Today was my second Mizzou football game day, after some time away from the team as a coworker took over the coverage. I hadn't been particularly happy with my work last game. I also saw a lot of inspiring work in the past few weeks as well including some great work from my friend Grant Hindsley, who went on the road to Texas from Utah and made some (characteristically) great work. I took that great work as motivation and went out and tried to make my best work and cover as many of the angles as possible while not missing anything key. 

It was a tight game all the way through, tighter than any of the radio folks around Columbia expected. But coming into the end of the 4th quarter the Tigers has pulled away from what was supposedly a bad Indiana football team, just barely. With what could have been potentially the last play of the game, Missouri was called for pass interference on 4th down and gave Indiana a chance to run down the field and dive over the line for a touchdown. From there, even a lateral or two couldn't save Mizzou and they were handed their first loss, 31-27.

In the search for a sad moment from the players or coaches, I saw Marcus Murphy in the distance, sitting on the field next to the football he caught on the last play of the game but was unable to do anything with. I ran over but before I could get there to make the photo, an Indiana player picked him up. It was an appropriate way to end the game for me, as I felt like I shot Indiana better than Mizzou today, which doesn't help when you don't work for an Indiana paper.

Next week's road trip to South Carolina (and to ESPN College Gameday) will provide a change of pace and allow me a chance to hit the reset button on my work. College Gameday and a night game will be a blast. Plus, I remember something I heard at a workshop once, about seeing everything with your inner "child's eye" and a chance to go to a place I've never been before, shoot things I've never seen... I'm expecting it to be a lot of fun.