AHHHHHHHHHH!

It was 16-10, after the Virginia Cavaliers had just kicked a field goal with not much time left in the first half against Florida State, and I was hungry. I was confident that we--that would be Virginia--would kick off and force the Seminoles to run out the clock, cementing a decent showing in the first 30 minutes of football and giving us a little bit of hope that maybe, just maybe, we could pull this whole upset thing off.

Gordon "The Professional" Stokes and I--having sat in a somewhat subdued student section for the first half--were feeling good, having not lost our voices or our nerves in watching UVA not do much wrong...yet. We ran down to the concession stands and, while eating the shittiest $3 hot dogs of our lives, watched the last 1:29 of the first half from a closed-circuit TV with about a dozen other hungry fans.

It was during that time that something happened, something special and something that...well, it's hard to say what it was. I just knew that it was something. FSU went three-and-out, forcing a punt that UVA got at their own 43-yard line, which they certainly should have used to run the ball a couple of times to run out the first half clock. Maybe, MAYBE, they should have thrown a couple of quick outs to get us within field goal range, to allow our kicker, Connor Hughes, another shot at a 50-yard field goal. Hell, we were getting the ball to start the second half, so a conservative set of play calls would have been just fine to the home team fans.

But, that's where UVA head coach Al Groh decided to start justifying his ridiculously-large contract by holding his 'sack to the sky and saying "Hey, Bobby Bowden...dadgummit, FUCK YOU, I'm taking you out back tonight and slapping you around like somebody's bitch on national MUTHAFUCKIN' TV...you like dem apples?"

Maybe THAT was the something.

UVA went into the end zone in about 50 seconds on three plays, including what is certainly the most miraculous play of our season, a 16-yard heave from quarterback Marques Hagans to "running back" Wali Lundy (politely referred to in most circles as "NFL Europe practice squad material) that went for a score, setting off insane acts of glee from my concession stand to San Francisco as UVA fans nationwide lost their shit, wondering where this team was all season, and for those particularly hyperbolic individuals, where this team was all of our natural lives. At the half, it was 23-10, UVA.

Gordon and I were meeting some of our other friends during the half, and during this time, the two of us kept sharing looks that indicated the obvious--"Are you fucking kidding me?" This team, this Virginia football program in general, has been a constant thorn in my side ever since I began supporting it in 1993. You are used to pain, you are used to watching this program not give back nearly as much as you put into it. In fact, save for maybe the men's soccer program, none of the sports programs at UVA give you a consistent level of excellence with the occasional national championship thrown in for good measure, certainly not a football team that usually gives you seven wins, four losses, and a so-so result in a shitty bowl game played on a Tuesday afternoon on cable TV on a blue field against a team from the motherfucking WAC.

Which is what made UVA's 23-10 lead so shocking. The game was only half over, and even though UVA fans the world over have seen this kind of lead evaporate in seconds, there was a strange level of confidence in the fans during that halftime. In a hilarious scene near a vendor where we were standing, two UVA guys just started yelling at each other: "We're gonna win this game! WE'RE GONNA WIN THIS GAME!!" Virginia fans were hootin' and hollerin'; they could smell an upset brewing.

Meanwhile, FSU fans walked around with their normal confidence; they had seen this movie a thousand times (and certainly, the last nine times they had played against UVA) and knew the ending, so they didn't bother to sweat the details as they strutted around the bowels of the stadium, buying our Boardwalk Fries, desecrating our facilities, smoking their Marlboros as they walked proudly around our fine stadium. It was the rich scoffing at the poor, the haves tsk-tsking the have-nots, those in power laughing at those without it.

We met up with the other members of our traveling crew--JY, Muller, Ms. Riedel and Jeanne, and all of us shared the same look that Gordon and I were pimpin' earlier. We couldn't believe this was happening--we couldn't believe our luck at even being at this game on a night that was supposed to end in a 60-0 thrashing at the hands of FSU's supposedly superior offense--but we were going to ride this thing out, in seats so close to the field (Muller had poached seats in section 111, near the corner of the end zone three rows from the grass) that I openly started planning my tactics to rush the field when (if?) we won this thing.

From the start of the second half till about the three-minute mark of the fourth quarter, almost everything that happened is a complete blur in my mind now. I remember reflecting on how well the day had gone to that point; the weather was a crazy 80° fall scorcher until the sun went down; I had gotten a freebie ticket from my buddy Eric "Steak" Tracy a week before the game, and then got three more freebies from my man Rich "More Baby, Less Football" Wysocki; we made the journey down to Charlottesville with almost zero traffic; the coeds were looking extra special at gametime.

Mostly, though, I was thinking about the last time UVA beat FSU, back in '95, when I was a third-year. That, too, had a special something in the air, but back then, it was easier to believe in the team because they were almost as good talent-wise as FSU before the game began. There are at least a dozen guys from those two teams in '95 that are still on NFL rosters (jeez, the Barber twins, Jamie Sharper, James Farrior, Peter Boulware, Warrick Dunn...wow); the atmosphere was incredible, and the game went right down to the last play, right down to (literally) the last two inches before UVA went on to win 33-28.

And, mostly, I was thinking about how cool it was to rush the field that night, the last time I rushed the field to run around like a crazy man with my friends...and, how cool it would be to do it again.

Then I was back in the now. There were about three minutes left, maybe a little more, and UVA had the ball, clinging (what other word can you use, really?) to a 26-21 lead. UVA had done nothing in the second half but run around with its head cut off, managing only a field goal in 27 minutes of play. Now, backed up in our own territory, we needed to do just enough to keep the ball away from Florida State's offense to close this thing out.

I assessed the situation. Everyone in orange-and-blue around me was sitting there waiting for us to blow it. Stokes was nervously--almost to the point of annoying--zipping and unzipping his jacket, not saying a word. Muller kept screaming to no one in particular that Groh needed to do something, maybe even needed to throw the ball, in order to get us a couple of first downs to close out the game. His wife Mandy was sitting down, head in hands, eyes glassy, unable to watch. Jeanne and JY were still standing, but the confidence had grown cool over the last few minutes, and now, it was quiet enough that my strange vocal confidence in the team could be heard two sections over.

UVA did nothing with the ball, but did run off enough clock that by the time they punted to the Seminoles, FSU only had about 50 seconds to score a touchdown. JY grabbed my hand, I grabbed Gordon's hand, some woman behind me grabbed my ass. (Maybe I'm making that up; it's not important now.) I looked over at Gordon.

"What if..."
"Don't say it, man! Don't fuckin' say anything! Don't jinx us!"
"Seriously, man...what if--"

FSU's quarterback, on the very next play, threw an interception. They were out of timeouts. Game over. Bedlam. What kind of bedlam?

Bedlam of such magnitude that I could barely hear the PA announcer say "Please refrain from entering the field after the game is over" because I was too busy going to the wall and jumping over it man my knees hurt onto the field and running past Florida State players hey Bowden fuck you and running out to the middle of the field with a thousand or two thousand or many thousand screaming co-eds jeez her shirt can barely contain those rockets and running around like a crazy man nearly got trampled right there and jumping up and down in front of a TV camera you like that in HD and tapping players on their helmets and hugging and AHHHHHHHHHH and kissing people I don't even know and watching Gordon call people from the 50-yard line at the end of a game we had no business winning man we are definitely the oldest people out here but I don't give two shits and thinking back way back to ten years ago and looking around and thinking

Man, it doesn't get any better than this. A win's a win, but...you had to be there. See you in 2015.

Random Bellviews, courtesy of Bell and Longer Community Trust:

26-21: Opening Weekend
FSU cheerleaders: Opening Weekend
"We couldn't stop that dadgum No. 18": Opening Weekend
Charlottesville, any time, ever: Opening Weekend
Bellview: Opening Weekend

bellview--when in doubt, shoot the three

AHHHHHHHHHH!