Opinion: Football nut hits the road

September 10, 2008
By Evan Crum
Sports Columnist

Hey readers, with the playoff races in full swing and the Cubs seemingly wanting to give the division away, we should be talking baseball, right? I mean the White Sox are up at the time writing this, so I really should be talking baseball.

But wait, I’m going to be writing about football. I know I said I would talk baseball but I did something this past weekend that most people can’t say they have done. I went to two football games in one day.

How did you do that you might ask? On Friday night someone I know from Western Illinois University who was in Springfield said that she had an extra ticket to go to the Illini game against Eastern Illinois. I thought, well how could I turn down a free football game? Not to mention my alma mater, Western Illinois, played Illinois last year, so I was interested to see how EIU would do against them. I told her of course I would go. So off we went to Champaign.

I decided to tell my football buddies at Western Illinois that I was going to the Illinois game and to tell them how EIU looked compared to them. Western was at home against Quincy University after a heartbreaking loss to Arkansas two weeks ago. Illinois looked well coming off a loss to Mizzou. The only problem I see them having in the Big Ten is their run defense. EIU was able to break loose a lot of long runs. But EIU looked pretty bad compared to how WIU looked last year where it was a defensive battle. I was sitting, watching the Illini tell Juice Williams to run all over the place, when I got a text message from one of my buddies. It said: “Come to our game!” WIU’s game was at 6:05 p.m.. After sitting and doing the math, figuring out how long it would take to go from Champaign to Springfield to Macomb, I texted him back saying I’d be there. We left the Illinois game when the Illini were up I think 41-7 near the end of the third quarter.

I got to Macomb at around 5:15p.m. Boy was I happy with what I saw. I saw WIU’s defense dominate Quincy. I got to see my buddy who is an offensive lineman Reshad Jones open up huge holes and dominate the line. He made any defensive lineman look like they should run and hide. The offense fired on all cylinders. I saw my three buddies on defense make great plays. Jason Williams and Mike McEachern played great. Tim Walker who is a backup linebacker got in the game and almost got an interception. The whole entire defense dominated. I got to see my other buddy Zack Wells throw his first NCAA touchdown. He’s the backup quarterback. I got to see a new NCAA record for most consecutive PAT’s without missing. Taylor Rowan has been 129-129 in 4 seasons for the Leathernecks and he set a record that night. WIU ended up winning 63-0 in a dominating victory that let WIU let loose some anger from losing to Arkansas. All I can say is watch out Missouri Valley Conference because the Necks want that conference championship. Any ay readers: It was a great experience seeing two football games in one day. So if you ever have a chance to see two college football games in one day do it. Next week, we will be talking baseball.