like to forego some past loves.  (Golf, check.  Mountain bike, check.  NFL on Sunday, check. Alcohol in Georgia, check.  No, check-ing. Alcohol in Ohio, really check-ing.)  No skin in the game, no Columbus, Ohio connection (last visit, college road trip circa ’85, a game of frisbee in the ‘Shoe), I am no fan of the pro-style sophistication, head coach salaries, or student-athlete cash for play.  Mostly, it’s the hours lost on dubious entertainment.

Earlier this fall, I’d watched Penn State play Ohio State.  At the time, the Bucks undefeated, quarterback a Heisman candidate who flung the ball like a toy over swaths of green to his favorite target, the gene-blessed namesake of Marvin Harrison, a former NFL standout, himself a favorite target of Peyton Manning, one of two NFL players my wife recognizes (crypto-shill Brady).

Contrast with Penn State’s off brand, discount quarterback — undersized, athletic enough, heart of a Nittany Lion —who had me quietly rooting for him.  Less swift than the scarlet-and-gray freaks in pursuit, he somehow kept escaping their relentless rush, a wild hare diving into a snowbank, outwitting the big-pawed lynx, disappearing briefly, to emerge from a winter landscape unscathed, whiskers twitching.  He kept converting third-and-longs, marching his team toward unlikely victory before finally succumbing, unable to escape the enemy of us all, fatigue.  A last scramble, a zig when he should’ve zagged, and, wham, a tree trunk of thigh was introduced to the kid’s helmet, bored straight through his ear hole.  Knocked woozy, the trainer’s shoulder aided the kid’s uneasy walk off the field.  Out from the blue concussion tent, he stood on the sidelines.  His eyes looked clear enough, cheeks rosy with the thrill of escape, it seemed to me.  The prey survived, helmet in hand, but only by opting out of the game.  Ohio State won.  I wished I’d never watched.

Steve was enthused for the big game.  An enthusiasm pressed into service by the mountain Direct TV package.  Who doesn’t opt in for ESPN?  The owner of our rental, whose tv screen size (mere 30 inches), was a missed clue.  After an hour of app-downloading, code entering, and cord connecting between Audrey’s laptop and television, Steve successfully streamed the game —to his phone.  The tv failed to connect.  On thinly padded deck chairs in front of a fire, we squinted at his phone propped by a cheese platter on a low table.  The last insult, one-third of the screen was afforded the big game’s live-stream announcers.

A tv camera was trained continuously, inexplicably on — not your typical, breezy in the booth, network-blazered duo — but a cabal of sideline prancers, five in all: designer-haircut, v-neck bulging, sport jacket flapping, cuffed-pant, bare-ankle ‘ballers of yore, all buff and hopping around like horny rabbits, howling, high-fiving, pontificating in baritones, “Oh no, hell naw, you simply cannot do that!” after players and coaches did exactly that.

By the fourth quarter, one announcer had migrated to a back end zone where he reached a meaty paw to snag an OSU field goal mid-air just after inching over the post.  Not that Steve and I had seen it.  The football was as visible as a puck on ice.  If I raised and lowered my readers just the right frequency, eyeballs steady, and stopped chewing my smoked gouda on rosemary cracker, I could make out tiny striped figurines raising their tiny striped arms after every OSU score.

The Bucks racked an eleven point lead in the fourth quarter and, despite my resistance, raised my spirits, just enough for me to text Anyone nervous? to Daniel and Scott, my two UGA-loving brothers-in-law.  Steve had egged me on, suggesting I be aggressive, strike while the iron’s hot.  The next play, UGA connected on a 70 yard touchdown pass, receiver running alone the whole way.

OSU recovered, but sure enough, the last two minutes, the lead changed, the Buckeyes fell, 42-41, but not before one last shot, their kicker lining up for a 50-yard field goal try.  The kicker secured his footing, like a hunter on holiday might secure his, bracing a rifle and aiming skyward, the sound a puncture wound, the blast signifying human celebration or just another frightened beast.  

The kick shanked miserably.

The big game clock ticked to zero, waning in sync with December.  An epic dawg hunt concluded without a kill.  Happy New Year.