A Calculated Risk
As it turned out, all of last week felt like one big Monday. Work was dull and boring, but I muddled my way through it. I didn't do much outside of work. I stayed home and rested up so that I could keep from spending money and go easy on my knee as much as possible. On Thursday night, I took in a showing of a community play and dragged my uncle out with me. It was a comedy/musical titled "Into The Woods". I enjoyed the show, but after seeing my uncle every day of the week, our bonding time got to be a little too much. I love the man, but he started to get on my nerves. (This isn't the first time either.) I think I also became a little annoyed that he "borrowed" my car without asking and didn't give it back until Friday.
At least my knee got better enough to walk again.
The second tailgate of the season went off without a hitch. The weather was sunny and mild, and we had the usual spread of food. The only downer was that the Spartans lost to the Central Michigan Chippewas. They are a smaller school, and we should have been able to beat them. MSU lead the scoring for most of the game, but they really had a problem with the defensive line. Our players could not tackle for shit. It almost always took three tries to take down any of their runners. The Chips came back late in the 4th quarter with a touchdown that almost tied up the game. They went for the 2 point conversion to win, and they failed. We had it in the bag, but the Chips tried for the onside kick and recovered the ball. They finished it off with a winning field goal with only a few seconds left. It was a big win for CMU and a big upset for us.
To hear my uncle explain it, MSU didn't try that hard nor make any attempts to play better in the 2nd half by design. It was a calculated risk. The goal was to make very standard plays so that when we play Notre Dame next week, they won't know any of our specialty moves. The Spartan coach is saving all of that for the Irish. The logic is that the CMU game is not a conference game nor does it affect our ranking (or lack thereof). If we save everything for Notre Dame, then they won't be prepared for us and that will hopefully give us the advantage. It may not matter so much now that Notre Dame lost to the Michigan Wolverines and fell out of the rankings, but that's the strategy. If we win next week, then we'll know that the strategy works. If not, then it will be a long season.
The rest of my weekend was nice. I slept in on Sunday then went out for coffee and a muffin. I took care of my weekly grocery shopping then spent the rest of my afternoon relaxing. I had movies to watch and photos to edit from a client shoot weeks ago. In the early evening, I went to a pig roast sponsored by a church on my block. I don't care to go to churches for anything these days, but I will go for weddings, funerals, and apparently, pig roasts. Nobody tried to convert me, so I count that as a successful visit with my neighbors.
