Amazing, a few days later and it’s still a hot topic. As long as there are fans with mouths, the talking ensues. Replications of journalistic qualities emerge from every Dick and Jane wearing black and orange. Everyone discusses who and what, grouped together with the when and how. All caught up discussing the Oregon State-UCLA football game from Saturday.
But when the conversation begins it’s not about the referees. Not the offense, not the defense. Not Mike Riley. Not the rest of the coaching staff. Not the ball boys or training crew. It was special teams and more specifically, Gerard Lawson.
Lawson didn’t have the best day, somehow someone made sure of that. With about ten minutes left in the fourth quarter some lowly UCLA fan made a courtesy call to the great above. From that point on, Lawson was involved on every game changing play, for the worse, on Saturday. First he was called on a late hit out of bounds on a 51 yard Alexis Serna punt. It seemed to awaken the beast. Two plays later the Bruins were in the end zone and leading, 19-12.
Then it really hit the fan. Lawson joined perhaps the smallest fraternity in the history of time. He managed to fumble the football on three consecutive kickoffs. Probably the only player in football history to cough up three fumbles on three consecutive kickoffs. Take that Arlen Harris.
The last time there were three fumbles on three consecutive plays in a Beaver football game it was last year against Washington State and the time before that Beaver players were wearing leather helmets.
Unfortunately, those three muffed returns directly and indirectly cost the team the game. While allowing UCLA to retain possession of the ball kept the offense on the sidelines it also allowed UCLA to continue to ambush an already tired Oregon State defense. The Bruins scored two touchdowns directly from those turnovers. Khalil Bell ran one score in and Brand Breazell caught another. Less than three minutes later, it was 33-14, Bruins.
Is it time to tear into Lawson? No. Granted, that type of play from a division I football player is not condonable but should fans understand that was not Lawson’s fault.
Fumbling three straight times a player steps onto the field is almost impossible. The worst players in country couldn’t do that. Pull a random male student out of the stands, put pads on him, run him out there, and chances are even he wouldn’t even fumble three times in a row. Even if he tried!
Run through that scenario again another million times and Lawson will control the ball at least once out of the three kickoffs. Even if he held the ball in one hand and ran like Michael Vick he wouldn’t fumble three consecutive plays.
That was divine intervention. Someone, somewhere in UCLA nation is without a soul. They sold it to the Devil in order for that to happen. That or the flipside occurred, “Make him fumble, God, and I’ll never gamble again.” Then, all of the sudden, miraculously, UCLA killed the spread.
Sadly, Oregon State fans in the fourth quarter neglected to take a step back, couldn’t look in the mirror or the sky above, couldn’t look at a player with his head low, beaten, bruised, disgusted with himself and they couldn’t give him any kind of support.
Excuse the Hank Greenburg tone, but that was atrocious on the part of the fans. Greenburg once told the late Washington Post writer, Shirley Povich, “Ball players have rabbit ears, try as they might they can’t shut out the boos.”
Lawson didn’t need to have rabbit ears in Reser Stadium. It seemed as if half of the crowd wanted to remind him of his follies only moments ago. Right, like he had forgotten. There is an inherit philosophy of short-term memory for football players but chances are, after Lawson had ricocheted the third kickoff, in a row, off the field turf he didn’t run to the sidelines thinking he just scored a touchdown.
Reminding him as he trots off the field isn’t going to improve his confidence the next time he jogs out to return a kick. Pay your money, sit in the stands, boo the referees, boo the coach, boo the UCLA fans, but don’t tear down a kid for being the recipient one the bad end of some divine intervention. Next time pop in some MC Hammer and pray a little harder.
Leave a Reply