West Virginia-Colorado: Bad Night for the Buffs

(Photo By Doug Pensinger/Getty Images)

This Thursday night, West Virginia takes on the Colorado Buffaloes in a nationally-televised game on ESPN.

I’m thinking it’s a bad week to be a Buffalo!

In the first century of our nation’s history, the Indians worshipped the buffalo. They sang songs about them. They generally only killed them for food and raiment. It has been said that the Indians used nearly every part of the buffalo—including the marrow—for a specific purpose.

Before the introduction of horses to North America, large groups of Indian braves would force a herd of buffalo into a stampede, running them over a cliff. Then they would harvest the animals for food and other essentials to their existence.

For the sake of the settlers, the protection of railroad interests, and the elimination of the Indian, the U.S. Army encouraged the wholesale slaughter of the bison. Hunters killed them by the thousands, removing their hides and leaving the rest to decay in the sun.

Their species was nearly hunted into extinction.

Today, those that still remain started playing football in Colorado.

However, the buffalo's ultimate extinction will come to fruition this week.

Although Jessica Simpson may not have realized that buffalo wings do not come from buffaloes, Mountaineer fans certainly know the truth. However, as experts in the seasonal, culinary art of football tailgating, the term “buffalo” immediately creates a hunger in West Virginia fans everywhere.

Mountaineers see buffaloes as being an attractive food source, another type of meat to be marinated with their favorite, secret sauce, flung upon their grills and heated to perfection.

In West Virginia, we also continue to place great value on skinning animals taken while hunting. Then, we routinely mount their heads as trophies on our living room walls.

The mountaineer has a long, rich history of living off the land, being a crack rifle shot, and hunting for wild game.

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