I've never run so fast in my life.
The roar emanated from Stadium & Main and echoed down State Street, where I'd just emerged from the shortcut behind the field hockey, er, field. The year, 2004. I was a junior in high school; as a freshman, I'd run cross country, and specialized in sprinting the last 200 yards of a 5K because puking was absolutely worth not finishing behind the guy in front of me.
On this day, however, I wasn't in a pack of pimple-faced skinny dudes in uncomfortably short shorts. I had not planned on running; sullen trudging, eyes cast down to the sidewalk, was the plan as I, my brother, and my dad's old college roommate headed back to my parents house from a certain loss to Michigan State.
The roar changed those plans.
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It was just chilly enough to feel the wind in your bones. DeAndra Cobb broke his second long touchdown run of the evening to put Michigan State up 27-10 partway through the fourth quarter. Dusk settled over Ann Arbor.
They were my dad's roommate's seats. "I've had enough," he said, or something to that effect, and my brother and I tacitly agreed by standing and exiting with him. We were young and polite and stupid, in about equal parts.
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If I'd simply believed I was missing one of the greatest Michigan comebacks in history each time I ran a race, perhaps I wouldn't have quit cross country after one unremarkable season on JV. I'd certainly never started a "race" so fast after hearing a cheer that could've only followed a Michigan touchdown. A part of me had wondered if I'd regret leaving; now I knew I regretted it, and I don't remember having to say a thing before I took off. My brother followed. Sorry, dad's roommate, but this was your choice, after all.
Not that I didn't know better. In 2004, you didn't have to know much about football to know which Wolverine would be the one to spearhead a wildly improbable comeback. Braylon Edwards always seemed larger than his listed 6'3", and he always came down with the damn ball, somehow. Growing up as sports junkies, we used to call catching a jump ball over a defender "Mossing" when we played football at the park or in the backyard; beginning sometime in the Fall of 2003, we began calling it "Brayloning" instead.
I ran out of guilt. I ran out of excitement. I ran through the front door and between gasps asked my father, "What did Braylon do?"
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Oh.
We missed the first one, of course. The second one, as I recall, was replayed again and again just after we made it home. We finally got to share in the jubilation of the third, but it felt a little cheapened; we'd bailed, and "it was cold and we didn't think they'd do it" no longer felt like a sufficient excuse.
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This year's Michigan team, like the last several, doesn't instill the same confidence that 2004 squad did. There's no Mike Hart equivalent, nor a Jake Long or Jason Avant or Steve Breaston or LaMarr Woodley or Marlin Jackson. Devin Gardner compares far better to Half-Broken 2007 Chad Henne than Fully Operational 2004 Chad Henne.
Unfocus your eyes just a little, though, and you'll swear Braylon is still out there, and he's been spending time in the weight room.
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I'll be watching today's game from my couch; I had no interest in making the trip to East Lansing after last year's debacle, especially since a repeat performance appears disturbingly likely. But the television will stay on until all doubt is gone, and even after all that's happened since Braylonfest a decade ago, I'll let that doubt gnaw at me far more than it used to.
Go Blue. Throw it up to Braylon Funchess.