Impartiality is not an option

I hadn't watched any Kansas Jayhawks or Arizona State Sun Devils games so far this Season. At the time of writing, we are only two games into the 2026 season. Of course I've watched both Michigan games. Anyone other than my own team is going to have to wait. But, as I had tickets to the Arizona State v University of Kansas game being played at Wembley, I thought I should get an idea of who's who for both teams. I watched Kansas v Missouri online and Mizzou were clearly the better team. It’s a big rivalry game too. Which was another good reason to watch. I didn't get a chance to watch a Sun Devils game. Hey. It was a busy week.

 Watching that game against Mizzou, Jayhawks QB, Isaiah Marshall seemed erratic, to the point that there were a couple of passes he bounced to his receivers. And don’t say to me, “So, he was short hopping his passes.” No, there’s short hops and then there’s these wobblers. I’m sticking with “bounce passes.” That's how badly he was missing those throws. Then two plays after landing the ball at a wide open receiver’s feet came a play where he was scrambling for a first down. It’s third and three. He dropped back and was almost immediately facing pressure up the middle. He spins, staggers, at which point he’s 12 yards behind the line of scrimmage. He has to steady himself with his non-throwing hand on the ground, and then he sprints to the yard marker on the left sideline. Right at the sticks he is hit by a defender, and he reaches the ball out past the marker to eke out a first down. A+ for effort.  

After that he misses a couple more that he should have hit. But, on the touchdown just before the half, he makes the hard throw look easy. Scrambling to the left he could have run for a first down, but he lets it rip, throwing against his body, and the same receiver he missed so badly earlier makes the sliding grab.

Then came the most ridiculous play I think I've ever seen. Hyperbole aside, I'd put it in a top twenty of most ridiculous plays I've ever seen - at the very least. It’s second and eight at the Kansas 8-yard line. Marshall has pressure from the Mizzou defence right from the snap. With both left end and right end converging on him he scrambles to his left, sprinting for the sideline. The Jayhawks are 14 points down, and it’s midway through the third quarter. A hint of desperation is creeping into the game. Marshall, however, must be feeling it.  By the time he’s got to the sideline he slams on the brakes. Unfortunately, there’s not really enough room to make a U-turn and the defender is right on top of him and dives at the quarterback’s legs and due to the laws of physics, you think he’s going to get pushed out for a seven-yard loss. He’s actually spinning in the air and falling backwards out of bounds when he launches the ball. The ball loops about thirty yards in the air. There’s two receivers in the area and four defensive backs closing in. One receiver goes up and pulls it in. OK. This kid is genius or lucky idiot or genius idiot. But he's certainly worth watching.

 It made me think of how reckless Bo Nix seemed to me when he was at Auburn University.  Then he went to Oregon and became a guy who'd have a 70% completion rate. Somehow, he went from making Fran Tarkenton look like Dan Marino, to a guy who was deadly accurate. And that should seriously be the official measuring stick for quarterback mobility. Back in Tarkenton's time with the Vikings, in the 60s, running 50 yards in reverse to complete a five-yard pass could happen at least twice a game. And Marino never left the pocket, and wouldn't even do so if the backfield was on fire.

 I'm keen to see what happens with Isaiah Marshall, how his game progresses. But for the moment, liking the misadventures of a Kansas Jayhawks QB seemed enough reason to side with Kansas for the day. As the old sports adage goes: You have to pick a side when you're watching a game, even if it's based on how you feel about the colour of their kit or how annoying their mascot is. Liking one player is usually a good option.

What follows is an account of going to a game at Wembley in London by myself to watch two teams I do not care about play in front of a crowd of 46,523. That’s a half full Wembley.  By contrast, until this year, the NFL games usually sell out. The stadium felt like it was a good 80% fans who had travelled for the game. That’s a real turnaround from what you get at the NFL London games, where typically you see 32 different NFL shirts in the stadium on game day. It adds to a sense of the crowd being more curious, trying out a new sport, taking in a watered-down NFL experience, where the crowd doesn’t really care who wins. I remember being at a Wembley game where a Washington fan, clearly from the US, and clearly a fan who cared deeply, looked like he was living and dying with each play. That’s what you want. That’s what you tend to get if you watch a real NFL home game.

I guess we had a mix of genuine fans who just wanted to see a college game but had no dog in this race, and a lot of Americans who probably go back at least five generations of folks who attended either University. There seemed to be a lack of the curious give-it-a-go crowd. People knew their stuff. But they still didn’t care. It’s a good job the Arizona State fans cared a lot. The chants of “ASU ASU” could be heard all day.  They seemed to be most in-your-face fans. In contrast Kansas fans seemed more chilled. I was definitely feeling more Kansas.

I was really keen to go and see the whole Fox sports Big Noon Kick-off stage. It felt like seeing a world-famous roaming landmark. There was a certain thrill to be had. I couldn’t hear a word anyone was saying. I’d have liked to have heard what RG3 had to say. He is one of my favourite game analysts. I couldn’t hear a word anyone said. At least I got to see that big RG3 smile. The only person I could hear was the stage director guy shouting for everyone to “make more noise.” He’s let us know that we were back from commercial in twenty seconds and we should get ready to make some noise. I’ve never been one for that. Obviously, the ASU fans were making all the noise.

I got to my seat with forty-five minutes to kill. I was happy to message friends and take it all in and take pics. Sometimes I am aware that I’m by myself but then I remember, I’m hardcore, I’m here for the football, not for the social, not to cheer for the right team. Often at games and in sports bars conversations spontaneously combust all around. That usually does depend on there being some American sports fans in the vicinity. I had somehow got a ticket where everyone around me was British and seemingly not interested in discussing anything of what was going on this day. As we say, “it is what it is.”

I had a flashback to the time the Vikings played the Jets in London at White Hart Lane, and I went along with my friend who’s a Vikings fan and has been for a very long time. Godfrey and me can talk about that Vikings D-Line of the late 80s like it was yesterday. Even as a Lions fan I had to give respect to Chris Doleman, Keith Millard and Henry Thomas. That’s one hell of a D-Line they had. Now, you’d think, what with being in the same division as my Lions that I’d be rooting for the Jets to pull off an upset. Sure. But I’d been shooting my mouth off all season to that point saying that I don’t care how many games anyone else in the division wins. Even at that game I was sat with Vikings fans around me, telling them the same. “You can win as many games as you like. As long as you lose the two that I care about. You can go 15-2, as long as two of those losses are against the Lions and we finish ahead of you.” I must have looked like some sort of football savant, when, at the end of the season we finished top of the division with a 15-2 record and the Vikes had a record of 14-3. Two of those losses being to the Lions.

At White Hart Lane I didn’t care who won or lost. I just thought I’d have fun booing Aaron Rodgers. It made the game interesting for me. At one point I yelled out, as Rodgers was about to take the snap, “Aaron Rodgers you suck!” He threw an interception. I said, “Thank you I’ll take the credit for that one. You’re welcome.” The next time I yelled, “Aaron Rodgers you still suck!” He throws a pick-six that gets returned 63 yards for the score.”  The young guy and girl in front of me, she had a guidebook to the history of the NFL, they seemed to be enjoying it and giggling at this new experience of hurling Americanisms at the opposing quarterback.

It’s hard to not say anything to anyone around you at a football game, be it college or pro-football. Most times I’ve been to a game in the States the people around me have started talking to me. I can’t sit at the bar in certain sports bars without some guy conversing, and of course, football is a language I speak fluently. How else do you find yourself sat at the bar in the Hippodrome Sports Casino talking to some guy, over from the States, about how Lyle Alzado took too many steroids in the 70s and 80s and it ruined his body and brain?

Of course when some guy mentions “The Big House”, my ears pricked up like a German Shepherd police dog at a drugs bust." I had to turn around and say, “You talking Michigan?” We talked. I showed him the footage of everyone singing Mr Brightside at the end of the third quarter, from the time I was at the “so-called rivalry game” against the Spartans. The guy isn’t that talky. We’re all fist bumps over being Lions and Michigan fans. But after that, he moves seats. I don’t take it personally. Thankfully, the young guy sat next to me wearing a Raiders jersey, who, up to this point, has said nothing to me and I nothing to him, is responsive when I ask him if he has any stake in this game. Turns out, he’s just here for some football. I tell him what I know about Isaiah Marshall. I tell him that I’m leaning more to the Kansas side of things and that if in doubt – go with the underdog. I’m a Michigan Wolverines fan standing and whooping and cheering when Kansas scores the first TD of the game with a punt return. I remember how a friend once told me that you may as well buy into the day if you’ve paid for your ticket and shown up at the game.

With under a minute to go in the first half, and Kansas have the ball inside their own five, I decide I’m going to beat the rush and get my hotdog dinner out on the concourse. I say to my Raiders pal, “Three runs up the gut is all they’re going to call. If I’m wrong and they go 98 yards for a score, then at least record it for me as it happens.” I got a few seats away and turned back to say, “Make it 3 QB sneaks from the 2 and that will do the half.” However, stupid me, I forgot to check how many timeouts The Sun Devils had. I’m mid hotdog when they score on a long pass play to take the lead.

I’m not interested in the halftime show. I never am. The concourse seems to be flooded with ASU fans. They don’t even seem fussed that they’re out here and not in there watching the game, watching their team score. They’re happy to celebrate away from the field, amongst others of their kind. Through the whole halftime the concourse feels like where the party is. I do little to join in. I feel like I’m in observer mode. I overhear a man and a woman talking. She seems to have put back a few drinks. She says, “I’m way more Kansas than you.” I think there was then some reference to frequenting somewhere called Pete’s. I thought it might have been Pete’s Pizza that she said, but all I’ve come up with since I started writing this article is a regional chain of convenience stores called Pete’s across Kansas. This was the closest I came to joining in a conversation, but I thought that maybe I’d be a third wheel in the conversation. There did seem something flirty in this competition over who’s more Kansas.

I moved on. I thought about going back to my seat, but I could hear a rendition of “Sweet Caroline” being sung throughout the stands. How that became a thing at sporting events I will never know. Thinking I could possibly avoid it, I put my headphones on, but before I even pressed play on Spotify some guy was singing it out loud, walking past me, almost singing it right in my face. It’s as though he was carrying the song from the stands out to the concourse.

The concourse seemed so colourful and vibrant, more so for me not standing still. It was a colourful blur of a place to be. As a fan on my own, there didn’t seem to be a place to stop and belong. I thought that one interesting thing to do is to keep walking. Could I walk all the way around the stadium? Sounds a silly question but at some grounds parts are blocked off unless you went through a different entry point. There were plenty of fans in striped red and yellow dungarees. They call them “game bibs” apparently. There’s something I’d never given a name to until now. I kept walking and it didn’t even seem an issue if I did get back to my seat in time for the second half kick-off. I felt that this is live sport. It’s something more than just watching the events unfold on the pitch.

I was still on the concourse when the crowd noise alerted me to a big play ASU had taken the second half kick-off to the house. I saw half of it from the tunnel between concourse and stands. By the time I got back to my seat I felt that so much had happened since I last sat down. Does it matter if it happens when you’re in your seat or wandering the stadium? Again, it all seemed part of live sport. The buzz of energy had hit me as I walked back into the stands.

As the game slipped from Kansas, you could see seats emptying. There were nine minutes left in the fourth quarter and Jayhawks fans had given up and gone early. There’s always this thing about beating the rush on the tube home. Busy events usually made Wembley Way packed. I wasn’t fussed. I figured that if people kept going early then everyone would have gone by the time I got around to leaving. This could be a rare case of leaving late to avoid the rush hour. The rush hour was instigated by Arizona State opening up a lead.

The funny thing is, Kansas clawed back enough of the game to find themselves in a position to make one last stand on D to get the ball back with under two minutes. They needed to force a three-and out, get the ball back and then anything’s possible. Sports people talk about the game coming down to one last play. We imagine that last play, in that context, to be a dramatic last attempt at the endzone. In this case, it was a third and medium. The Sun Devils picked it up. I thanked my Raiders buddy for watching the game with me and I got going. But here’s another funny thing about sports. I heard during a game over the weekend that players feed off the energy of the crowd. At some point everyone gave up on Kansas. It did seem a long way back when they were down 24-7 in the fourth. But ten points later and Kansas made it a one score game. I wonder what would have happened if Kansas had guessed right on that last third down and sold out to stop the QB run. What would Isaiah Marshall have done with one last chance? For many fans it was over long before that. I’d have been laughing my ass off if they’d somehow got that one last chance.

If the writing resonates, stay with it.

Where next?

→ If you want to see how sport can turn a straightforward result into a completely irrational emotional experience, Not Gary Clark

→ If you liked the idea that sport is something you experience rather than simply watch, J.J. Buchanan and this time there really isn’t any time left on the clock

→ If you liked the idea of watching something and somehow becoming part of it, Life is not a pop video