When the date of the Radiance Technologies 46th Independence Bowl was announced, the schedulers didn’t seem to notice the significance of the date. But you can’t play a bowl game on the date Festivus is “celebrated” and not expect it to lend itself to some obvious parallel lines.
And there were plenty in Houston’s 23-16 win over Louisiana-Lafayette Friday at Independence Stadium.
(For those of you who aren’t up on your Seinfeldia and thought December 23 was nothing more than Christmas Eve Eve, try to play along.)
One of the tenets of Festivus, in which no Christmas tree is involved, is the aluminum pole because Frank Costanza found that “tinsel was too distracting.”
As it turned out, the most distracting thing (in the best way) might have been watching Houston’s rather large kickoff tee retriever guy do belly flops and stop-drop-and-rolls whenever the Cougars would kick off.
The problem Houston had for much of the game was getting THAT guy on the field, who seemed to have his own Festivus celebration going on.
“Feats of strength” — With the game on the line, the Cougars apparently wanted to prove that they could make a first down from anywhere, so they went ahead and took a bunch of holding penalties so they could set up a 1st-and-30, with less than two minutes to play. That’s when quarterback Clayton Tune muscled up a 41-yard pass to KeSean Carter.
The Cougars were in business, until they almost weren’t. Hence …
“Until you pin me, it’s not over” — After that play and with less than a minute to play, Houston was basically just looking to get in position for a game-winning field goal. But in a game that featured both teams doing just about everything they could to NOT win the game, the Cougars almost struck again when Ta’Zhawn Henry fumbled on an otherwise harmless play. There was the ball, sitting by its lonesome on the 27-yard line. That’s when 305-pound left guard Cam-Ron Johnson pinned the 15-ounce football on the ground before anybody in a different color jersey did.
Two plays later, Tune threw a 12-yard touchdown pass to Nathaniel Dell for the game winner.
“It’s another Festivus miracle!” — It may not have been reflected on the scoreboard, but the first half was dominated by the Cajuns and they were clearly the team that seemed far more excited to be playing in this game. But after things tightened up, it looked like ULL was about to take care of business late in the game.
With a quarterback who hadn’t even played all day (and presumably still not yet frostbitten), the Cajuns were well on their way to taking the lead late in the game behind freshman Zeon Chriss. He had a 25-yard run to put the Cajuns in prime scoring position at the Houston 9. But instead of Chriss carrying the ball again, they gave it to Chris (Smith) and the running back fumbled it away.
The Cougars had the miracle they were looking for.
“Aluminum has very high strength-to-weight ratio” — In case you were curious, football goal posts are made of Dense Schedule 40 Aluminum, and the uprights are made of a lighter 1/8-inch wall aluminum. It’s not like Houston would even get close enough to know that for almost all of the first half. When Carter caught a 33-yard touchdown pass from Tune with three minutes to go before halftime, Carter landed right underneath the Dense Schedule 40 Aluminum to finally get a good look.
The problem is that the extra point by Kyle Ramsey didn’t go between the 1/8-inch wall aluminum pipes and went around them instead.
Of course, Louisiana-Lafayette then took the ball and marched down the field in 13 plays and 83 yards and watched Kenneth Almendares kick (another) field goal to close the half and give the Kickin Ragin’ Cajuns a 16-6 halftime lead. It was the third field goal of the half by ULL, but they would not sniff any more aluminum the rest of the day.
“Airing of grievances” — Frank Costanza famously said, “I got a lot of problems with you people,” and Houston coach Dana Holgorsen must have said something along the same lines (with perhaps a few more adjectives) at halftime.
The Cougars came out and marched straight down the field for a score to make a game out of what didn’t seem like much of one until that point.
However, Holgorsen had a lot of problems getting his team into the end zone on the next two possessions. With two marches that both reached inside the ULL 5, the Cougars got a total of three points to show for it.
But when the time came, Houston went 92 yards in seven plays to win it. You may not have been one of the few to brave the conditions to witness it, but for those who did, it was “a Festivus for the rest of us.”
Contact JJ at johnjamesmarshall@yahoo.com
