Dumpster Fire No Mo'

That was so weird yesterday!  A loss that was actually encouraging.  That ridiculous excuse/prediction that Toledo kept promising would happen where we would start losing better actually happened.

And the weather held out for the game too! #Winning

I have decided that Moral Victories of the Coach Fritz Era are vastly superior to being completely despondent over the hopeless haplessness of the Days That Are Behind Us.

Yes, indeed Coach! We are loving you!

Anyways, leaving the game last night the Wake Forest peeps were all trying to convince themselves to enjoy their victory, but they all sort of just shuffled out of there. No like HELL YEA or Rebel Yells, or WaaaHooo's!  Y'all Houston would have kicked their ass into the next millenium and they would probably still be trying to figure out what the heck happened.

All the dozens of them that were there anyways.

Listen up members of the Greenwave Nation hereby reading this blog.  I do not want anybody complaining to us again or thinking outloud about our attendance or the size of our band.  Because Wake Forest was so sad.  It was sad sad.  Like really sad.

I don't know if it was because it was a Thursday game, or the sketchy area that BB&T Stadium is located, but that was by far the most depressing P5 conference team and stadium I have visited. Although the people of Wake Forest are all lovely. I must preface by saying that we did not encounter a single solitary idiot fan.  They were very well behaved. They were pleasant. and they kept to themselves.  Well, they reminded us of us honestly.

People were telling me that Wake Forest is the most spectacular campus ever, but I did not get to see that.  I was picturing in my head something similar to Duke's lovely and delightful gameday atmosphere and stadium. But this was nowhere near that.

I would describe the environment as, well, Listless.  Their mascot even stalled his motorcycle at the 50 yard line and had to scoot it off the field.

Embarrassing! Speaking of Mascots and being embarrassed, ours was actually in attendance! Oh thank you Sweet Yahweh for all your gifts you are raining down on us!

What! Yes, it's true! Not an impostor.  The actual Riptide (and I think they fixed his eyes too so he's not like a scary clown.)  I even took this photo to document it because if I hadn't seen it you wouldn't believe me.

Ok, so the band....The Wake Forest band had less members than ours and what was more sad was that they were in T-shirts and shorts. For an ESPN televised game.

I don't know if we just get all excited about even just having a band that we go all out the box with putting ours into actual uniforms, but Wake Forest Band's sad little shorts reminded me of the post-Katrina years when our cheerleaders wore shorts because...well, I don't know why exactly our cheerleaders didn't get to have proper uniforms.  Because if someone had asked me for funds we would have certainly gotten them proper uniforms somehow someway.

Before the game, I don't know who decides their music line up, it was this endless stream of totally random rap/hip hop mishmash.  Like as if Wake Forest was trying to prove their street cred. Child, please. Wake Forest pregame << FAU.

The Wake Forest students line up on the grassy knoll and then they all run over across the stadium to the gates where they let the team run out and they form these messy lines to cheer the team through. I mean look at that Green jacket?  Could you imagine someone wearing a purple jacket on the field at a Tulane game?

It reminded me of the Rice Marching Owl Band running around doing their haphazard routines.  I way much prefer our blow up air tunnel with the sparklers and the team running over to the student section before going to the home sideline.  One thing I do wish is that Riptide would go back to leading the team out in the SeaDoo just like how their Demon Deacon does here on his motorcycle.  Except not the stalling out in the middle of the field part.

The Wake Forest dance team - who don't even have a cute Southern name, like the Tempting Tartlets or something cleverly related to their mascot - dances on the dugouts (not really dugouts, but it looks like dugouts), which was really cute.

And at the end of the game they do a super cute performance while the jumbotron exclaims "WAKE FOREST WINS!".  We so need to copy that victory dance for Shockwave.  But again - the Wake Forest dance team outfits were absolute yawners. They might as well have been in nun habits out there.

Wake Forest in general is just screaming for a makeover. Especially in the food and drink department.

At Wake they do an "Alcohol Check" when you walk in so that you can purchase "alcohol".  Some adults with a card table and a stack of purple wrist bands, they look at your ID (yes mister! I am 40somethingish! Don't look at me sideways) and then they mark you as a sinner around your wrist.  Except that was major false advertising because all we ever found was beer, and it was being sold by the good Catholics with the local Knights of Columbus chapter as their fundraiser. Hurray for Catholics!

Maybe an enterprising person brings their own so that they can spruce up the smoothies from the Coffee Truck for a tasty daiquiri.

So there was dipping dots, some horrid funnel cakes, a gyro cart, a burger food truck, and the interesting coffee truck with smoothies and lattes, and then blah popcorn and pepsi products. No barbecue!  Not even barbecue flavored chips. In a state known world over for their barbecue! And I barely saw any tailgating.  No cute tailgating decorations for me to ooh and ahh over, no yummy grilled goodness for me to sniff on vicariously like at University of Hawaii with their huli huli chicken and paper boats of pineapple fried rice. No walking from fraternity row to sorority row like at Georgia Tech or the cute booster tents like at Duke. Nothing.

And they can't say "but Thursday game" because we played Louisiana Tech on a Thursday and it was on ESPN too and they totally turned out in Ruston.

And no gameday dresses! Not one.  I was like, we are in (north) Carolina, right?  We didn't take a wrong turn off the interstate and wander over north of the Mason Dixon line or something?  I mean at Georgia Tech I was just in h-e-a-v-e-n admiring all the spirit, and the pomp, and the circumstance and then in Winston-Salem it's like the Witch landed on the house at Oz instead of the other way around.

Anyways, the game.

We will get better, and that makes me okay with the outcome.  I was vastly impressed with the improvements in instilling discipline in the team.  

The twister mat thingie, the grad assistants in color coordinating outfits so that they were easily identifiable on the sidelines.

People be eye rolling at me that these additions are high school things, but whatever.  I'm not knocking it.  CJ Johnson seemed to prefer playing with 9 players on the field, so if the twister mat fixes that bad habit then I'm behind it.

Should we have gone for the field goal on 4th down?  Should Cuillette have incorporated hand offs to our stable of running backs instead of Up The Middle (or what's it actually called with the option?). Coulda woulda shoulda.

But if you had told me on Wednesday that we would have been up on Wake and then held them to one score the whole game I woulda said "Get Outta Here! You Lyin!" and laughed.

I know that our new powers that be are upset that we didn't take that win away from Wake Forest because they hate losing and expect to win.  But that just makes me even more happy.  Because it means we are finally finally FINALLY governed by winners and that should make everyone in Greenwave Nation proud.

No more BS press conferences, no more putting lipstick on a pig and trying to sell us waterfront property in Arizona.  It's over, it's finally over.