Late-night football fun

I still can’t believe they played that football game Sunday morning.

Lightning streaks across the sky during a weather delay before a college football game between the Oklahoma State University Cowboys and the University of Tulsa Golden Hurricane at H.A. Chapman Stadium in Tulsa, Okla., Saturday, Sept. 17, 2011. Photo by Nate Billings, The Oklahoman

From my vantage point in my living room on Saturday night, I could see the story of the early-morning OSU-Tulsa football game unfold.

• I saw weather-blogging star Bryan Painter begin live-blogging as the thunderstorms spawned two tornadoes in northern Oklahoma. He posted how this storm would likely affect the fans that were gathering for the game in Tulsa.
• I saw tweets from reporters Gina Mizell, John Helsley and Jason Kersey as the game was delayed. Following those three reporters on Twitter was the best way to find out the up-to-the-minute information about when the game would start.
• I was on NewsOK.com’s mobile Gameday coverage, where I could see the post-game stats from the OU-Florida State game, which ended after 10 p.m. On the OSU’s mobile gameday page, I saw the story of the storm, the Twitter stream and a blog update from the OSU blog about the only man that stayed in the stands during the storms.

I’m no stranger to midnight. I’ll watch a ball game into the wee hours, so I’m not afraid of late starts. But after 11 p.m., when I learned that it would take more than 45 minutes to be prepared for kick-off, I was certain that decision-makers would not be starting this game.

I was wrong.

After midnight, I lost interest in the game — and it hadn’t even started yet.

The cheerleaders weren’t interested. OSU coach Mike Gundy wasn’t interested. And I bet half the players weren’t even interested.

And I’m pretty sure our reporters, photographers and videographers weren’t interested in staying in Tulsa until after 4 a.m.