Not to open any recently scabbed over wounds, but I wanted to get a chance to rewatch the game on the DVR (as I did yesterday) before I paired that up with my first hand reflections from Montgomery:
On "Classless-gate"- Since the thread was locked, I thought I would give you all a first hand accounting of what happened during the transition to halftime. I was in the south end of the press box, so I had a first hand take of what went down, and it was much ado about nothing. If you rewatch some of the game video or the YouTube link Perimeter posted, you can see some of this for yourself:
-Both teams had to exit via the same area in the SE corner of the field.
-App State's band was filling some of that area as the half was ending, so it created further congestion.
-Additionally, App had to take a hard right onto the narrow elevated sidewalk (only wide enough for folks walking two by two at most) that led to their locker room, which was located in the end zone directly behind the south goal posts.
-Due to this logistics cluster eff, it took App seemingly forever to get through the band, and as you can see in the YouTube video, the officials had to hold our team on the field far longer than would have normally been required.
-Our guys were understandably jacked up and charging while crossing the field, jumping and raising their arms in celebration of a great close to the half.
-And subsequently, with the officials holding the Cats back until App could vacate the way to our lockers, they were right in front of the App fans, and those fans thought our guys cheering was actually taunting them. It clearly wasn't initially, but as the App fans began to boo our men, they naturally reacted back to the crowd, who was booing them mercilessly.
A completely avoidable situation that could have been prevented.
On "taunting" and general bad form of the players on the field: As much as I would like all our men to take the Barry Sanders route, that just isn't realistic in this day and age. A few App fans fessed up on their board to Eric Boggs (#45 LB) and several others making aggressive fist pump gestures through their season and during the Bowl game. I don't know if it was a exaggerated "bowling" follow through motion, an over exaggerated attempt at an "eff u" motion, or what it was, but they were doing this A LOT in the first quarter on defense, and it carried through to their offense when their TE scored their last TD. Our men responded to that motion and mocked it routinely starting in the second quarter, which you could see most aggressively executed by Casey Sayles in the 4th qtr. So while clearly the JJ throat slash was inexcusable as it is a clear violation of the rules, I'm not going to get on the men for showing emotion and matching another team's intensity, especially when the other team is clearly feeding off the support of their fans and trying to get their teammates jacked up. Should they act like the civil war statues on College Green in the face of an intense enemy combatant? Too often I have thought our coaches are a little on the laissez faire side of things emotionally, so I'm not going to jump them for allowing our team to match the other's intensity, just reign them in if it crosses the line a la JJ.
On JD and QB play- I was in person at the NIU game as well, and until he was concussed, I have to admit the guy was tough as nails and laser focused, quite possibly the best QB play we saw all season, IMHO. JD is what he is, and I told many folks on game day, if he is NIU good we win, and if he regresses to his norm, we lose, possibly big. I could see the coaches choosing him over DV for the game, hoping we were going to see more of NIU JD. His two picks weren't the only reason for the loss, but they were obviously significant contributors, along with the Davis PF, which turned the mo on that first down leading to the 95 yard TD drive. Moral of the story, we need an upgrade at QB, and we all agree with that. Love JD for his guts, but we need more than what he has been able to deliver to this point.
On the game in general- I enjoyed it on DVR, but really enjoyed game day, thought the Bowl really had their shit together, and while I agree with DFC that we did represent much better as a fan base than I expected, it still kills me that we travel horribly to support our gridiron team. I'm 99.44% confident there will be more OHIO alumni in AZ supporting little brother than there were in AL supporting ole' OHIO.
On App State's fan base- I don't dare dream of a day where the Cats have that type of support, especially traveling to roadies. I would love to see them in action in Boone. Even if we make the access bowl slot some day, I don't think we will bring as many people to that as App did to Montgomery. It really is unfortunate.