You don't often see two coaches almost come to blows after a game, you pretty much never see that happen when one of the coaches is with a service academy, it's unheard of when one coach calls another "Mr. Howdy Doody" as he spews expletive after expletive while personally attacking that coach's military service, and you never, ever see video of that blowup.
Until now anyway.
When we heard Wyoming coach Dave Christensen went off on Air Force coach Troy Calhoun after Saturday's game, we figured there was some posturing, maybe a bad word or two (from Christensen, because Calhoun almost never swears) and that was that. Kind of a Jim Harbaugh-Jim Schwartz handshake incident, a Harbaugh-Pete Carroll "What's your deal?" thing or any non-Harbaugh related handshake moment over the years that gets blown out of proportion.
Oh no, Christensen got his money's worth in this exchange. He was angry because he thought Air Force quarterback Connor Dietz faked an injury near the sideline when he lost his helmet and had to come out of the game, which bought some more time for the Falcons. Air Force backup quarterback Kale Pearson scored the go-ahead touchdown on the next play and the Falcons went on to win.
Now, we warn you, this clip has a lot of swearing. A lot. Christensen is heated. So it's not safe for work. But, if you don't mind bad words and have some headphones, you'll also get to hear Christensen call Calhoun "Mr. Howdy Doody." Christensen, who swears at someone on the field at the start of the video before he even gets to Calhoun, also takes a couple personal swipes at Calhoun's military background (Calhoun graduated from the Air Force Academy and served his country as an active duty officer from 1989-95) as he questions his integrity, saying in some colorful language that he'd be scared to death if he had someone with Calhoun's ethics defending him, then Christensen finishes it with, "Get in your press conference, fly boy!"
Oh, and this happened as Wyoming celebrated "Military Appreciation Day" at War Memorial Stadium for its game against Air Force. Wow.
When Christensen and Wyoming athletic director Tom Burman released a joint apology for what happened on Sunday, we thought it was a bit oversensitive, because coaches get emotional after games. Now that we've seen the video, we see why the apology was needed. This will be pretty hard for Christensen to live down.
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