They came to play. They should just go out and execute. They should stick to their game plan. They tried to establish their running game. You knew as soon as they drew first blood that this was a barn burner.
Two teams fighting tooth and nail. The crowd was really into it. The crowd was going wild. The fans were on their feet. The plays electrified the crowd. The place was bedlam. The place was pandemonium.
You could feel the electricity. The competitive juices were flowing. It was a real pressure cooker and a nail biter. It was a nip and tuck game. It was a see-saw game. It was theirs to lose. They weren’t playing to win – they were playing not to lose.
They had to get back into their offensive rhythm. They had to make some adjustments. They had to go back and re-group. They weren’t out of it yet. They were still hanging around. We still had plenty of football left.
The quarterback was a physical, steady, workhorse, warrior, explosive, impact, tough, hard-nosed, scrappy, unselfish, finesse player. He was some kind of player. He was on top of his game, he took over the game because he’s a go-to guy when the game’s on the line and he had his game face on.
He always comes through in the clutch, thrives under pressure, has ice-water in his veins, has a tireless work ethic and plays with a lot of emotion. The crowd factor came into play, along with the injury, fatigue, clock, humidity, altitude, experience, psychological, revenge, mental and motivation factors.
In order to win they needed to turn up the intensity, to step up and make plays, come out of the locker room fired up, loaded for bear, go out and take care of business, not let the crowd faze them, rise to the occasion, leave everything on the field, stay hungry and no matter what keep the continuity.
If they can come together as a team, believe in themselves, play like they’re capable of playing then they can take home all the marbles. The coach was under fire, on the hot seat with his head on the chopping block. We hoped that cooler heads would prevail, but he was blind-sided, they really cleaned his clock, put the lumber to him, rung his bell, clothes-lined him, ran him into a brick wall, laid him out with a hit and he was literally run over by a freight train.
When it was all said and done, when the fat lady had sung, remember, the final score was not a true indication. It’s another one for the record books.
This game is history.
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