Something seems eerily familiar on campus.
The women's volleyball squad is the best fall team going right now. It's Homecoming Week. The Ball State University football team hosts the University of Toledo today. Toledo comes in as one of the best football teams in the Mid-American Conference.
Is this 2001? Am I still a seventh grader at Muncie Northside Middle School?
Well, I don't think so. Although I look about the same, I (sometimes) attend collegiate classes now.
So what is it?
Flashback: Homecoming 2001.
Ball State plays Toledo in their annual MAC West Division showdown. Toledo enters the game ranked No. 23 nationally and Ball State is a 22-point underdog just a year after getting over the program's embarrassing 21-game losing streak.
Here I am, an avid Cardinals fan, sitting in the newly renovated end zone seats with my buddy Brian.
There's a certain buzz in the air on this day. It's hard to describe. Homecoming always is special, but perhaps it was the rumors of a Dave Letterman sighting at the game. His stage manager, Biff Henderson, attended the game in Letterman's place, and his story was told later on Letterman's show. Letterman probably couldn't make it that year because he was off somewhere in the bushes with one of his female staffers. Who knows?
Ball State played its beak off that day. The game was close throughout until the Rockets made an expected push to pull ahead near the end of the game.
Then, one of the most magical moments in Ball State football history occurred right in front of our eyes.
Ball State improbably returned a kickoff to the house to retake the lead late in the fourth quarter.
Brian and I sat in our seats as several fans began to make their way to the corner gates of the playing surface to rush the field following the upset victory. We were mortified - do we tag along and be cool with the college students or do we stay where we are?
Being the brave one of the bunch, I influenced my friend to join me by the field as the scoreboard game clock slowly approached zero.
When that finally happened, it indicated a 24-20 Ball State upset over Toledo, and the place went mad. Brian, myself and what seemed like 100,000 students rushed the field in a fury that can only be compared to a war-like atmosphere.
Of course, being Ball State, something went terribly wrong in all of our celebratory outbursts. Andrew Bourne, then a junior at Ball State, was paralyzed from the waist down when the aluminum goal posts taken down by the fans snapped and struck him in the back. He ultimately would seek a settlement from the university and from Marty Gilman Inc., the makers of the goalpost.
Unaware of what they had done to a fellow classmate, the students carried on, taking the goal posts to their ultimate resting place: the Ball State Duck Pond.
The flashback is over, but I'll put today's game in perspective for you.
It won't match the 2001 match-up in hype. Toledo (2-2) comes in unranked and is only currently a five- to six-point favorite against the Cardinals. There isn't an expected Letterman - or even Biff Henderson - sighting this year, and Ball State has since replaced the Scheumann Stadium goalposts with a sturdier pair.
But the storyline is extremely similar. On paper, Toledo looks to walk away with ease from Muncie. Rockets quarterback Aaron Opelt has an obvious grasp of his offensive scheme, leads the MAC in passing and counters his air attack with the ability to tuck and run.
But if Ball State has any chance of winning, it needs Scheumann Stadium to be rocking, just like it was in 2001. There needs to be 13,000 strong in the student section and the alumni and other general public need to fill in the other half of the stadium.
The team, the Ball State Pride of Mid-America Marching Band and all cheerleaders and dancers will certainly be giving it their all, so they will be expecting the same out of you.
Just this time, if we win, let's watch where we're flinging the goalposts.
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