Have you ever been a rising star in politics, but then you and your mistress are headed to her apartment on Halloween after a late evening at the office, and it’s a foggy night, and suddenly a drifter steps into the road, and thump?
You get out to see if the guy is OK, but no such luck. In the harsh glow of your headlights, you have to make a decision. It wasn’t exactly your fault, but if this is reported to the police, there will be some rather uncomfortable questions from reporters, not to mention from your wife, and the terrible publicity will offset what you have going on with your increasingly salty salt-and-pepper hair that looks great when artfully mussed with a pea-sized dollop of pomade and really plays well with suburban women voters. So you decide to dump the body deep in the woods. But it’s really dark and confusing in the woods, and your mistress doesn’t exactly have the Joe Pesci esprit de corps when it comes to body disposal. Then you come to a clearing, and there’s a weird woodland altar that seems to have been erected by malevolent druids. You promise your hysterical mistress it’s just a little farther to a ravine. After you make the drop, you try to retrace your steps, but you get more and more lost and you start hearing weird noises on the wind like the backmasked “Stairway to Heaven” the youth minister used to play to scare you into listening to nothing but Amy Grant albums. Now you’re silently promising God that if you make it out of here alive, you’ll never again travel in the same vehicle as one of your mistresses unless it’s an Uber and will only accept illegal secret donations from corporations committed to carbon-neutrality. Hours later, your white oxford with the rolled-up sleeves is torn, your chinos are smudged and one Italian loafer was swallowed by a mudhole somewhere back there. Just when you think you’ve found the edge of the woods, you realize you’re actually just back in the clearing. And you’re not alone. Up there, on the altar, it’s the drifter … or what’s left of him. He points a crooked finger and croaks, “You’re never leaving.”
If something like this has ever happened to you, then you understand how a few mistakes can really snowball, especially on Halloween.
One minute, Missouri is ahead 7-6 and Jarvis Ware is strutting down the sideline in a beautiful new boxing robe. Then Jalen Knox drops a perfectly thrown long ball, then Eli Drinkwitz gets cold feet on a fourth-and-1 near midfield, then Missouri can’t tackle the admittedly hard-to-tackle Kadarius Toney, then Connor Bazelak fumbles an exchange with Tyler Badie on third-and-1, then Toney scores again, then two offsides penalties lead to an untimed down and everybody’s punching everybody else and now the score is 41-17 and one coach is wearing a Darth Vader costume and there are suspensions and fines.
Since the game was the least interesting part of the game, let’s discuss everything else.
THE FIGHT: The play that set off the skirmish in The Swamp was never supposed to happen. Florida just wanted to run out the clock, but Drinkwitz called a timeout with 14 seconds left, thinking the Tigers might block the punt or take advantage of a bad snap. Worth a shot, right? But when Jamie Pettway jumped offside, Florida got a first down. And when Tre Williams jumped offsides on the next play, the Gators got an untimed down for a desperation pass.
And here is where things get confusing, because the Gators and their fans believe Trajan Jeffcoat got away with a late hit on quarterback Kyle Trask. I can see where they might think Jeffcoat went too far in taking a 5-yard free run at Trask after he released the ball and blasting him in the chest. But late? Excuse me, this was an untimed down, so you can hardly apply the construct of time in this situation. It’s basically a football version of “The Purge” where all rules are suspended. At least that is my interpretation.
Missouri fans felt Dan Mullen was the true instigator, although, as he explained later, he was just trying to get his players off the field … by personally antagonizing every opposing player, coach and official he could find and then flapping his arms wildly to the pump up the crowd, as one does when gently shepherding one’s team into the locker room for a nice rest. We all play the role of peacemaker differently, so I will not judge.
THE COSTUMES: Big fan of the turnover robe. Big fan of the Darth Vader costume. Also a big fan of belted double-knit plaid jumpsuits with enormous lapels, but I probably wouldn’t wear one to court while facing charges of campaign finance violations, vehicular manslaughter and desecration of a creepy woodland shrine.
The turnover robe was cool when awarded to Ware after his pick-six just gave Missouri the lead in the second quarter. It was awkward when draped over the shoulders of Cannon York after he recovered a fumble with 48 seconds left in a 24-point loss. I propose a version of the 2-point conversion chart that dictates which game situations are robe-appropriate.
As for Mullen, hate to criticize him for wearing a mask, but the time and place for a postgame Halloween costume is a Halloween when you won the game and didn’t incite a brawl. I realize he already had the costume on site and wanted to get some use out of it, but, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.” Like most transcendentalists, Emerson wasn’t a big we-do-what-we-do guy.
THE AFTERMATH: The SEC was in a tight spot when it came time to hand out punishments for the brawl. If everyone who took part was suspended, the league would have to cancel Georgia’s next two games. The SEC hasn’t come this far to cancel games for anything but COVID. So Mizzou lost three players and Florida lost two — all for one half of the next game — and Mullen got the same $25,000 fine that Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin received for a cheeky retweet.
Whatever.
The assigning of blame and punishment misses the point, which is: Who cares if two football teams fight? Fighting is one of the safest things you can do on a football field. More people have developed carpal tunnel syndrome from playing the clarinet at halftime than have ever been hurt in a football fight.
