Last night, as promised a few days/weeks ago, I attended a season-opening college football game, specifically Fordham v. Army in historic West Point, NY, and, honestly, the game was over before it even started, as it only took Army about a minute and a half into the game to open the scoring, and from there, Army's defense + run game just completely overwhelmed Fordham (which, before I forget to mention it, is only about an hour from West Point, in the Rose Hill section of the Bronx, and is actually located slightly above Yankee Stadium) - at one point during the opening quarter, Fordham's offense fumbled away a potential 4th-and-1 yard conversion attempt, by which point Army was already up 14-0, soon to make it 21-0 after the opening quarter...
After that, Army took a short break from scoring, only to return an absolutely swatted Fordham field goal attempt for a 75-yard touchdown return, and that seemed to be the true "turning point" of the night, despite the score already being lopsided in favor of Army by then, although Fordham, to its credit, soon led a very deliberate drive after that whole debacle to get a TD of its own, although it was truly all Army after that, from the extra point attempt after that TD being knocked away, to Army running the ball down the Fordham defense's guts the rest of the way, scoring another 30 points during the second half to put the tiny bit of hope Fordham had during the second quarter to rest, although, honestly, the stats attained by each team likely would've looked different during any other game, with Fordham putting up decent passing #'s, and Army not being able to "ground and pound" the way it did last night and expecting to win a game!
Army highlights/recap
Fordham highlights (not many of them, to be honest...)/recap
CBS box score/stats
The craziest stat of the night: Army had no passing yards whatsoever, racking up all of its 513 yards in a total of 47 runs; Army faced no 4th downs the entire game (having one of its five 3rd downs throughout the night turned into a 1st down on a Fordham penalty); speaking of penalties, there were only 5 pen's/55 pen. yards between the teams, and Fordham actually had offensive possession longer than Army (34:30 for Fordham - 25:30 for Army), although that came as a result of Army scoring almost immediately every time it gained possession!
The campus itself is actually up a bit of a hill located near a few NY state highways (9, 202, 218; etc., along with a few Metro-North stations), and the stadium is just about at the top, past various national border-type security checkpoints, lending itself to a fair bit of travel for people on the opposite side of the Hudson River (Cold Spring/Garrison/Peekskill/
The fans, however, whether the Army fans, or the Fordham fans who basically completely gave up at halftime, although they came from all throughout the tri-state area, weren't nearly as loud as all the cannons (which you'll hear in the highlights) that sounded whenever Army scored (along with a few other instances), mostly this cannon in one of the corners of the stadium:
^That^ cannon, again, is in one of the corners of the stadium, and sounds (by itself, thankfully) on kickoffs, as well as, as I just mentioned, after all Army scores during games, although a bunch more cannons join on the (pun totally intended) booming fun after scoring plays, although the other cannons are located elsewhere on campus, as "signals", of sorts, to people elsewhere on campus that Army has, indeed, scored more points, and, also: immediately after every quarter; during the Army band's halftime performance (immediately before and after); even after the game, once again, as a "signal" of an Army victory, and there's also a bit of smoking/sparking that can be seen whenever the cannon plopped down in its little corner sounds...
Honestly, between all the cannon blasts, the somewhat deceptive location of the campus, and the blowout nature of the actual game, I'm honestly glad to get just this visit in, given the historic location involved, and move on, since there are other places to visit, just within this area (Rutgers, Syracuse, and UConn above all others, although there are, also, a few D1 FCS/D2/D3 programs locally (Albany; Columbia, in upper Manhattan; Marist, located in Poughkeepsie; Stony Brook, out on Long Island; Wagner, on Staten Island, along with Central Connecticut and Sacred Heart, in Fairfield, CT, along with a few here in Jersey), along with Maryland and Navy down in MD, along with the whole "bowl season" in December, although, in fairness to those schools, those aren't the best programs in college football, while, in college hockey, teams such as Quinnipiac have reached a few of the most recent national championship games, and Union and Yale have won said games, so there's much more "prestige" within just a few hours of here in college hockey instead of college football! (on that note, along with the other games (mostly October/November) I mentioned a few days ago, I'd like to add Bemidji State (MN) @ Princeton as another possible game for me this college hockey season, since that's the Wednesday before Thanksgiving (11/22), so I'd be able to get down there and back without interfering with any other commitments!)
Lastly, I made a bit of a "swap" on Tuesdays, from starting @ 1, to ending @ 10:45-11, since, after all, I scheduled myself to have nothing on Wednesdays this semester, allowing me to get back home during the 11 PM hour those nights and just be able to "crash" almost immediately those nights throughout this upcoming semester! With all of that out of the way now, though, I'll just make like an old radio/television station and "sign off" for what is most likely the last time this summer break!
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