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En route to N.Y. with MU football

There's something about having a police car lead me down the highway that makes me want to strap on a helmet and some pads to battle Syracuse myself.

There's something about seeing quarterback Daniel Raudabaugh amiably slap quarterback Mike Kokal on the back during a pregame practice that throws my whole universe out of whack and leaves me scared and confused.

You mean to tell me the two quarterbacks don't actually plot against one another, University of Northern Colorado style?

No. This isn't a vortex I've entered, but life on the road with the Miami University football team.

Some free food, a trip to exotic and beautiful - well, not beautiful - but exotic-Syracuse, N.Y., and add some college football on top of it and I'm officially "gellin" like felon.

It's not just the free food that I love, although that part certainly is sweet (pun intended), but it's the chance to catch the Red and White away from the press podium.

Like catching junior running back Brandon Murphy twitchingly rubbing his hands together in the hotel lobby before game time, or senior cornerback Frank Wiwo's ritual of taking a shower, praying, and then drinking a Red Bull before taking the field.

It's the everyday stuff, such as watching senior free safety Joey Card check his cell phone messages before heading on Miami's chartered jet to Syracuse or a pregame bonding session at a chapel the night before.

I was feeling so much brotherly love that I asked if I could wear a football warm-up suit too. I also appreciated the athletic administration's kind rejection.

My ego was definitely swimming in it all. It hit its height when some kids in the hotel lobby thought I was a football player and asked me to do a Heisman pose. But I blew them off to immediately get to the team dinner and prepare for game time.

But unlike the free food, I learned that preparing for game time sucks. Contrary to what the movie The Program would have you believe, life on the road with a college football team isn't all about hoards of chicks and photo ops. It's about constant preparation.

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Preparing for the game is a life of endless meetings. As soon as the team hits the hotel, the RedHawks sequesters themselves into hotel ballrooms to undergo a series of meetings, treatments and then some more meetings.

You'll hear the occasional music coming from the players' hotel rooms but that's the extent of goofing off.

Suddenly, this party was about as much fun as a German karaoke bar.

You also start to understand the fact that football is life for these people. You always think you understand but you don't.

You don't understand until you've talked to the wives, moms, dads and coaches of the players and hear what they've invested into Miami football.

You don't understand until you look into the eyes of players who were 0-3 on the season and desperate for a win.

At a pregame meeting, screams of "wake up" and "I want big plays all game" could be heard down the hall of the hotel ballroom from Head Coach Shane Montgomery as he tried to rally his troops.

The press corps was going to have to look out because I was jazzed and looking to make some big plays.

The plays, however, came at the wrong end of the stick, and a team that has gone 0-4 for the first time since the 1989 season had to live with that fact together for the next four hours on the return trip home.

Pissed off faces and deafening silence can only characterize the plane and bus rides back to Oxford.

The road trip party had immediately transitioned into a scared-to-make-noise situation.

Maybe it's not the life it's cracked up to be, but after it's all said and done, the important thing is that I at least got some free food.