Respect the Gods: A Scandurro Story

BY TIM SCANDURRO

RESPECT THE GODS

“We’ve got to grow up fast.  I’m glad we won.  I’m not happy with how we played.” –Coach Jon Sumrall

It is often said that football, especially in the South, is a religion.  Unlike most modern mainstream religions, it is polytheistic in the way of ancient Rome or Greece, ruled by mercurial and omnipotent deities I like to call The Football Gods.  These alternately merciful and cruel beings often determine who wins and loses games.  Each has a different area of focus.  The job of some is to punish cockiness and disrespect of an opponent, in all its forms.  The job of others is to reward effort or punish its absence.  If a player sprints 95 yards to make a tackle, the other team is going to be kicking a field goal, guaranteed.  If a receiver slows down or holds the ball out as he approaches the goal line, that ball is going to get knocked out of the back of the end zone for a touchback.  The gods don’t mess around.

Off the field, fans are perhaps most familiar with the Wardrobe Division of the Football Gods Pantheon.  Change your winning underwear or socks for the next game at your favorite team’s peril.

One of the better-known Football Gods is the God of Golden Opportunity.  This god opens up broad gates beyond which lie his fertile fields and rich abundant harvests, and all he asks is that your football team accept his bounty and walk through the gate.  But stumble around, lose your bearings and fail to step through that gate, and look out.  Because the twin brother of the God of Golden Opportunity is the God of Missed Opportunity, and his picnic basket is full of only frustration and anguish. Stay on the wrong side of the gate, and that’s who you’re going to meet.

We met the evil twin Thursday night.  We drove down to or inside the ECU 11 yard line four times in the first half and to the 21 on our fifth and final possession before the break, only to collapse under a dog’s breakfast of missed throws, dropped passes, touchdown-negating penalties, assorted other flags and field goals (both made and faked).  By the time the first half was over we led 12-0.  Whether you believe in the Football Gods like I do or whether you’re agnostic, it didn’t matter.   I might call it an immortal deity’s demand for sacrifice and you might call it karma, but we both knew we were about to slam into it.

I won’t rehash what happened next because you all saw it.  We snatched defeat from the jaws of victory in the third quarter, spit it out, and snatched victory back from the jaws of defeat in the fourth.

My wife doesn’t know a ton about football, but she comes to our games with me and wears our gear and comes to our tailgates because she knows it’s important to me.  I’m sure some of you recognize that beautiful description in your own spouses.

When I met her it was during the Greg Davis-Buddy Teevens transition.  Those Buddy teams in the early ‘90s were mostly God-awful to watch, and she would sit in the freezing Superdome with the other 10 or 15 people in our section (Loge visitor’s side, section 311; I still remember), usually reading a book and occasionally looking up when her father-in-law or I hollered at the officials or said “let’s go” down by four  scores with two minutes left.

When we got home Thursday I showed her Coach Sumrall’s hoarse postgame interview on the field where he said we were a sloppy team that finds ways to win football games and we were going to drive him crazy if we didn’t grow up.  For me it was exhilarating.  We all love it when the coach channels what we’re thinking and feeling.

My wife had a different take.  “You can’t just call them sloppy and immature without mentioning the magic plays.  Like the long pass number 12 threw and number 15 caught and ran all the way in.  It’s hard to believe they can even do that.  I call those the magic moments and there were plenty of them.”

I thought back to that play.  A first and ten, play action shot play.  The ‘eye candy’ was Omari Hayes running an over route, which we have thrown to him several times.  The safety bit on it, leaving the deep middle wide open.  The corner with outside leverage was completely cooked.  Retzlaff missed a similar throw the week before to Anthony Brown-Stephens.  He hit this one. 

When I looked up at the flags in the fourth quarter before that play, they were pretty much starched and facing due south.  That ball was thrown north,  more or less on a line and it cut through the wind.  It was released from our 27 and caught on their 27.

I don’t think any of that analysis improves on my wife’s description.  It was a magic play.

Our next drive was our last one, when Jake converted three third downs (his only three of the night) and led us to the winning touchdown.  When you have to have the magic plays, he always seems to have them. He’s what coaches call a foxhole guy, somebody you want close to you in those times of peril.

Courtesy of my glass-half-full better half, I thought back on the game and looked for other positives.  Our offensive line play in the passing game was excellent.  We got meaningful contributions from Garrett Mmahat and Tre Shackelford in the passing game, which bodes well down the stretch.  Last year Zycarl “C.J.” Lewis was an afterthought, and many wondered if he’d even be here this year.  He has made multiple game changing plays this year and proven himself a valuable asset. 

As talented as our defense is, I’d been worried for some time about our field corner position.  I thought E'Zaiah Shine had a terrific game Thursday night.  That light seems to have come on.  Our pass rush and pass defense as a whole was outstanding for much of the night. 

I watched the greeting Garrett Mmahat got on the sideline after his first catch of the season.  So many teammates came up to celebrate that moment with him.  You can see these guys care about each other.  As they strive for that elusive clean game,  I’m comforted by the fact that in football as in life, those unseen deities tend to reward teams or families who care about each other, who fight for each other, who celebrate the successes of each other.

Most of all, and with a big assist from the FTW post-game podcast crew’s observations, I reflected on the ceiling of this football team.  We are 5-1 and 2-0 in league play, and yet we have been a bit of a mess.  We are a Chocolate Lab of a football team right now, alternately endearing and maddening.  But the guys reminded me that the ’22 team hit its stride later in the year, and we still have everything in front of us right now, today. 

And it helps to have a never-say-die quarterback who on a nail-biting night in early October stared down the cruelest of the football gods, refused to lose, and carried us through the Gate of Opportunity before it could close in our faces. 

The kid’s not perfect.  He had a couple of throws Thursday that were very nearly intercepted.  I have a theory on why they weren’t.   Jake Retzlaff doesn’t just like the big moments; he loves them.  He’s got plenty moxie, this kid, and the good Football Gods will reward that every time.