Clemson Wins
I had honestly hoped for more.
I wanted to see Nick Saban get cobra-ed. I had hoped for the cameras to catch fans after every big play with their heads in the hood. What I got instead was a merciful camera crew, who did not seek out the cobra victims after the first quarter.
The Clemson Tigers, 2019 NCAA champions, defeated the Alabama Crimson Tide yesterday, 44-16. It was a beautiful game.
And it was a game with precious few cobras to be counted. In fact, I only saw two - and my brother Parker captured them both for me with screenshots. The first one was glorious, coming after a pic-six during Alabama's first set of offensive downs, just 1:40 seconds into the game.
It was glorious. Full-on, both hand on head, fully hooded cobra.
I was dancing around the room, screaming laughter, kissing the dog, spilling my beer on the floor. And trying to find a camera so that I could capture the inevitable moment when they showed an Alabama fan.
The next one was more subtle, but it was maybe even nicer. The fan performed a perfect half cobra, combining slumped shoulders with the disbelief that their team was, in fact, losing.
31-16 in the 3rd quarter.
The final screen capture was a modified cobra, given by a coach who no longer knows what to do. This is not something that we have EVER seen from Nick Saban. I am no fan, but the guy is one of the best coaches there is. He has contingency plans for his contingency plans. And yet.... no plan covered this.
For the rest of the game, every glorious hit by a Clemson defender, every connected pass, every run, every score was followed by a cut to the celebrations of Clemson bench and Clemson fans. There was not a single time that the cameras tracked the look of disappointment on the other side of the stadium.
The word schadenfreude means "pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune". And that 100% of what the cobra is. Schadenfreude is the process of watching as the mighty crumble, as the invincible are proved to have clay feet. As Achilles goes down, part of us feels like the distance between those Titans and us normal folk is not as insurmountable as we once thought.
When it is the team you are rooting for that is humbling the Olympians, it is a beautiful thing to behold.
I wanted to see Nick Saban get cobra-ed. I had hoped for the cameras to catch fans after every big play with their heads in the hood. What I got instead was a merciful camera crew, who did not seek out the cobra victims after the first quarter.
The Clemson Tigers, 2019 NCAA champions, defeated the Alabama Crimson Tide yesterday, 44-16. It was a beautiful game.
And it was a game with precious few cobras to be counted. In fact, I only saw two - and my brother Parker captured them both for me with screenshots. The first one was glorious, coming after a pic-six during Alabama's first set of offensive downs, just 1:40 seconds into the game.
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| Interception for a TOUCHDOWN! |
It was glorious. Full-on, both hand on head, fully hooded cobra.
I was dancing around the room, screaming laughter, kissing the dog, spilling my beer on the floor. And trying to find a camera so that I could capture the inevitable moment when they showed an Alabama fan.
The next one was more subtle, but it was maybe even nicer. The fan performed a perfect half cobra, combining slumped shoulders with the disbelief that their team was, in fact, losing.
31-16 in the 3rd quarter.
 |
| Coach's Cobra, Position #2 |
For the rest of the game, every glorious hit by a Clemson defender, every connected pass, every run, every score was followed by a cut to the celebrations of Clemson bench and Clemson fans. There was not a single time that the cameras tracked the look of disappointment on the other side of the stadium.
The word schadenfreude means "pleasure derived by someone from another person's misfortune". And that 100% of what the cobra is. Schadenfreude is the process of watching as the mighty crumble, as the invincible are proved to have clay feet. As Achilles goes down, part of us feels like the distance between those Titans and us normal folk is not as insurmountable as we once thought.
When it is the team you are rooting for that is humbling the Olympians, it is a beautiful thing to behold.
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