Quarterback Jesus

Bobby Bowden field. 3:45 pm. That didn't matter. Time evaporating like steam into the humidity of the thirsty autumn air. That mattered. Ninety thousand fans had managed to stop time - for forty five precious seconds. Cut to commercial. Ceaseless thunder from the giant drums in the south end zone, the leaping calibrated bursts of scarlet flame from rows of torches against the brick end - zone wall high behind the drums, the frenetic fringed blurs of cartwheeling Seminole cheerleaders, ranks of armed, jackbooted FHP troopers stationed hard - eyed as eagles along the sideline and the garnet-clad tens upon tens of thousands of True Believers, bellowing back as though hypnotized at the command and response from the Cheer Master's bullhorn below, all these swirling, near - hallucinogenic, near - supernatural elements that lend this immense sunlit tableau - despite the magnolia charms of its southern locale - a dark, historic bellicosity, reminiscent of the 1936 Berlin Olympics...