Here's the Thing: The Music City Bowl

To the Mid-Tier Bowls, and the Stories that Surround Them.

See, the thing was, Iowa led just about the entire game.

Drew Tate hit Clinton Solomon on a 57-yard touchdown pass on the game’s first possession, and when LSU made two field goals to close the margin to one point, Sean Considine blocked yet another punt for a touchdown. It was 24-12 on a Marques Simmons touchdown run with 13 minutes left to play. It was only when LSU went to JaMarcus Russell that their offense started to click, and so the Tigers led for all of 46 seconds.

That 46 seconds was enough for Donny; when Iowa was flagged for a false start with 14 seconds left¹, Donny realized he was past due for a trip to the bathroom. When Tate hit Holloway from 56 yards a few seconds later, and the whole of Iowa City screamed all at once, he thought we were messing with him.

We were sitting in a two-bedroom apartment on the corner of Burlington and Gilbert, and the building was swaying as if there had been an earthquake. You could hear a din of noise outside the screen door, not unlike walking down Melrose during a game. Cars were honking their horns in celebration. There were riots in the streets. Someone tried to get enough people together to flip over a car. They were unsuccessful.