Even if you know virtually nothing about football, the collective groan coming from the Williams-Brice Stadium on Thursday told you all you needed to know. Texas A&M made the student section wish they had gone to class that day.
This loss was a painful way to start the season. However, before you take your sheet of face tattoos to the trash chute, remember this: you love this school enough to put a tattoo on your face. More importantly, you love this school enough to try and take that tattoo off the next day. Yes, we can see where you scrubbed it off.
You love USC enough to wear those cowboy boots and to take the blisters they gave you in a slightly broken stride. You love USC enough to scream “COCKS” at the top of your lungs, and exercise the self-control required to not giggle afterwards.
We buy the overpriced T-shirts and we ride the crowded shuttles. When we graduate, and hopefully age well, we will return in our visors and garnet seersucker button down shirts and dresses and pay handsomely to watch college kids get obliterated, along with our defense.
We do it all with a smile on our faces and our pinkies and thumbs displayed proudly. Why? Because Thursday morning was what euphoria looks like. Some describe the night before the first game like they would describe Christmas Eve. You could ask almost anyone on the campus, and they would be excited about the game, even if they didn’t get a ticket. If you sat on the Horseshoe before kickoff you would hear shouts and laughs ringing all over the city, all saying the same thing: “Today we are united, students, faculty and alumni, in a display of pride.”
On game day, we aren’t just rooting for the players, we are rooting for the connection and pride we all feel in the possibility of winning. And while we do like to Sandstorm, it does not really matter if we win or lose, as long as we remain enthusiastic about playing the game. So don your garnet and rally your towels for Saturday, because while A&M may have this win, we will always have gameday.