ORONO – It is a special weekend set aside, once a year, for college buddies to renew acquaintances and get caught up on gossip.

Did you hear that Jack and Diane had their first child and named him Mellencamp? Did you hear that good old Hank the Nerd retired at age 33 after selling the multi-million dollar computer company he started right out of college? Hey, is that really Jenny Armsocket and how did she lose all the weight?

This is the type of chatter you hear as you wander a college campus on Homecoming Weekend.

Last Saturday, it was Homecoming Weekend in Orono. There were the usual parties and get-togethers, the crafts fair and, of course, the football game. This time it was between the Unitime Yankee Conference rival, the University of Connecticut.

It was the 66th game between the two institutions, which are both neatly tucked away in quaint New England communities. You may think of Connecticut as being a populated, urbanized state, but Storrs is an exception.

In fact, the road that takes you into the sprawling campus makes you homesick for Maine – potholes and all.

For the football game, you ideally try to pick a patsy that you stomp on, leaving the raucous crowd swaying to the tune of The Stein Song.

But there is a danger here. If you schedule a non-conference patsy, particularly a school that is a classification lower, there is little drama. In fact, some alums may even pass up the football game for the parties.

And if you schedule a Yankee Conference team, it’s difficult to find a predictable patsy. To its credit, one of the beauties of the YC is its unpredictability and parity.

Maine used to be the DHP (Designated Homecoming Patsy) until coaches like Ron Rogerson and Buddy Teevens; players like Bobby Wilder, Sergio Hebra, Doug Dorsey, Mike Buck and Justin Strzelczyk, and a very important parcel of scholarship money forced the other YC schools to rethink their scheduling of Maine as the DHP.

As you walk through the gate and gaze through the crowd at Homecoming in Orono, it becomes clear that the longer you are out of college, the lower the odds that you will return for Homecoming. Maybe it’s awkward to return to the old fraternity house and explain to a group of extremely young-looking members that you graduated in ’81 and the house looks much different than it used to.

Everybody tries to make you feel comfortable, but it’s just not the same, especially if nobody else from your era returns.

Then, again, you may head to your fraternity house and find a new logo on the front and a group of women inhabiting the house. You hadn’t heard that they closed your fraternity down a year ago.

The atmosphere at Saturday’s football game was strange.

If you had closed your eyes while sitting in the stands, you wouldn’t have known if you were at the football game or the crafts fair. The only difference was the biting wind that wound up taking a big bite out of the Black Bears at the end.

The fans had some reason to be quiet because the game wasn’t exactly a thrill-a-minute. It was like the old Woody Hayes Ohio State teams against Bo Schembechler’s Michigan teams. If you were watching it on TV, it was a CC (channel-clicker) game. Watch a few plays, click the remote to another game. Click it back, etc….

It was smash-mouth, in-your-face football. Nothing fancy.

Maine’s injury situation in the offensive line has created a necessary conservatism.

Apparently, UConn’s personnel is also best suited to a conservative approach.

Both defenses stole the show.

But you can’t place all the blame on the teams for the crowd’s cricket-match demeanor. When public address announcer George Wildey informed the crowd that the school’s defending national championship hockey team had won its league opener against Providence the previous night, there was nary a response.

The halftime show, as most Homecoming halftime shows go, had the person explaining the band’s numbers over the PA system receiving more air time than the band itself.

What was the theme of the band?

Sorry, can’t remember.

I’m not a band guy unless the band gives me a reason to listen (i.e. rock n’ roll). The screamleaders (my term for cheerleaders) tried to get the crowd into the game, but it was a lost cause. They didn’t exhibit much imagination, either.

In the second half, the crowd finally got into the game in the waning moments as the Black Bears put together a thrilling, last-gasp drive that resulted in an attempt for the game-winning field goal.

The kick was high enough and far enough into a stiff cross-breeze, but at the last second it hit the right upright and fell to the ground. UConn emerged with a 14-13 win.

It may not have been a great game, but the work ethic was admirable considering these two teams have no postseason aspirations.

Nevertheless, football is Homecoming. As much as I like soccer, having a soccer game for Homecoming because your school doesn’t have a football program is just not the same.

To not have a football game on Homecoming is like wearing only one shoe.

Any football game is better than no football game.