My Orange Bowl Experience

Since my little website has deteriorated into me detailing every little meaningless minutia of my day, I've decided to describe my experience at the 2007 FedEx Orange Bowl in Miami, Florida. And yes, it is absolutely necessary that I label every corporate sponsor I ran into during the night (seriously, would it feel like college football without the sponsorships.) First, let me start by getting your hopes up to astronomical heights. This particular post is slated to be my most ambitious (and best) yet. It will be an unholy amagamation on word, image, and yes, video.
Are you beyond excited at this point? Good. You now feel the same hopeless excitement and anticipation that I felt coming into my wet dream; rooting for my team in a big-time, college football bowl game.
Now that I got your hopes up, I must warn you; this is close to the best it's going to get. Even though this post brings words, pictures, and videos to the table, my inability to form a proper sentence will probably dampen this experience. I felt the same sinking feeling as I entered Miami on that fateful January day. Even though I was beyond frenzied to see Wake make as far as the Orange Bowl, I knew they had a virgin's chance in Vegas to pull this one out. Still, a very same part of me held out hope that miraculously find a way to the be victors, as they had done all year.
The evening started out crappily enough as a torrential downpour struck Florida just as we were leaving for Dolphins Stadium (which amazingly doesn't have any kind of naming rights..yet.) But my small accomplishments during the commute gave me a sense of hope that good things were to come on this particular evening. Not only had I maneuvered the car from the passenger's seat while my father ate his Chilupa (available nationwide at all Taco Bell locations), but I had also successfully navigated us to the stadium by way of the Florida Turnpike. This was quite an accomplishment of the directionally challenged like myself.
However, once we parked in the Toyoto Parking Zone and got out of the car, my father, two brothers, and I were completely flabbergasted. Whatever impressions they had of me being a big college football fan went out the window, as every tailgating fan we encountered was screaming his or her head off and blowing at least a .1 on the breathalizer. Unfortunately for us, most of these fans were wearing red, spoke like true backwater, imbred hicks, and struggled to spell "C-A-R-D-S" correctly. Not only do Louisville fans have the worst cheer in all of college football, but they display the worst tact of any fans as well. They not only chanted "beat Wake Forest high school" ad nauseum, but they also made (and in another sign of brilliance, bought) shirts stating "Beat Wake". They might as well said "We're Goliath, Beat David" on them. At this point, even though I knew that the Deacons were going to get their heads beaten in, nothing would make me happier than to see my team down these clowns.
My contempt for Louisville fans disappeared when we entered the stadium, and my eyes fell upon one of the most beautiful sights that they have ever seen:

We took our seats up in the nosebleeds, and then experienced the most terrifying jet flyover in the history of aviation. After those F-18s put on the afterburners about 15 feet above the stadium, the pants of every fan in the stadium became wet (and it wasn't from the rain).
In retrospect, the first half was somewhat of a snooze. After a scoreless first quarter, sophomore kicker/Heisman candidate Sam Swank notched a field goal to give Wake the early lead. But late in the first half, following a Louisville field goal, the Cards scored on some kind of illegal play where wide receiver Patrick Carter (trick plays are reserved for the underdogs!) to give Louisville a 10-3 lead going into halftime.
My happiness soon turned to sorrow when the halftime "entertainment" was provided by none other than Taylor Hicks. It's not a good sign for the "talent" on American Idol when I can sing better than last season's winner (my demo tape's coming out soon). Then Patty Labelle came on, which would be more exciting if I was thirty years older and could name one of her songs, but her presence upgraded the halftime show's status to tragedy.
But my sadness after the concert only made the second half that much more enjoyable. The Deacons came out of the locker room with their guns drawn as they pounded the Louisville offense on their first two offensive drives:

Then, at the eleven-minute mark of the third quarter, Wake's freshman quarterback and resident god Riley Skinner hit senior wide receiver Nate Morton on a 30-yard touchdown strike to tie the game up at 10-10. At this point, I was screaming as loud as the tailgaters we saw earlier (and I was sober). So you can imagine my excitement when Swank knocked home this field goal to give Wake Forest a fourth quarter lead:

I've never felt so overjoyed and flabbergasted at the same time. Many college football analysts didn't think that Wake would compete, much less take a lead into the fourth quarter. They might pull this off
But from this point, the game turned so sour it should've been called the Lemon Bowl. As all the great teams do, Louisville turned it on when they needed to and drove down the field with robotic precision, scoring on a one-yard run to take the 17-14 lead. After another Demon Deacon punt, the Cards again moved down the field methodically for another touchdown, giving them a 11-point lead with only five minutes to play.
Despite these two deflating drives, I still held out hope. Heck, everyone saw what Boise State did the night before. Why couldn't Wake Forest work the magic that they had all season long? But on the first play of the drive, Skinner was sacked back at the 13-yard-line. While others headed for the exits, I stood cheering. Then Skinner completed a pass of eight yards. Then 26 yards. Then 17. Then four. They were going to do it! For a briefest of moments, it seemed that the Deacons were on the comeback train. But then, this happened:
The William Gay interception sealed up two things; a victory for Louisville, and my heart from ever loving anything again.
On the long walk back to the car, I slowly began to collect myself. The loss had unleashed something that I hadn't felt in a long time; sentimentality. It didn't matter than the refs blew two fumble calls that went against Wake. It didn't matter than God should've sided with my Deacons. They showed up, tried their best, and lost. But you know what, real losers are so afraid of not winning that they don't even try. The Demon Deacons weren't supposed to win this season. But they tried anyway, and as it turned out, they ended up winners. I'd like to think I did the same thing when I tried to encapsulate my entire Orange Bowl experience for you in this post. I might have failed, but hell, at least I tried.