Morning; game day. I wake to find a surprisingly thick mountain of fog laid out over the desert, turning a landscape of pastels into something out of an Edgar Allen Poe short story.
I take this as a good sign. Columbus' trademark pillow grey sky has come to drown the west.
We're off to Mesa for breakfast at a small, family-owned restaurant we discovered in 2006.
Are they ready? I think so.
But can they stop the Rodeo? This, I'm not so sure of. I think we have yet to see this Ohio State secondary, plush with All-American Malcolm Jenkins, truly disembowel a hearty pass attack. The Bucks allow an average of 187.4 aerial yards on the road -- good enough to place seventh nationally, but they haven't faced a pass engine anywhere close to that of the tenth best Longhorns. (Illinois is the next closest, at twentieth).
The key for the defense, naturally, is locking onto Jordan Shipley and staying the hell with him. If the scarlet can take this all-purpose weapon out of contention, Texas will be without a true decoy, and will become strikingly more predictible.
We've got the talent, but I'll believe it when I see it.
After breakfast we're off to the stadium. Coverage in the east begins at 8:00 p.m.
Here's hoping we show up. I can deal with a loss -- we just need to compete. Go Bucks!