Just got a little dusty in here....

McCartney always liked to have it both ways.

Aunese was always a jerk.

Next

 

First of all, I get that college football, at the highest level, is a cutthroat business. No room for emotions or sentimentality. Win win win win win win WIN!

That's why I really enjoy the fact that Les Miles, who seem like a good person and was in T.C.'s life from the start, did a great thing and brought the kid to LSU, even if he is a fourth-string "preferred" walk-on.

This is what bugs me, though. The writer worked on this story for a long time. The information was pretty intensive; you don't pull this kind of story together in a month. I think it's obvious the writer was hoping like a mofo that the payoff would be T.C. McCartney getting his chance to complete the emotional journey by stepping under center and playing a few downs at Washington, because his dad never got the chance to 20 years earlier.

THAT was the expected payoff of the story. The ending would've been much different had that scenario played out, not the one we read with a metaphorical rainbow.

And that's what gets me about the story. Les Miles brings the kid to LSU out of a personal obligation to Sal Aunese's family. And yet it's LSU, which will not get sentimental in a big game like this because there's this $15 million trophy thing the Tigers are supposed to be competing for at the end of the season, so you can't afford an opening-game slip against a BCS conference team, even if that team is as shitty as Washington.

In a way, I think Miles had in the back of his mind that T.C. would get a few snaps in garbage time when the Tigers were closing out a blowout against a putrid Huskies team. But that plan fizzled because LSU probably isn't as good as the last few years, and Washington is the hungriest team in America and makes a game of it. Garbage time never presents itself.

I don't know, but some how, some way, Miles should've found an early series to let T.C. take a few snaps. The kid has been a quarterback his entire life. It's not like he can't handle the pressure of a few snaps. Let him take a few snaps and hand the ball off, or run a keeper 'round the corner or something. The world would not have come crashing down had T.C. Aunese McCartney taken a few snaps at QB at Huskies Stadium.

In the grand scheme of things, the game wasn't THAT important. I don't think less of Miles because it was a pretty good 31-23 game, and you know, LSU needs to win win win win win win WIN!

All I know is that if I'm LSU's head coach in that situation, back-lit by 20 years of history, I find a way to get Sal Aunese's son into the game -- on this field -- for a minute or two.

 

I get the sense that Sal's relationship with McCartney's daughter was a little romanticized for this story.

 

The anti-Rudy.

 

It's his teammates' fault. They didn't audible any trick plays to take a two-score lead with a minute left. And nobody was chanting the kid's name on the sideline.

 

It was a very well-written story. But, it romanticized everything.

I guess I'm now old enough to say, "Yeah, it reads nice now. But, let me tell you how it really went down."

 

Lots of things get romanticized 20 years after the fact. They didn't dance around the part where he told the coach he wasn't marrying her.