Opening night in college football. So I'm watching Louisiana-Monroe play Tulsa. Why? I'm not sure. I'm not in mid-season football watchers form yet. I forgot the popcorn, I'm just a click slow on the remote, and I keep switching back to 'Law and Order' because it's one of the ones with Angie Harmon. It's just not coming together. Wish I had prepared more, but I spent the last month not watching David Beckham play soccer, or football, or aerobic stretching or whatever it's called.

So the sky looks really dark at the LM-Tulsa game and there's this official on the sidelines looking at a printout from some weather radar website. 'Yeah, looks OK to me, he says.'

SCATTERED THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED THIS AFTERNOON AND EVENING
ACROSS THE REGION. STRONGER STORMS MAY PRODUCE WIND GUSTS NEAR 35
MILES AN HOUR...BRIEF HEAVY DOWNPOURS...AND FREQUENT CLOUD TO GROUND LIGHTNING. (As opposed to the other kind which is really scary). F
CLOUD TO GROUND
Now this Louisiana. In August. The sky looks like that scene in "Ghostbusters" where the lightning cloud is encircling the apartment building. And Barney Garflug part-time official, full time bank manager is looking at a bunch of swirls on a photo and deciding that the lightning isn't all that bad and it's OK to keep playing. He isn't a meteorologist, but what the hay he spent last night at a Holiday Inn.

Suppose you're a freshman football player. You see the lightning, you were awake during Science class and understand the implications of wearing metal cleats during an electrical storm. If you were a cow you'd head for the low end of the pasture and crouch down on your belly. You want to do that. But you can't, you're a college football player. Your life is not as important as that of a cow. They can get more football players. Cows cost money.

Meanwhile, LSU is up 17-0 on Mississippi State and nobody is happy. The LSU fans and the announcers (who may or may not be the same people) say the pressure of being #2 is dawning on the team. My own theory is that it's Starkville, Mississippi on a Thursday night and nothing much is happening. Seems plausible because, it's Starkville Mississippi. On a Thursday night.

Then there's this cartoon character, or maybe it's Lou Holtz giving one of the other announcers a helmet. Maybe so he doesn't have to listen to Holtz. Maybe so we don't have to listen to him. It's all kind of foggy. Then again, maybe it wasn't Holtz. Nick at Night may have been running "My Favorite Martian" reruns. I always get Holtz and Ray Walston confused.

So I switch back to THE University of Louisiana at Monroe and Tulsa. The announcers keep calling it Mon-roe, when everyone in a state where ice is served in tea knows it's Mun-roe. Yankees. Can't live with em', can't seceed from them. But what can you do?

It's 28-17 Tulsa and the wind is picking up. They show the parking lot. Think I saw a cow and Helen Hunt fly over one of the team buses. I could be wrong. It looked like a cow.

They are showing disaster footage from Katrina and students pushing down a tarp in the stands. Helpfully they play piano music in the background so we'll know to feel bad about all the death and homelessness. Otherwise we would have been sitting there thinking, "Dude, it must have been cool to get lifted off the roof into that helicopter." ESPN thinks we're all mindless drones. Then again we ARE watching ESPN.

So I turn the sound off and start checking scores and stories on the internet. Says here the last living Vols starter from the 39' team died. Glad they made that distinction. All the dead starters from the 39' team are, well, dead.

Murray State College and School of Auto Repair is down 60 to Louisville with a quarter left. The team mascot just went in at quarterback for Louisville. Maybe they will hold it to under 90 and beat the spread. Not that anybody is betting on these games. That would be wrong.

LSU scored again, 24 zip. Doesn't even look like a football score. More like an Orioles game in the 8th inning. Enough already.

It's 10:22. The bars are still open and somewhere 'Law & Order' is still on. I'm out of here. It's opening night and I'm ready to close.