Keegan Wetzel

Keegan Wetzel was not the type of young man you would have pegged as a major college football player. At least not in his sweat-soaked number “48″ jersey on that hot day in the summer of 2009. Skinny, freckled, and sitting alone at the end of a row of white clothed picnic tables, he hungrily scarfed down several hamburgers just like any other college freshman would amidst a crowd of complete strangers.

It was the Blue and Gold BBQ to conclude the last preseason scrimmage of the summer, and as was customary for media members and fans, the crowd descended on the hungry football players like bargain hunters on a Black Friday sale. I had made the rounds, and was about to head home when I spotted Wetzel and remembered him from an interviewed I had done with him earlier that year. Myself a college student about to leave the insecurity of dropping out of school with matched insecurity of transferring to a school in a state 2000 miles away, I approached the spacing Wetzel with nothing on my mind save to say ‘hello.’

I did, and I told him who I was, reminding him of the interview. I don’t know if he recognized or remembered me. He seemed nice — quiet, but nice — and left in that awkward silence of two young men with more weighty matters on their minds, I quickly congratulated him on his scrimmage performance and then walked away.

It took me the better part of three years to walk away from writing about Navy football. But even before starting out as a freelance writer while a college sophomore in 2008, I had been a Navy fan all my life. I wasn’t so sure that was the case anymore when this season started. I had a sour taste in my mouth. Not only from the hassle of Sports Information Directors who didn’t understand my predicament as a freelancer, nor solely from the consuming feeling that my dream as a writer was about to expire, but also because of events surrounding the players themselves. Whispers of scandals and dismissals had really shaken my faith in the program and what it stands for. Not that players hadn’t been thrown out for cheating or drugs before — but because, when those players suddenly became young men who looked me in the eye and used my name in the postgame press conferences — their sins and struggles started to become personal. And after basing my life around a dream of becoming a college football writer and storyteller, the thought that I would have aided and abetted in some kind of lie hit me just as hard emotionally as it did professionally.

Throughout the last three months, however, something has happened on the field to remind me why I’m still a fan. Why I’ll always be a fan.

Keegan Wetzel brought his lunch. And he’s done it each and every week.

Watching this young man play has been a privilege. From the first snap in Navy’s blowout loss to Notre Dame, to last Saturday dominating win over East Carolina, Wetzel has knifed through linemen, launched himself into passes, and downright set his sights on every opposing ballcarrier. What’s more, he’s almost always managed to track them down.

Coming into the season he was the last guy expected to be the leader for a Navy team that began the season with an auspicious 0-2 start. He played sparingly in only one season before his senior year this fall, in the process battling through a concussion. This year, with the team in need of something, anything, to give it a spark, Wetzel stepped up. He has done it while carrying an impeccable record in the classroom and in the Hall, and he’s one of the major reasons Navy sits at 5-3 and is on the verge if heading back to the postseason. He’s also the major reason why I’ve remembered what it is I love about Navy –  and more broadly — college football.

It’s about the people. The young men who I have, for better or worse, grown up with. It’s about the young men who I first interviewed as a wide-eyed writer in 2009, thinking the chance to talk to soon-to-be college football players was just about the coolest thing a human being could do. It’s about remembering the excitement in their voices when they first found out they had a scholarship, or the anticipation on their faces as they donned their pads for the first time at their first summer scrimmage. It’s about the pain and exhaustion I saw on their faces as they gave it their physical and mental all during a freezing December evening practice, and the slow tear drop down their faces that I, as a humbled member of the Press, witnessed time and time again in the deep recesses of stadiums across the country after narrow losses and disappointing climaxes.

When the season began, I decided that I didn’t want to go to Navy games with my dad. In doing so, I decided to break a tradition of one of the few things we had been able to do together without fighting over something. For the better part of the year I stayed away from Annapolis on game day. I didn’t want to run into people who knew me as a sportswriter, and I didn’t want to explain how I just needed to get away from that past image of myself. Still, a part of me never stopped pulling for the Blue and Gold. Watching, and rooting from home, I couldn’t help but feel like I was missing something those first several weeks.

I couple of weeks ago I figured out was that something was. I was missing the roar of the stadium when Wetzel made a tackle. I was missing the dejected looks on the opponent’s face when the formerly undersized, unknown linebacker dropped them him for a loss. More than anything else, I think I was missing me, and the wonder and excitement I had as a young man with the privilege to live out a dream, and share in the excitement and accomplishments of those like Keegan Wetzel.

Week One Observations

I spent the better part of the best years of my life writing about college football (and for that, they pretty much turned out to be the most unhappy years of my life), so like it or not, I’m subjecting you to my thoughts from each week’s action. DEAL WITH IT.

Games I Watched

Notre Dame 50, Navy 10

• After years of working as a credentialed beat writer covering Navy athletics, I’ve come to mentally cringe every time Navy plays in a game on national television (read: not CBSCS.) Like the Army-Navy game and every ESPN game, the attention paid to the Navy football team bordered more on what it represents than what it is. We all know the clichés about hard-work and physicality and being great student athletes and Americans; but can we actually talk about what’s going on on the field?
• What was going on on the field was about what I expected. Scratch that, it was worse. I somehow forced myself to watch the entire game, but between seeing the Navy defensive front give more ground than the Polish cavalry against the Blitzkrieg and Trey Miller taking snaps from the shotgun, I nearly lost my sanity.
• If Navy can’t find a way to commit to running the actual triple option with, key phrase, the first option (fullback dive) being established, it’s going to be a long season. After hearing all about him all summer, it was disappointing to see that Noah Copeland was a complete non-factor.
• Gary Danielson said some absolutely stupid things during the broadcast, but he hit the nail on the head when he summed up how the Navy coaches handled the end of the first half. Try’s fumble killed any spark the team might have been able to recover, and not taking a time out to give Miller a breather wasted a gutsy performance from  first-year starter.
• If I’m a Notre Dame fan (and I am, kind of) I am feeling pretty good. I know most Navy fans hate the Irish, but as a Catholic and as someone who enjoys the play of real or semi-real student athletes, I can’t help but pull for the school against most opponents. Not Navy, mind you, but pretty much everything else. I thought the Irish O and D-lines were dominant, and hope Saturday wasn’t all on Navy just sucking.

 Ohio 24, Penn State 14

• The people I discuss college football with tend to think Penn State’s football program should be banished like those dudes in the floating mirror in outerspace from that one Superman movie, but my thoughts are more conflicted. Seeing Beaver Stadium on Saturday, and seeing the emotion in the eyes of the Penn State athletes, I’d be lying if I said a part of me was not pulling for them.
• Of course, I was also pulling for Ohio, which I like for no other reason than the combination of Tyler Tettleton and Beau Blankenship. What can I say? As a short white dude myself, I tend to have a politically incorrect tendency to pull 5-foot-8 white running backs. SUE ME.
• Looking at some of the other MAC teams which played major BCS opponents Saturday (and looking at their collapses) I attribute Ohio’s success to one factor; coaching. Frank Solich is the kind of guy who can keep a team of 21 year-old cool and collected. Even when down, his plauers knew they could win the game, and didn’t press. Lucky bounces, I think, often go towards the team which stays composed. And a composed, well coached team can make some serious noise later in the season.

Utah State 34, Southern Utah 3

• I don’t think anyone who closely follows USU — not the least of whom is this former Aggie Sports Editor — was surprised at the play of Joe Hill. We Aggie fans have been spoiled with Robert Turbin and Michael Smith for the last four years, but any one keeping an eye on the pipeline knew their was talent behind them. Kerwynn – we called him ‘Hey Arnold’ when I was in Logan because they teased him for having a football shaped head – was solid, and both he and Hill will keep the Aggie ground game humming. Both are fast, shifty, and have great vision, but their surprising power will catch teams off gaurd all year. Oh yea, Chuckie Keeton was pretty swell, too, and don’t overlook that offensive line.
• Matt Austin might just be the most fundamentally sound wide receiver in the country when it comes to body country and sideline awareness. And no, that’s not a homeristic statement.
• I was worried how the offense would look in terms of tempo and design with Dave Baldwin moving on to Colorado State, but Matt Wells seems to have everything under control. The thing I love about the “power spread” and the way USU runs it is it keeps other teams so off-tempo. Baldwin used to tell me the offense ”is complex, not complicated,” and I like the way he describes it. With all the different packages and formations, it makes defenses play off-balance, and imposes a north-south but also east-west hurry-up style of play on you. The most important thing for USU moving forward will be ball control. If that can be maintained, there’s no reason this offense can’t be Xbox good this year.

Stock Report

Stock up:

FOX: Gus Johnson calls every game like it’s March Madness. Pair him with Charles Davis, who might just be the most intelligent play-by-play guy in all of college football commentary-dom, and you’ve got the most underrated announcing duo this side of the Joe Tessitore effect.

Nebraska’s running game: Ok, so it was Southern Miss. But the 278 yards (6.2 per) on the ground was impressive given the fact that Heisman candidate Rex Burkhead took to the sideline after only three carries (albeit, one for along touchdown). Ameer Abdullah showed some toughness between the tackles, but most of all, Taylor Martinez looked like he actually knew what he was doing with both his feet and his arm. And later in the season, with Burkhead back and hopefully healthy, you’ve got to think the latter part of that statement will open up thinks for the run game.

Turner Gill: When he was back at Buffalo, Turner Gill was the first FBS head football coach I met and interviewed. At the time, my credentials were that I had graduated high school and had once written a blog about Navy football. Yea, impressive stuff, I know. Yet the man treated me like a veteran, and at that Buffalo practice I attended, I saw first hand the kind of program that Gill looked to create. Most people know he struck out at Kansas, but few know he just coached his first FCS game. And while his Liberty Flames came up a dropped pass short of upending Wake Forest in week one, something tells me the efforts of first-time starter Brian Hudson will have Liberty staying near the top of FCS competition.

Stock Down:

ESPN: I think I saw an Obama commercial between each TV timeout. Never mind for a second that I’m a conservative and consider this; isn’t the beauty of the college football season the fact that we can (kind of) ignore this politics stuff? Way to spoil a Saturday, ESPN.

Savannah State: I’m sure it’s a fine place to go to college and all, but how would you like to be the kid who has to respond to “yea, the team that was blown out 84-0 by Oklahoma State” when explaining where you go to college? Week One games are usually ugly. Like Battle of Hoth ugly. But this was the equivalent of the Death Star blowing up Alderaan.

Navy’s Use of the Shotgun: Did I mention how much I sincerely dislike it?

Coming tommarow…Week One Football Eats

As Luck Would Have It…

Saturday is a special day for me. As the start of the 2012 college football season (well, technically, the Saturday start) it marks my annual right of coach potatoness. This year will be a bit more special than most years, however. Not only because my new job has inspired within me a desire for some genuine relaxation on the weekends, but because my favorite college football team, the Navy Midshipmen, will kick off from Dublin, Ireland against Notre Dame.

This is great for a number of reasons, chief among them the time difference. I speak of course to the fact that a game played in England on a Saturday evening means a game watched in America on a Saturday morning.

And what, fellow children of the 1990s, says TV on a Saturday morning better than cereal?

The choice of said cereal to consume while vegging out in front of a Saturday morning football game from Ireland is really a no-brainer. Copious amounts of sugar, all the better to recapture the childhood experience of One Saturday Morning cartoons, is a must. So to can be said for an enjoyable cereal mascot. And while Tony the Tiger’s athletic achievements make him a strong candidate, the setting points me to one and only one choice; Lucky Charms.

How have we not discussed this bastion of all things right with our childhoods before today? Well, better late than never. As many of you know, I have many gripes with the world, with one those gripes being the (in my mind) inexcusable crusade of, uh, certain people, to attempt to demonize large companies which manufacture breakfast cereals with (gasp!) more than a tablespoon of sugar per serving. Obviously, many kids and adult cereals fall within this spectrum, but perhaps no cereals have born more of a brunt of this attack than Lucky Charms. Perhaps it’s because of the marshmallows. Perhaps it’s because of the always enjoyable commercials. Maybe it’s just a subconscious prejudice against the obviously Roman Catholic Lucky Charms Leprechaun (who, by the way, goes by L.C. or ‘Lucky’). For whatever reason, Lucky Charms has been made the villain by those who blame the childhood obesity problem in this country on big cereal, and that’s just wrong. I ate this ‘crap’ every day right from the box when I was a kid, and still ran hitch routs into double coverage during tackle football at Recess. Was I Alex Teich shredding Notre Dame’s defense? Not exactly, but I was close.

Now, back to the issue of Lucky Charms representing something with the capability of bringing about the downfall of civilization. Maybe, if Lucky Charm’s marshmallows weren’t made up of stars and other magical shapes (more on this later) and instead featured little images of Joseph Stalin or Soviet Tanks, than we could proclaim them truly evil. Until that day though, they’ll be what they have always been. And that’s magically freaking delicious.

Office space. Do not judge me, mi amigos.

My soapbox of food politics aside for a moment, I feel as though a further examination of WHY Lucky Charms works is in order. Let us begin, as we always do, with a dry snacking rundown.

There have been times in my life where I’d favor my handfuls towards the oat pieces. There have been times when I’d go marshmallow crazy. These days, I’ve come to understand that each contributes something special, and that only a 50/50 handful can yield the truly magically delicious taste. The oats — -crispy-crunchy, oatey, sweet but not cloying – are best enjoyed in a slow chew with the marshmallows. ‘Mallows, it can be said, add a certain and unique binding property when exposed to saliva. At first slighty crunchy, they bind and blend together all textures and flavors they encounter once given the benefits of the first stage of mechanical digestion (ie. Chewing). What comes together is thus a sweet yet oddly hearty agglomeration of oats, sugar, dextrose and corn syrup, with the latter three dissolving in a transformative rainbow of perceptive sweetness. Hearts, Stars, and Horseshoes — Damn! son – for a serial cereal snacker, it’s as curiously satisfying in the way a fine chocolate or cheese is.

As luck would have it, my tastes have evolved enough in recent years to the point where I can now enjoy cereal with milk, as opposed to just a dry snack. It’s a good thing, too, because Lucky Charms are excellent in milk (like I need to tell you…) It’s not just that is leaves a sweet yet surprisingly hearty end milk (stained green, I should add) but that the textural properties of the marshmallows create a unique flavor experience.

It starts with the mouthfeel of the marshmallows. They’re smooth with a vicious surface, like a licked popsicle, actually. A light and sugary taste, verging somewhere between meringue and whipped light cream, literally hangs on your tongue, while the final bite of the ‘mallow still yields enough resistance to meet the definition of crunchy. As for the flavor, it’s sweet of course, but with a cotton-candy aftertaste that is found nowhere else in cerealdom, to my knowledge. The best part is you don’t even have to stand in line at the fair behind whiney kids and to the aroma of cow poop to get the full effect of the taste.

In terms of cereal X-factors, Lucky has it all. Boxes of Lucky Charms throughout history have come with mazes, toys in the box, and heck, even labels telling me I’m getting more whole grains than any other ingredient. The marshmallows come in eight distinct shapes (can you name them?) all of which were represented in a random, 27-gram pour (how’s that for luck?). The commercials are, as I’ve stated, quite excellent, although I tend to favor those which have featured the song naming all the ‘mallow shapes.

Lucky Charms is hard to beat. It’s iconic, to say the least, but when you break it down, it’s more than just sugary nonsense. Are there drawbacks? Well, the oats are a biter grainier than say, Malt-o-Meal’s excellent Marshmallow Matey’s, but I’d content the marshmallows are better. As for Marshmallow and oat cereals on a whole, there are established textural and flavor components which make the combination great, and far from the liquid poisen some claim it is. I say let the kids keep their Lucky Charms and Marshmallow Matey’s. Come this Saturday I know I’ll be enjoying a bowl in front a live football game from Ireland, hoping some of those marshmallow shapes serve as harbinger for a lucky — or just damn good — upset on the gridiron.

Beat Notre Dame!

Lucky Charms (Original)

• Price: $2.99 (21 oz. box on clearance at Safeway)
• Ranking: 9/10
• Chances I’d Buy Again: 100%