Let's Fiesta!

I'm a little behind in posting this, but I wanted to blog about the Fiesta Bowl because it was such a great memory for us! OSU had an incredible season this year filled with so many accomplishments, Beating Texas and OU in the same season, Big 12 Champions, highest ranking in the BCS in school history,  I could go on and on. Minus one terrible game, it was a great season, and Matt and I had been anxiously awaiting the grand finale that happened last Monday night, the Fiesta Bowl against Stanford.

My grandparents drove up to watch the game with us. Matt's sister joined us too along with several of our OSU friends. We had 13 adults and 2 babies at our house to cheer on the Cowboys Monday night.

Nathan wasn't sure what was going on but he loved all the attention he got from everyone.

We had lots of great game food. I spent Sunday baking up some fun orange treats for the game.

Rhapsody and Missy (who was spending the week with us) enjoyed all the food too.

I didn't get any pictures of all our friends dressed in orange camped in front of the TV, but it was such a fun night. My emotions were ALL over the place during that game. Before the game, I was really confident in our team and thought a victory was fairly certain. Then I thought I overlooked the talent on the Stanford team, particularly in their quarterback, but our defense was able to stop, uh, er, I mean our offense scored more points than him, and in the end we came out Fiesta Bowl Champions.

We were down two touchdowns early and were playing catchup the whole game. We stayed in it, but could never get ahead, which meant I was nervous the whole game. We had some great plays, an interception, a fumble recovery and a couple of sacks on defense, and some huge Weeden to Blackmon connections on offense. The best offensive play was Weeden's rushing touchdown. I laughed because when our offense lined up there were five receivers and no running back, so I turned to Matt and said, "Looks like we're gonna throw it," to which he responded, "Well you KNOW Weeden's not going to run it." And then he did and scored and it was awesome. I just know Weeden had been begging Coach Gundy all  month to let him run the ball. Pretty much the only thing missing in his resume was a rushing touchdown.

Near the end of the game, I was losing confidence in our guys. I tried to downplay the significance of the game, about what an achievement it was to make it there, and how we hadn't embarrassed ourselves, and the outcome didn't matter too much. And then we made a huge play, and I was right back in it, ready for a victory.

At the end of the game, we just knew Stanford was going to make the game winning field goal as time ran out. As they lined up to kick, My grandpa said, "Boy it will be a miracle if we win this game." And then the kick was no good. All I saw was orange people in the end zone cheering and we went nuts, enough to wake up my sleeping baby. Poor boy, football season is tough on him. Once we went into overtime, I had renewed confidence in my team. They know how to play when it really matters. It was such a great game and a great win to cap off an extraordinary season for my team. I've stood by them for almost nine years of mostly disappointing seasons. So as a fan, it was fun to be rewarded with such an exhilarating game. We will miss spending our weekends wearing orange, inviting friends over to watch the games, and watching Sportscenter highlights during lunch on Sundays until September rolls around again.