I apologize in advance. But this one’s gonna be for the Tim Robinson heads in the crowd. If you’re not down with a subsection of mid-2010’s Saturday Night Live pastiche, Detroiters, Office Hours Live bits,
I Think You Should Leave or, most recently, The Chair Company… then this one won’t be for you.
There’s a popular phrase in the internet sports fan lexicon that I think is fine, but imperfect: “This game is drunk.” It’s often used when a game (of any sport) goes off the rails of what you’d normally expect to see. Goals start cascading into the nets in soccer. Players are fumbling or hucking the ball into the stands in baseball. Players are bricking threes and following up their own rebounds with alley-oop slams in basketball. Maybe I didn’t need to explain it that much but I did anyway.
The reason I’m not particularly into this phrase (don’t check my social media feeds, I’m sure I’ve never used it) mostly stems from my own personal experiences getting drunk which, save a few months in Europe during my undergrad study abroad trip, have mostly led to me getting extra sleepy. I don’t get silly and off the walls when I over-imbibe, the lights in my brain sort of just fade out.
And here’s another thing, getting drunk isn’t evocative enough. It’s so ubiquitous. Most people have gotten drunk, so there’s no imagination that comes with evoking the state of drunkenness. You hear, “This game is drunk,” and you’re like, “OK yeah. I get it.”
What we need are descriptors that really push the boundaries of what a chaotic game could be: Some of our options include:
- “This game is stoned:” Better, sillier, somewhat perplexing, when’s the last time you consumed marijuana and wanted to play sports?
- “This game has bumped a few rails:” This is more like it! Sort of vague, but sort of naughty when you realize what they’re saying. Slightly more literal in describing chaos and freneticism.
- “This game is jacked on skag:” Probably a stretch, but the contradiction makes it fun.
- “This game licked the Buffalo River Toad:” Ding, ding, ding. We’ve got a winner.
We’re almost 400 words in and we’re finally at the Friendship connection. Sometimes when I’m watching Mizzou games and thinking about what I’ll write for the Revue, the answer just comes to me. And when Mississippi State’s first quarter field goal attempt bounced off the knee of the holder and bounced around on the turf before Toriano Pride began history’s longest muffed-field-goal-return of all time that didn’t end in a touchdown, it came to me. This game is Friendship. It’s about an affable, somewhat beguiling central figure who slowly goes insane and somehow maintains your rooting interest. Is that Mizzou or is that Mizzou?
It doesn’t stop at that connection though. This game was full of the sort of bewitchingly odd moments that you might find in any Tim Robinson project. No we’re not talking tipped passes and balls flying through hands. I’m talking about an Ahmad Hardy cutback that not once, but twice, fooled the entire defense and led to a long score. I’m talking a YAC attack moment courtesy of Joshua Manning. Two, count them two, targeting calls. Santana Banner getting punched in the arm and getting a personal foul called on him. A pick six that came off two deflections and was caught three inches above the ground. I could go on. This game had the soul of a man whose wife just reconnected and is spending a suspiciously large amount of platonic hang out time with her ex. Hopefully they don’t go dancing. God forbid he flips her upside down. Eight times? That would really bother me.
And this is less of a direct connection to the film, but does anyone else feel like Ahmad Hardy runs with the force of a Connor O’Malley or Tim Robinson rant? Watch Hardy’s highlight reel from the other night while this audio plays in the background and tell me there aren’t some parallels. At least energetically.
And what was it that brought me here in the first place? Oh right, the toad. Touching god, and all that. Major spoilers for one of the funniest scenes in modern movie history right here, but watching Mississippi State vs. Mizzou was, I imagine, exactly like licking the Buffalo River Toad. Because as wild and trippy as that game often felt, it turned out to be a pretty routine win. The game wasn’t in question for the fourth quarter. Some of the reserves got in by the end. It all felt pretty benign, like ordering a Subway sandwich. It’s not bad, but it’s also not scratching the itch you know? Almost like that toad ripped you off.
And I’ll leave you guys with this one final thought… We should still be in Afghanistan and I don’t know why we pulled out in the way we did.
I will not elaborate.
For winning a weird game that made me laugh, but not as much as Friendship, Mizzou gets 4 out of 5 Buffalo River Toads. It’s time to touch God.
