Apoca-six Now

Five wins...shit; we’re still only at five wins...Every time I think we’re gonna wake up back in October.

After the first second-half collapse it was worse.

I’d wake up and there’d be nothing. I hardly said a word about my team, until they said “yes” to a Birmingham Bowl invite.

Everyone gets everything he wants. We wanted a new coach, and for our sins, they gave us one. Brought him up to us like room service. It was a real choice coach, and when it was over, we never wanted another.

‘Never get out of the boat.’ Absolutely goddamn right! Unless you were goin’ all the way... Jimbo got off the boat. He split from the whole fuckin’ program.

I was going to the worst place in the world and I didn’t even know it yet. Weeks away and hundreds of miles up a river that snaked through the SEC like a main circuit cable plugged straight into Jimbo. It was no accident that I got to be the caretaker of Aggie Football’s memory any more than being back in November was an accident. There is no way to tell his story without telling my own. And if his story really is a confession, then so is mine.

How many teams had we already beaten? There were those five that we knew about for sure. Close enough to blow their last breath in my face. But this time, it was an SEC West team. That wasn’t supposed to make any difference to us, but it did. Shit... charging a team with cheating in this place was like handing out public intoxication tickets in the Independence Bowl. We took the bowl bid. What the hell else were we gonna do?

In a football season there are many moments for compassion and tender action. There are many moments for ruthless action - what is often called ruthless - what may in many circumstances be only clarity, seeing clearly what there is to be done and doing it, directly, quickly, awake, looking at it.