Troy University Athletics
Trip to the Horseshoe Was Fascinating, Frustrating
9/21/2008 5:00:00 AM | Football
It's Sunday morning following Troy's 28-10 loss at Ohio State and I've had a little time to reflect on the trip and the game.
The fascinating aspect of the trip itself was a chance to broadcast from one of the truly great venues for sports in America, and how well we were treated by the Ohio State people. The frustrating part of it is that, again, the Trojans had several chances to take advantage of in the game and either didn't capitalize on them or made enough mistakes to negate those chances.
My opinion is that the next great building block for this program is to win one of these road games against elite programs, and we are very close to doing so.
I go on a lot of trips every year with Troy football, basketball and baseball, and the football trips are by far the most difficult because they're so quick. Basketball trips are usually at least two days long, and baseball trips -- especially in the conference -- last from Thursday through Sunday and you can spread out a little and enjoy the area. This football trip, for example, lasted 26 hours, and it was fast-paced throughout.
We flew out of the Dothan Airport at 4:30 p.m. on Friday and landed in Dothan after the game on Saturday right at 6 p.m.
Since our broadcast airtime was at 11 a.m. local time, Jerry, Chris, and I caught a taxi (we got chiseled, too: thirty bucks from the hotel to the stadium, and the driver took us around most of Columbus, it seemed) to the field early to try to beat the traffic from 102,000 people trying to get to the same spot at the same time.
We met Tyler, our spotter, at the stadium (he came up with friends; his taxi bill: ten bucks!) and got a chance to take a few photos prior to broadcast.
There were definitely more than 102,000 fans at the 'Shoe, and they were awfully quiet when Jerrel Jernigan scored to pull Troy to within 14-10. I haven't seen the official attendance, but I do have a guess on the number of people on the Press Level at Ohio Stadium: about 2,000!
The Big Ten Network must've employed about 200, there were ten-jillion writers, local TV, radio stations, and Internet sites represented, and about three dozen scarlet-jacketed senior citizens who could not have been more helpful to us. When one of them saw me post-game waiting for final statistics so I could go to the field and tape Coach Blakeney's TV show, he actually went to the Ohio State Sports Information Director and demanded a copy for me!
Big Ten Network color analyst Charles Davis stopped in the booth to go over pronunciations with Jerry; when he got to Jorrick Calvin, he said "Alas, poor Jorrick! I knew him well...". It was a reference to Yorick from Shakespeare's Hamlet, and he said that it was one of the most misquoted lines in literature. I was able to pipe in the correct line ("Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio.), and found out that Charles was quite the Shakespearean scholar when he was a defensive back at Tennessee; he even went on a trip to the Bard's home at Stratford-on-Avon. He's a terrific guy (Charles, not William), and is an asset to the Big Ten Network's coverage.
Jerry, our resident football historian and traditionalist, got a real kick out of the "Dotting of the I" from the Ohio State band. One of the senior band members or a visiting celebrity gets to dot the "I" in "Ohio" every game; it's reportedly a big honor.
Post-game on the road is always a race for me. Get the final stats, comb my hair, run downstairs to tape the "Trojan Football Report" TV show with Coach while Jerry, Chris, and Mike wrap up the radio broadcast upstairs. It's even more frenetic after a road game, because the buses are being loaded, the players are ready to go, the trainers are packing things up quickly, and the plane's waiting.
Our videographers, Aaron Taylor and Jeff Herring, are real professionals and are always ready to get it taped; when Coach Blakeney shows up, it's "go time", and the last thing I want is for the entire Troy football traveling party to have to wait up if I can't host the highlights and interviews in one take!
As always, Sunday is busy; repacking equipment and blogging. Monday is spent at the weekly Troy news conference, and Tuesday is "Trojan Talk" day at Yanni's! Make sure to join us for that, either at Yanni's on Highway 231 by Pike Lib, or on the air by tuning in or calling, or both! I'll have a reminder on the website on Tuesday morning!
Barry
