The Square Life

Last night was a big night for me. My wife and I were finally able to watch the season premier of our favorite show “The Office.” We looked forward to the night with great anticipation. However, when the night was over, the only thing on my mind was that gorgeous upset of USC at the hands of the Oregon State Beavers. 

I’ve been watching “The Office” since the beginning. I don’t mean to put my manhood on the line here, but I have been hoping Jim and Pam would hook up since the first episode I saw in the first season. It was perfectly obvious to me that they were a perfect couple for each other, but unfortunately Pam was already engaged to Roy. If somebody would have told me then that there would come a time when they got engaged, I would have set that day on my calendar and waited with baited breath. I sound pretty girly, don’t I?   

My point is sometimes things just aren’t as great as you expected them to be. Enter USC Trojans of 2008. Last night, while “The Office” season premier was going on, my attention was on my laptop. Since we don’t have cable, I was relegated to following the USC-Oregon State game on the internet. When Jim finally asked Pam to marry him in surprisingly anti-climatic fashion, I was clicking my refresh button to make sure the Beavers were still on top. Perfect couple? Sure, but something bigger is happening. As the Beavers finished off the Trojans late last night, I sensed an even better couple. A real life couple.  

Thanks to USC’s loss yesterday, for the first time in my lifetime (I’m not counting ’84 because I was still on diapers at the time) BYU is eligible to be coupled with national championship talk. Jim (BYU) meet Pam (championship talk). It turns out USC may be the Roy of the 2008 season.  

I know, I know, it’s extremely early. But like I’ve said before, if you aren’t mentioned early in College Football, don’t expect to be mentioned at all.  

Of course all of this BYU and title talk was only an assumption I had last night. Then, this morning, as I made my daily run-through of ESPN.com I found what I was looking for. From Mark Schlabach:

"Big Ten teams such as Penn State and Wisconsin -- and even back-to-back BCS title game loser Ohio State -- have newfound hope of winning a national championship this season. So do non-BCS teams like Boise State and BYU."  

Pucker up Pam. What does all this mean in the long run? All it really means is that BYU has a chance. And in this game, that is a truly special gift usually allotted for the elitists.   

Back to “The Office.” In the season 2 finale, Jim surprised everybody by telling Pam he loved her and then kissing her. It was huge for those of us losers praying those fictional characters would hook up. I feel like that today. A door has been opened. For those of you familiar with the show, you know that Jim had a long road ahead of him still before he got Pam, but once she kissed back in that season finale, you knew there was a chance. Sure it was only a fictional story with fictional characters, but still there was a chance!  

Ladies and gentlemen, we have a chance! And no, this is not fiction.