My First College Football Away Game
It’s kind of hard to fall asleep Thursday night because tomorrow we are traveling. It is my first time traveling to an away game. This is my true freshman year. It’s a lot different than high school. It’s not a yellow school bus that we are getting on. We are riding on a coach bus. Of course I know whoever gets the back seat gets the most room, but they also get the most blows to the knee when other teammates or coaches have to go to the bath room. And if someone isn’t feeling good, forget about it…
This bus is loaded we have a DVD player. The seats recline a little bit. Notice how I said a little bit. Anyhow I can’t recall what we saw on the trip to the game. But I won’t ever forget that we saw “The Program” on the way back. It’s very ironic that I never could really get into this movie until this bus ride. The reason I say that is because I owe a lot to that movie. That movie motivated me. I remember the part where the guy taking the steroids come back to football camp the following season “huge” just ripped out of his mind. Now not to say that I ever took steroids because I never did, but the scene sort of went like this:
His Teammates: Wow what happened to you?
Guy on steroids: I got tired of watching you all start in front of me.
That was what motivated me. Here is why; because I was a true freshman, red-shirting at this point and we just lost about 49-3 in the pouring freezing rain. I’m wondering what the hell just happened. Now I can remember the end of my true freshman year after our spring football season my coach said: We need you to come into camp next season ready to start. He said do what ever you have to do, just be ready to start.
I came into camp trying to earn my starting spot over a senior. It wasn’t easy, he would try to “pull a rank” on me like I’m a senior I’m rotating in with the first offense. Then coach told me to rotate in as well. They liked me they told me I did amazing things as an offensive tackle. Things like veer in and get squeezed hard by the defensive end, and still get off to the middle or Mike Linebacker so we could run our triple option and have success after the pitch.
Our first game came and it was a home game we ran a two tight end offensive set. 2 tight ends just so the senior whose spot I took could still be a starter. Next game we just ran our offense with 1 tight end and I was 1 of the starting offensive lineman.
The bottom line is it all started with an away game, watching the movie “The Program.” Everything happens for a reason, I just think my first away game was my wake up call.
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