East Tennessee State Buccaneers fire the cannons to celebrate a touchdown ... and ice their own kicker

College football has returned, and so has the zaniness of allowing so many interns to control your game operations!

And it actually mattered on the field for FCS’s East Tennessee State Buccaneers on Thursday night, as their season opener against the Mars Hill University (checks Google) Lions of Division II had a bit of a problem after the Bucs opening scoring drive.

Not the ideal way to start your season as a special teams player!

The low-key secret about non-Power 5 college football is that so many of the promotions you see during timeouts, marketing activations in stadiums, and even ticket sales and distribution is often left to an unending line of undergrads looking to receive class credit with a fun internship in sports.

The percentage of those that start a career working in sports, notoriously one of the worst-paying industries in America, is pretty low. But while they’re not here for a long time, they’re here for a good time. And sometimes when no one gets paid, bad things happen.

We have no idea who was firing the cannons, but as you head back to campus to watch opening night football, volleyball, and soccer matches across America for the 2022-23 season, realize these mistakes are going to happen aplenty. Your live stats at volleyball won’t work. The soccer PA system will cut out in the middle of an ad read. The computer will fail to play the national anthem.

It’s kind of a right of passage at campuses across America every August and September. But they usually don’t cost the home team a point.

At least it didn’t matter, as ETSU comfortably held on for a 44-7 win. And if you found someone willing to book a bet of ETSU -37.5 somewhere, as we couldn’t even find a line on this game ... our thoughts and prayers are with you.