Can't Win Em All

I think that should be my motto for 2013: you can't win em all, but if you're lucky, you get to go to a lot of them.
My latest game experience was Syracuse vs. Penn State at the Meadowlands.
Originally I wasn't going to go to this game because neither Billie nor Michael was available and I didn't want to sit with obnoxious Penn State fans like Nails and Jleary. And the cheapest tickets were $75, and they weren't even good seats.
But in the few days before the game a friend of mine who is a Jets season ticket holder got a special offer, seats that were previously $95 and $75 were cut to $20 and $10 (including the fees).
So I got myself a ticket in section 225, second deck, end zone (not corner), 8 rows back. It was actually a pretty good seat.

Nails, who has been planning this tailgate since the day the game was announced, and preparing for such an event his entire life, really went all out. He arrived 5 hours before game time, only because the gates didn't open any earlier. He had two grills, four coolers (3 for drinks, 1 for food), a table full of snacks, a smaller table for drink and a tent to keep out the sun.
He did three separate shopping trips, including one to a German sausage store, and he came back with 6 different kinds of sausage.

A Penn State fan with this much phallic sausage would have been a great target for jokes had I not agreed to a ban on Sandusky jokes as a condition of my invitation.
I ate two different kinds of sausage (and got yelled at by the Concierge by not referring to them by their proper German names), a hamburger, two chicken legs and so much steak (and that was just the first hour) that combined with the heat, I was sweating so much that I actually felt a little light-headed for a few minutes.
Nails brought so much stuff to the tailgate that even after we ate and drank for hours, the car was still packed to the gills after we cleaned up and put everything away for the game.

And that's when the trouble started, the game. I was in a section of mostly Penn State people, though most of them weren't that bad. Unfortunately the one drunk lout in the section was seated right next to me, and his two sons, between ages 7 and 10. Evidently the younger one is better at sports than the older one, because the drunk father spent the entire first half hugging the older one and telling him he can help him be better at sports.
And then he spent the entire second half trying to start a responsive "We Are" "Penn State" chant, to no avail.

And if that wasn't bad enough, Syracuse quarterback Drew Allen is clearly not ready for prime time. And I feel like the coaching staff made the mistake teams make with young, inexperienced QBs often make. They try to make things easy for them and simple, and low-risk, so they run on first and second downs, call basic pass plays to take the pressure off. But then the defense knows what's coming. Penn State did a great job of stopping our running game, which should be really good with Jerome Smith and Prince Tyson Gulley. And when Syracuse did pass, Allen looked at one receiver, and threw to him, whether he was open or not.

Syracuse's defense played great, forcing 4 turnovers, returning the last one to the 1-yard line setting up a score to cut the lead to 23-17 and giving them at least a puncher's chance on too late drives. But the play-calling was awful and Allen wasn't able to make a play.

It's unfortunate that Ross Krautman missed an early field goal, the game could have been entirely different had he made it. And it was even more unfortunate that Penn State's kicker who was almost run off campus last season made all three of his kicks, for which I had a great view.

Bottom line is this: Syracuse is rebuilding, without its head coach and much of its staff from last year, and without the starting QB or a viable replacement. It's bad timing that a new phase of rebuilding before the old rebuilding was completed, but now in a better stronger conference hopefully the blip will be temporary.

And even though we lost to some of the worst most annoying fans in college football, it was a fun day nonetheless.