THE SUN DEVILS SHOCKER OVER OREGON

The Sun Devils did their best to ruin Oregon’s playoff run.

And they did it during my first visit to Frank Kush Field.

As a sports fan, I had great seats for the biggest football game of the year.

My takeaways from the night were more than game results.

To start, the Ducks and Sun Devils played the annual homecoming game.

What’s homecoming like on the Arizona State campus in Tempe? Party hearty. It had to be the reason so many drunk middle-aged sorority sisters were wobbling over stadium seating in high heels instead of walking the aisles.

Homecoming had to be the reason so many older bros got the old gang together and yelled, “HOTEL, MOTEL, HOLIDAY INN.”

After standing up and sitting down about a hundred times in the first half to make way for fans going out of for beer, bringing beer back, going out to pee, bringing back more beer, I got a leg day in.

I’ve got nothing against drinking beer and watching football games, but not when I can’t watch the game for the traffic, not with woozy stumblers hanging onto to their balance by the last thread.

It wasn’t homecoming that allowed beer in the stadium seats for the first year, instead of a beer garden in the concourse.

The wife and I were in town for other things and decided on going to the game to support the team. Our seats were deep in Sun Devils land with the guy next to me explaining his seasons’ tickets deal with the Broncos, Raiders, and Sun Devils.

And I believed him

He knew his teams, their histories, and called the tickets an investment. That’s sports fan talk for having too much money.

What ruined the game more than anything was the TV timeout guy with the red sleeves. He stepped out on the field with a portable timer so the entire stadium could count down while the huge TV showed sports heroes from the past.

Is this the future of college football, using television time to advertise school stars? It was probably more meaningful for the Sun Devils.

To tie the whole PAC12 At Night experience together, Arizona State did their version of Hook ’em Horns. But instead of using horn hands, they Fear The Fork.

The whole stadium shook the shocker like it wasn’t the shocker. That’s the hand sign up top. The whole place threw a shocker.

Who thought that would be a good idea? The winning team made it a good idea.