TOWSON, Md. - The great philosopher Mike Tyson once observed that everyone's got a plan until they get hit.
Now that the Towson football team has taken its most serious punch of the season, a 35-30 home loss to Delaware Saturday night, the next logical question is 'Now, what?”
But, the question isn't aimed at the Tiger team, per se. Sure, the Tigers have a tough road contest this weekend at No. 10 Maine, a game that could go a long way towards whether they advance to the NCAA FBS tournament later this month and what seed they receive.
If Coach Rob Ambrose's words immediately following the Delaware loss are any indicator, the Tigers will be just fine.
“But, we'll be back in the office (Sunday),” said Ambrose. “We will find our mistakes. We will fix them. We will eat it, just so it tastes really bad, smells really bad, so we can remember it all week long and we don't taste it again.”
Not exactly the boastfulness of the Ryan brothers, New York Jets coach Rex and his twin brother, Rob, the Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator, but you get the idea - the Towson football team will be ready for what comes next.
No, the entity whose fortitude is in question is that of the Towson fan base, which has to rise up and regroup from Saturday as well.
For the first time in quite a while, Tiger football has become more than a speed bump on the way to basketball season.
It's become trendy and hot.
Why, just last week, no less entities than the Baltimore Business Journal, WYPR, the local NPR affiliate and Baltimore Sun columnist Kevin Cowherd did pieces lauding the rebirth of the gridiron game on campus.
Towson football matters now and the proof was in the 8,122 fans who showed up in raw, chilly conditions Saturday night not only to cheer on their newfound heroes, but to help set a new single-season attendance mark.
But it's always been easy to jump on the bandwagon of the new and the flashy, especially in this area, or are you still wearing those Elvis Grbac jerseys?
The trick now is for the Tiger fan base to prove that it has longer staying power than a Kim Kardashian wedding. Now that the Tigers have taken that first punch, the question is how many fans absorbed the blow and fell off the back of the cart?
“We just talked in the locker room about challenges,” said Ambrose. “This season, we really haven't had to come and deal with something like this. We've been living and dying by our rear ends scoring in the fourth quarter, finding a way to come from behind, playing as a team. We finally lost a hand.”
The next deal is on the fans.
