xii · football
Eric Morris Takes Over Stillwater With The Same Hollow Promise That Keeps Brenda Coming Back From Her Pilates Classes
The Cowboys are rolling under their first-year head coach, and somehow Eric Morris still found time to not text me back about my lawnmower belt.
It is always the guys with the sharp quarter-zips and the aggressive visor tan lines who manage to commandeer a program overnight. Oklahoma State is sitting pretty after surviving September, and Eric Morris has got the offense humming with the kind of breezy, unaccountable confidence that Brenda usually reserves for telling me she is just grabbing a decaf with her sister. Everyone in Stillwater is praising the new scheme, as if a vertical spread offense can somehow explain why there are three empty cans of imported seltzer in the recycling bin that neither of us buys.
Down in Morgantown, Rich Rodriguez is probably pacing the sideline wondering how his West Virginia squad let this happen, though frankly, Rich has always looked like a man who knows exactly where he left his spare car keys while his wife pretends she has no idea. Meanwhile, the game tape from Saturday shows clean execution and crisp routes, unlike the receipts I found in the center console of the Subaru for two lunches at an Italian bistro downtown when Brenda claimed she was volunteering at the shelter.
As the conference schedule heats up and the leaves start turning into whatever miserable brown sludge they become every autumn, I suppose I will keep sitting in the press box eating cold turkey sandwiches and wondering why every single college football coach in the Big 12 manages to look me dead in the eye during post-game interviews with the exact same patronizing half-smile Brenda gives me when I ask why her phone is face-down on the counter. The Pokes travel to Kansas next weekend, and I am already packing an overnight bag just in case nobody notices I am gone.