Road Trip Report: Auburn Exchange Program

10/11/2008 - Arkansas 25, Auburn 22

Tristan Davis runs a kickoff back 97 yards for a score

Here are some of my thoughts on my ESS EEE CEE experience at the Auburn vs. Arkansas game this past Saturday and how it stacks up against the Boston College experience.

Tailgating

My first experience at Auburn when getting to the stadium was stepping in a mound of fire ants. And yep, I had sandals on. Welcome to the south. Grr.

When we walked into one of the fraternity houses to meet a few kids, I noticed they had a pig roast on the table while watching the Red River Rivalry between Oklahoma and Texas. This feast was fitting, of course, because Auburn was playing the Hogs of Arkansas. I like the idea of your tailgating feast relating to the team you're playing. Possible suggestions ... a bowl of Lucky Charms (Notre Dame), Frosted Flakes (Clemson), Hurricanes, the mixed drink (Miami), Snapper Soup (Maryland) ... Three Musketeers bars (Virginia)?

This weekend I will honor this tradition by eating a turkey sandwich at the tailgate. Watch out, Hokies!

Auburn, AL reminds me a lot of Clemson, SC - a small, country town that explodes on game day. There are plenty of parking lots for RVs and tailgates and tailgates all around campus and in the parking lots.


The Stadium

Jordan-Hare Stadium is fairly impressive as far as stadiums I've watched a college football game in. Seating 87,000+ it's one of the ten largest on-campus stadiums in the country. Strangely, there are four ramps in each corner of the stadium where a lot of fans stand and watch most of the game. Must get a better view than their actual seats.

The one thing I noticed was that the volume wasn't very high (this might have been because I was sitting in the lower corner of the endzone and on the opposite side of the student section). The game had a strange crowd intensity to it, which might have been attributed to Auburn's struggles the previous week at Vanderbilt. In terms of crowd noise, it wasn't nearly as loud as Death Valley at Clemson, Virginia Tech's Lane Stadium, or Beaver Stadium in Happy Valley, but it did get appreciably loud at times.


The Game

There were plenty of storylines going into this game ...

• This was the first Auburn game after the departure of offensive coordinator Tony Franklin, who many thought was thrown under the bus for the Tigers inept implementation of the spread offense
• Arkansas coach Bobby Petrino returning to Auburn after he served as offensive coordinator under Tommy Tuberville from 2003-2006, seeking his first SEC victory
• Tommy Tuberville, who had flirted with the Arkansas job over the offseason, on the hot seat at Auburn after dropping games to LSU and Vanderbilt
• Petrino, who was secretly flown in by Auburn boosters to interview for the Auburn job midseason while Tuberville was still at the helm!

Thankfully I got to watch a really tightly contested battle. Bad news? The home team didn't pull off the victory and Auburn (yet again!) didn't cover for my Pick 5 pick. (That's it, I'm officially breaking up with the Tigers or going against them the rest of the season).

Even when Auburn jumped out to a 20-10 lead, you knew this game was going down to the wire. Arkansas ran all over the Auburn defense, and Auburn went drive after drive going 3 and out. If it wasn't for a decent defensive performance and a special teams touchdown, this game wouldn't have been close.

In the end, I think the Auburn defense gave up on the offense. After 3 quarters of play, the Tigers had a measly 100 yards of total offense, and had scored on a 97 yard kickoff return, a scoring drive started by a big interception return, and a fumble on the opening kickoff to start the second half.

Even late in the fourth quarter, with the game on the line, Auburn was stuffed on four straight plays with goal to go. And the boos started to come from all parts of the stadium.

The other thing about the game I found curious - which I also noticed in the LSU vs. Auburn game earlier this year - is the way Auburn calls in their offensive plays from the sidelines. Instead of huddling up and calling the play, the Auburn offensive gets to the line, gets into their stance, then in unison the entire offense all stand up out of their stance and watch something like 15 different coaches call in various plays (I'm told only one coach has the actual play). The players look eerily like a family of prairie dogs coming out of their burrows. I guess I've been spoiled by Matt Ryan calling all the plays himself. It's an odd way to make the play calls and seems to disrupt the flow of the offense. Not to mention half of the crowd gets really fidgety when this happens. This is something new that was implemented with Tony Franklin's spread offense, and you can tell a good percentage of the fans get frustrated by this.


Idea Exchange

Here are some things I picked up from Auburn that I would like to see implemented at Boston College.


The War Eagle. OK, maybe Auburn has the advantage of having a college of veterinary science. But watching the war eagle fly around the stadium as part of the pregame festivities is actually pretty cool. (It never flies the same way twice!) After a couple of circles around the stadium, the Eagle comes crashing down into the middle of the field and the stadium erupts. It's one of the better pregame festivities that I've seen in all of college football (a close second to Clemson's running down the hill and the whole Howard's Rock routine).

Now I'm certainly not calling for the return of the screaming Eagle over the P.A. system every time the Eagles make a first down (super annoying!), but the return of a live Eagle on the sidelines might be cool for BC. BC hasn't had a live Eagle mascot since 1966 when the eagle Margo died.

The Crowd and the Fans. Almost everyone wears orange to the games, which provides a pretty nice contrast to the blue jerseys and white pants that the team wears. Auburn never wears orange jerseys at home because they lost a few of the times they played in orange tops. The contrasting colors of the team and the fans look great on the replays on the Jumbotron (see below) and I'm assuming on television. I was informed the one caveat to the fans wearing orange is when Auburn plays Tennessee, and they switch it up and all wear navy to the game.

In my opinion, we need to implement a similar scheme immediately! The Superfan section always looks great on television and in overhead shots of Alumni Stadium. Let's extend the sea of gold to the rest of the stadium. Athletic department - please market more Superfan gold t-shirts to the rest of the fans so we can implement gold rushes for every game (not Gold Rush gold, it's just too washed out and doesn't match the Superfan shirt color). When Georgia Tech or Notre Dame come to Alumni, we'll switch it up to a maroon out. Sound good?

Also, of note, I stood up several times to cheer for the home team and none of the "Down In Front" crowd was evident. A welcome change from our seats at Alumni.


The Jumbotron. Seriously, this thing is huge. An enormous, 74 foot x 30 foot high def LED video display sits in the south endzone. I looked this up - the only other NCAA school that has one of these is Texas, and in Austin it's called the Godzillatron. We need one as soon as possible. Gene, please get on this. The video display shows game stats (note that in the photo there was 9:35 left in the second quarter and Auburn had amassed ... 18 yards of total offense!), replays of every play as well as several ...

Pump Up Videos. The crowd goes nuts before the game when 2-3 different video montages are played of football highlights, cheerleaders, the band and the crowd. Pretty intimidating. We could easily put together a few of these videos set to the Dropkick Murphy's Shipping Up To Boston to be shown on our new Eagletron.


The Band. Twice to three times the size of BC's band (look at the size of the brass section!). At the end of every song, however, they pander to ESPN finishing the song with the SportsCenter jingle ("Da-da-da ... da-da-da"). Kinda cheesy. And they played Sweet Caroline at some point in the second quarter. Back off, that's ours ...

The Playing Surface and the Hedges. Classy. OK, I know we are stuck with FieldTurf, but the grass and the hedges that line the playing field make for a very classic looking playing surface. Maybe we should trendset for these northern stadiums that have FieldTurf and create FieldTurf hedges?


Big Ass Flags. Now I understand the Eagles have flags, but we don’t have Auburn-sized flags. These flags are obnoxiously waved in the pregame festivities as well as any time the Tigers score. Very cool. If the male cheerleaders at BC can run with the Eagles' flags only using one hand to hold them, they are too small. Let's implement these huge flags with the BC logo on them and have the team run out behind the flag holders.


Rejected Ideas

The Mascot. Sorry Tigers, Baldwin is cooler than Aubie. Besides, even though Auburn's official nickname is the Tigers, they affectionately embrace the War Eagle as their fight song and live mascot. Because everyone knows Eagles are better than Tigers (right, Clemson?).

The Quarterback. If Eagles fans thought Chris Crane was bad, they haven’t seen Chris Todd play. 3 for 10 passing, 18 yards, 0 touchdowns, 1 interception. Play so poor it puts little kids to sleep ...

Photo taken from the top of the parking garage right next to the stadium.

(Some of) The Conversation. I got into a heated (but friendly) argument on Friday night while having a few drinks with a kid who was disgusted that I could be a fan of an ACC football team. The argument got pretty heated when he said that Matt Ryan wouldn't have been any good if he played an SEC schedule last year. The conversation went something like this ...

SEC fan: Oh yeah, well what defenses did Matt Ryan have to play against last year?
Me: Virginia Tech x2, Georgia Tech, Florida State, Clemson ...
SEC fan: Please, they aren't any good. Try playing LSU, Florida, Auburn, Georgia week in and week out.

For Matt Ryan to put up over 300 yards and lead the Falcons to a last second win over the Bears on Sunday left me feeling good about myself on Monday.

Seriously though? Eagles fans know full well that Matt Ryan could have more than held his own in the SEC ...


College football is awesome wherever you go. If you can experience college football in other parts of the country, I highly recommend it (but be sure to go on the off week).

Go (War) Eagles! Beat Virginia Tech!

Headlines: NCSU Tailgating, Game Recap and Virginia Tech

Brian: Let us relive Saturday a little. First of all, what did you think of the tailgating at North Carolina State?

Jeff: To be honest, It was nothing special. I mean tailgating is a million times better than tailgating in Chestnut Hill would be for a visiting fan, since at BC you are screwed if you don't get a lower campus parking pass. Carter-Finley Stadium is relatively isolated and therefore there is plenty of space to park all the NC State donors and general parking. The weather was perfect so we had a GREAT time, but NC State fans that we ran into were unfriendly from the moment we got there. When it got time to walk to the stadium we were heckled the entire way. This is fine and all, but trust me it toed the line of excessive. Also, just to compare it to the two away games we attended together last year (Virginia Tech and Clemson), at both of those games we made friends in the parking lots before the game.

Brian: I agree that the students and fans weren't very welcoming, especially when walking to the game in what was basically a walk of shame for Eagles fans. State faithful on either side were heckling us as we made our way to Carter-Finley. It certainly didn't help that not many Eagles fans made the trip, otherwise there would have been a little more safety in numbers. After the game though we didn't hear much of anything from the line of tailgates as many fans were already in their cars lined up ready to go home.

We, of course, had a great time tailgating and mainly kept to ourselves. Obnoxiously waving around our BC flag, visiting another BC tailgate with a rousing game of Eagles vs. Wolfpack flip cup (BC dominated, of course), a new personal best at Wii bowling (290 ... can anyone top that?), and we got to watch the Florida State vs. Miami game on ABC after the game and tailgate some more. As Jeff mentioned, the tailgating wasn't on par with that of Clemson or Virginia Tech from a year ago, but it was better than the tailgating experience at Maryland.

As previously mentioned, we also got to the Carolina vs. Connecticut game on Saturday night. Jeff, how did you think the Carter-Finley stadium and Kenan Stadium experiences stacked up to the Alumni Stadium experience?

Jeff: I was happy with how many Eagles fans made the trip to NC State since I didn't expect many to go to begin with. Also, tailgating is mainly what you make of it and we had a group of twelve so that was a party in itself. Lastly, it is important to note that we were in a pretty good size parking lot and there was only 1 Port-A-Johns. That was pathetic.


As for both the stadiums, I like Carter-Finley better than Kenan. I have been to Kenan twice now, once for the BC game at noon a few years ago and then again this weekend. You park in parking garages at UNC so tailgating stinks but then the stadium is OK. You probably liked Kenan more but keep in mind that all stadiums have better atmospheres for night games.


Brian: I did like Kenan Stadium better for a couple of reasons. For one thing, the stadium is right on campus and as Wilbon pointed out on PTI, it really is a beautiful place to watch a game with all the trees, the hedges on the field and the open end zone. I know, I know I was on the side of the stadium that overlooked the rest of campus and the tower and you weren't Jeff, but still. (Jeff was actually close to the UConn fan section ... coincidence?) I didn't get to see NC State's campus at all and the Wolfpack's stadium seems detached from most everything else about the school.

The other thing I liked was the student section in the end zone. They were really spirited (sure, the night game probably had something to do with that) and it will be a tough place for the Eagles to play in three weeks.

Don't get me wrong, Carter-Finley was nice too, sort of a souped up Alumni Stadium. I liked that the lower section of the stadium had red seats that made it look like there were a lot more fans in that section than their actually were. The stadium was a little more closed in and the high walls can produce an intimidating atmosphere. The one downside for Kenan is, as you mention, the tailgating situation. There are plenty of fields and empty space to tailgate at Carter-Finley.


Game Review

Brian: Chris Crane, I hardly know you. Where did that performance come from?

Jeff: That's Mr. ACC Player of the Week to you. But seriously, I think Crane needs to send thank you notes to everyone on the NC State defense, the offensive line and Steve Logan. BC didn't throw the ball over and over on Saturday because they couldn't run the ball. They threw because it was working so why not stick with it? But the running game worked fine between the 20s as well and BC could've moved the ball either way. BC still has a big problem putting the ball in the end zone. Crane had to run for three of our touchdowns. The two passing touchdowns came from the 41 and the 12. When BC gets into the red zone against Virginia Tech, it is not going to be as easy and those 4 red zone touchdowns are going to be some field goals unless the Eagles accomplish a lot during the bye week.

I don't want to belittle Chris Crane's accomplishment, but I just want to calm down the hype. Chris Crane had a great, great day, but now that I've watched the game a second time I'm not as excited as I was. There were still several mistakes and a lot of passes were completed because NC States defense is not the greatest.

Brian: The special teams were terrible, almost costing the Eagles the game. The special teams kick coverage gave the Wolfpack great field position all day, including giving up a 100 yard kick return for a touchdown (a new Wolfpack record). I can't think of one time where the Wolfpack didn't start with good to great field position. Jeff, what happened?

Jeff: The special teams were not terrible as a whole. The fake punt was great and Aponavicious didn't miss any kicks which is amazing! The kickoffs were terrible though. Eagle in Atlanta reported that Billy Bennett's kicking was fine but the coverage was terrible. I disagree. The coverage could have been a little better, but Billy Bennett is not getting enough hang time on his kicks. His kicks need either to go deep into the end zone or have a little air under them so the coverage team has a chance to get there, just like punting.

Brian: While I give credit to the coaching staff and the unit for pulling off a great fake punt, overall I won’t be singing the special teams praises after this effort. This game was a good special teams effort away from not being close at all. NC State didn’t start any drive from further back from their own 27 yard line. With the kickoff return for a touchdown and the kick return that set up the 1 play, passing touchdown scoring drive really put this game in jeopardy.

Jeff: This game was close to being a blowout victory for the Eagles. Real close. But then it was also close to a loss. We are now three days removed from this game and I don't know if this game was a sign that BC is going to Tampa or if BC is going to lose several conference games since most of the conference is better than North Carolina State. The three turnovers were tough and BC did not punt after their first possession so I am leaning towards the Eagles heading to Tampa. But Saturday shows us that we could lose ANY conference game at any time.


Up Next: Virginia Tech

Jeff: As reported yesterday, the Virginia Tech game time has been set for 8:00pm. This is great news. Nothing better than a ranked team coming to Alumni Stadium for a night game, especially after last year’s regular season thriller. But can you believe there are still plenty of tickets available on bceagles.com? Not to mention all the tickets on Stubhub, eBay, etc.

Brian: That is a little shocking, but I'm guessing by gameday it will be a sellout. We are a 4th quarter away from being 5-0 and probably ranked in the Top 20 in the country. If that Georgia Tech game goes the other way, it might be a completely different story.

Road Trip Report: Back from Raleigh

Jeff and I are back from Raleigh. We'll have more on the Eagles 38-31 victory later today and some more thoughts about the road trip later tonight.

We were lucky enough to also make the trip to Chapel Hill for the Saturday night game between North Carolina and Connecticut. We stayed for about half of the game, and left when two banks of lights on one side of the stadium went out, delaying the game for 22 minutes. After the lights went on, the Tar Heels put the game out of reach, handing the Huskies their first loss of the year.

Raleigh Road Trip!

"Aww sick! Gross!"

As a reminder, the first (of hopefully several, e.g. Tampa, a non-Boise bowl game) BC Interruption reunion tour hits up Raleigh this weekend for the noon game between Boston College and North Carolina State. In case you missed it, here is our travel guide on Raleigh.

If you are staying in the nearby Chapel Hill area, you might also find our Chapel Hill guide useful. Undefeated UConn travels to Chapel Hill to face off in a 7:00pm ACC game. With more advanced planning, we probably could have also hit up this game for the nightcap, but something tells me the significant others wouldn't be down for 8 hours of in-person football watching. Call it a hunch. However, it does look like Huskies v. Tar Heels will be a pillow fight, given both starting quarterbacks T.J. Yates and Tyler Lorenzen will be out this Saturday. We'll probably just try to catch the game at a bar after the BC game.

Drop us a note or leave a comment if you are planning on attending the Eagles game.

Is it the weekend yet?

"In conclusion, I will leave you with this. If you think that the ginger problem is not as serious ... think again?"

Road Bus Trip Report: Brian's Better Half Weighs In

My better half wanted to weigh in on last weekend's bus trip to Chestnut Hill to provide a female perspective on the weekend. While I thought she would counterbalance my disappointment in the result of the game, turns out I was wrong?

Let me start with a disclaimer: I don't know much about football. In fact, I've only been watching football for the last few years. I'd be the first to admit I don't really understand the game. Therefore, I'm the last person that should provide any sort of analysis of a football game. However, I can comment on the more general things. There are certain things one can comment on without having to know what special teams does (or why it's always plural?). For example, you didn't have to be an experienced football watcher to see that Saturday's game showed that BC had lost its flair from last year.

Last year was amazing (even for someone like me!). I didn't have to understand everything that was happening to enjoy the game. Matt Ryan et al made the games so entertaining. They had a rhythm. They threw the ball, instead of running. They rarely disappointed. In a game with Matt Ryan, being down by 3 with 3 minutes left didn't phase the crowd. I truly believed that last year's team could do (almost) anything. The game wasn't ever over until the clock hit zero.

However, this wasn't the case on Saturday - not even close. The things Matt had made look so simple, were no huge obstacles for our team. Why couldn't Crane throw a catchable pass to someone that was WIDE open? Why couldn't we kick a good field goal? Saturday's game was painful to watch, rather than exciting and jubilant. It made me long for last year's season, when no matter what happened, we could walk out of the stadium with heads high, smiles, and knowing that we were an awesome team. This past game people left the game well before the clock hit zero, and instead of talking about a "good game," everyone was discussing what went wrong.

For some one that doesn't understand football well, I'm left wondering how we suddenly lost so much talent and how do we get it back? Are we doomed? Is there anyway to get any of the fun and excitement back into Boston College football games? I'm convinced we need to clone Matt Ryan. Agree?

Sincerely,
- Bored at the Game, Missing Matt Ryan

If the bus ride home wasn't painful enough, we followed the Falcons-Lions game on our cell phones and learned about Matt Ryan's winning ways on opening day for the Falcons. Congratulations Matt! Come back?

Road Bus Trip Report: Back from the Home Opener

I'm back from campus for the game against Georgia Tech. Jeff and I will share our thoughts on the disappointing loss to the Yellow Jackets tomorrow, but I wanted to share my thoughts on the weekend in Boston.

Overall it was a really fun weekend. I'm obviously still a little _______ (insert one here - frustrated / pissed / disappointed) in the game result, but it's always great to be back on campus.


Saturday

We woke up early Saturday morning to gray, cloudy skies. We thought it was going to be a miserable day weather-wise with the Tropical Storm rolling up the coast so we dressed appropriately. We set out for Cleveland Circle early to get some supplies for the tailgate and the first thing I noticed when getting to the Circle was 5-6 Georgia Tech fans who were wearing Gold Rush gold-colored Yellow Jacket shirts.

Now, don't get me wrong, I think the "Gold Rush" campaign was a great concept in principle. Market the same colored gear to season ticket holders so that more fans on campus are wearing the same colored gear. I still don't understand though why they didn't match either the gold from the Superfan shirts or our maroon. Most of the Georgia Tech fans on campus were wearing "Gold Rush" gold or white colored t-shirts, so the new gear blended in the Yellow Jacket fan gear. (Also, Central Florida and Notre Dame come to town this year and also share gold as one of their primary colors).


While I remain critical of the Gold Rush's execution, let me spend a few minutes praising one aspect of the BC tailgating experience yesterday - the student section. The student section looked awesome yesterday, even in person. (I'm guessing it looked even more impressive on television for those of you who were able to watch the game). By game time, the student section was nearly full of students clad in Superfan yellow. The student body excitement for the game was palpable, probably boistered by the freshmen experiencing BC football for the first time, and they did a great job of being loud and standing up most of the game.

While it was disappointing to see some empty seats in the upper deck of the end zones (official attendance: 40,106), tip of the cap to the students who made up for the non-sell out crowd in enthusiasm and color coordination.

We tailgated in the morning outside of the Commonwealth Avenue garage and caught up with friends old and new. One of the ACC.com cameramen stopped by our tailgate to take some video of the various tailgates. After he was finished taping, we asked where the footage was going and why he was on campus, and he mentioned that it was the ACC game of the week. I quipped that it was the only conference game this week, hence why they were in Chestnut Hill today, and he agreed.

Although it rained for about 5 seconds while tailgating, by game time most of the rain had stopped and by halftime there were only a couple of clouds in the sky. We really weren't prepared for the heat or the sunshine (and maybe neither were the Eagles?). By the end of the game, we were hot, dehydrated and bummed out about the Eagles loss. The clouds looked a little more ominous at the end of the game, but it didn't open up until much later Saturday night.


After the game, we tailgated for about an hour longer before hitting up (where else?) Mary Ann's. Our friends Raj and Andy housed a bunch of other kids in the basketball game in the back, and we had a couple of beers and commiserated with one another about the loss.

We watched a bit of the Notre Dame vs. San Diego State game and the little consolidation to yesterday's performance was - yes - Notre Dame still sucks.

MaryAnn's embraces technology. There's also this new thing called BarCast now at MA's. Basically it's a LCD flatscreen tv that shows a bunch of ads but also allows you to send text messages to a phone number and those text messages show up on the television. I texted Jeff instructions on how to send a message to be displayed on the screen. A few minutes later there was a text on the board that said "Go Clemson! Have a Busch Light for me." Coincidence?


Also, what's up with Mary Ann's closing during the day on Saturdays when it is a day game start time? Around 6pm they kick everyone out for an hour or so to restock and get ready for the evening. Kinda lame, but whatever.


Never a truer word has been spoken about MaryAnn's.

In the cab ride back to our hotel, one of our friends was talking to his mom and she asked if Boston College had already played and how the game went. He quipped back, "We played, we lost, we're crap."

Pretty much sums up the Eagles performance yesterday.

After Mary Ann's, we got ready for an evening out, went to Boston Beer Works near Fenway, had dinner, a few more drinks and caught up on the rest of the day's college football action. Central Florida threatened South Florida but came up short in overtime (watch out Eagles!), and Tim Tebow and Florida took care of Miami after the Hurricanes hung around for over a half.


Sunday

On Sunday, we took the bus back to New York. During a visit to the BC Bookstore on Saturday, I caved and picked up the Eagles Reebok Apache Jacket (25% off!) thinking that it was going to rain during the game. You may remember this jacket featured in the "Do The Hokie Pokie" instructional video featuring Jeff Jagodzinski last October.

Even though I was still disappointed in the loss, I ended up wearing my new jacket the entire bus ride home. When I flew down to Jacksonville last December for the ACC Championship game, I was impressed by the number of Hokie fans that were wearing their Chicago maroon and Burnt orange gear in the airport after the game on Sunday. I struck up a conversation with one of them and commented on how impressed I was in how many of their fans were wearing Hokie gear in the airport after the game. Something this Hokie fan said has stuck with me since.

He said "While it's important to wear your school colors on game day, it's even more important to wear them on the trip home. Certainly after a win, but even more importantly ... after a loss."


Go to the game? Share your experience in the comments section below.

Road Trip Report: Brian Back From Cleveland

932 miles later and I'm back from Cleveland.

Jeff and I will discuss the game and the opening weekend of college football tomorrow, but I wanted to give you a bunch of incoherent and highly random thoughts on my road trip to Cleveland to see Boston College kick off its 2008 college football season.

Friend of the blog and our BC Interruption NHL bureau chief Christian, his dad Joe and I left the New York City area Friday around 6am and got to Cleveland around 1pm. We got settled at the hotel and decided to walk around to get a feel for the city.

Not that I was expecting much of it, but there was absolutely no buzz about this game on Friday. A guy was standing at the front of the hotel waiting for his car to be valeted and saw that we were wearing Boston College gear. He started up a conversation asking about why we were here, who BC was playing, etc. He was a Michigan grad so he knew all about the Wolverines season opener in the Big House, but nothing about the BC game being played a few blocks away. (I didn't have the heart to tell him I thought Utah was going to beat Michigan). As we walked around the city Friday, only the occasional Superfan or maroon t-shirt could be found.


We went to Progressive Field to see the Indians vs. Mariners game on Friday night, and to cross another major league ballpark off our list. The stadium was really nice, one of the better stadiums I've been to. On par with Citizen's Bank Park in Philadelphia, Safeco in Seattle or Camden Yards in Baltimore. After an hour rain delay, the lake-effect rain quickly blew through and the game started at 8pm. The Mariners beat the Indians 3-2 behind a Raul Ibanez home run and seven strikeouts from Seattle starter Felix Hernandez.

The Indians sell logo-shaped pretzels at Progressive Field. Conte Forum concessions coordinators - take note. I fully expect 'B' and 'C' shaped pretzels next year.


On gameday, in the morning we grabbed a quick bite to eat and visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. As far as Hall of Fames go, this one is pretty cool. We were fully expecting to see the different inductees on plaques a la Cooperstown or Yankee Stadium's Monument Park. However the Hall is much more a museum dedicated to rock music than a shrine of bronzed statues. A few more BC superfan shirts and members of the whale pants crowd are spotted during the morning at the Hall of Fame. I feel a tiny bit better about the Eagles showing at this game.

Later during the day, one of my friends was texting me and telling me he was pretty nervous about this game. The biggest unknown going into the season was obviously the play of senior quarterback Chris Crane, and my buddy was sweating his performance. I wasn't very nervous about the game, but my friend's nervousness and lack of sleep the night before had me a bit concerned. However, when I was forwarded Reverend Mike's guest blogger post on Eagle in Atlanta, I was put at ease. I totally buy the fact that Boston College wins when we wear our all-white uniforms and crashes and burns when we wear any other combination of away jerseys. Proof that Reverend Mike's science is true:

• When BC wears the all-white uniforms with Brian in attendance: 3-0 (Virginia Tech, Clemson, Champs Sports Bowl)
• When BC wears the white jersey, gold pants with Brian in attendance: 0-1 (at Maryland)

Sample size may be a little too small, but I totally buy into this. When I arrived at the game and found out that BC was wearing the all-white jerseys, I was completely at ease.


Here's the thing about Cleveland. The city isn't all that big. We walked across the downtown area in about 10 minutes. However, there are some really cool big ticket items you need to see if you've never been to the city before. In order, they are:

1. Go see an Indians / Browns / Cavaliers game and
2. Go to the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame

Outside of these big ticket items, that's all there really is to see in Cleveland. Unless you consider the tour of the house from the movie A Christmas Story to also be a big ticket item. I personally can't stand that freaking movie. This may be compounded by the fact that when I go home for the Christmas holiday, certain members of my family insist on watching the movie 24 hours straight during the holiday. Guhh.


Note: Unfortunately, I did not make the A Christmas Story house tour on this trip.

After the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, we went back to the hotel to brush up on some of the other college football games going on during the day. We watched the second half of the Virginia Tech vs. East Carolina game and watched the Hokies get Beamer balled. Admittedly, I was half rooting for the Pirates to pull off the upset, but felt bad about this fact knowing that if the Pirates won, the ACC would look awful. Still, the Hokies did kill the Eagles dream season last year so I felt justified in rooting for the Pirates if only for this one game. Full disclosure: I wasn't expecting the bottom to fall out with Clemson's loss Saturday night to Alabama in the Georgia Dome, so I thought rooting against the Hokies was mildly acceptable.

A bit about the Patriot Bowl. How did Boston College end up in this game? My understanding is that the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission set up this game to pit a MAC Ohio team (Akron, Kent State, Miami Ohio etc.) against one of the service acadamies to kickoff the college football season. Last year, Army played Akron to a crowd of 17,865. The game was set up with an average expected attendance of 30,000+ given Army's road and neutral site attendance in 2007. The Boston Herald hit the nail right on the head when they described yesterday's atmosphere as a cavernous Cleveland Browns Stadium. A mere 10,788 attended the game, with probably 55-60% cheering for local Kent State. Visiting Boston College against an average MAC team just doesn't have the same draw as one of the service academies.


Kent State's on campus stadium seats 29,287, and my guess is a lot more people would have attended the game if it had been a home game for Kent State (even if Kent State has only gone to two bowls in their school's history, the last being in 1972). I don't expect the Eagles to ever play in this game again. For this game to be a viable neutral site college football game going forward, I would imagine the game will have to include a MAC Ohio team and one of the service academies who isn't Army.

Besides, there is only one college football team anyone cares about in the state of Ohio and they were playing earlier that day against Youngstown State.


We got to the game and our seats were in the first row. Which isn't saying much because a lot of attendees were able to sit in the front row if they wanted. We got to see up close a BC team that looked unlike anything we've seen before from the Eagles.


Sitting close to the action, one thing that struck me is the size of some of our players. Since Jeff and I graduated, I think the Eagles continue to improve our recruiting classes by bringing in bigger and stronger athletes. At 6'4" 240 pounds, Crane is built. It will be hard for defenses to stop him as he swings around the outside on pitches, options and quarterback sneaks. I was also surprised at how tall guys like Colin Larmond Jr. and Purvis were. Seems like we are in good hands for the next few years.

Also, Mark Herzlich is going to play on Sundays and is going to be a beast.


On an unrelated note, I am totally opposed to this Gold Rush gear the Athletics Department marketed to our season ticket holders. Our fans just look straight up confused. While I understand that this new gold matches more with the accent colors on the uniforms the football, basketball and hockey teams wear, a lot of Eagles fans are still wearing the yellow-gold colored Superfan shirts. Others are wearing football jerserys or maroon shirts. There's no unity. We just look disorganized. Awful. If we wanted to switch up our fan gear in favor of this new Gold Rush gold, we should have redesigned and/or reprinted the Superfan shirts to match and held some sort of Superfan t-shirt trade-in program.

Adding to the confusion were the Kent State t-shirts that were colored Superfan gold.

I also found out two things I didn't know about everyone's most hated ESPN affiliate, ESPN U. ESPN U is 1) based out of Charlotte, NC, not Bristol and 2) now broadcast in HD.


While I leaned over the side of the seats, I noticed the ESPN U sideline reporter reapplying makeup. Our conversation went something like this:

Me: Don't worry about it, you look fine.
ESPN U Sideline reporter: Yeah, but ESPN U is now broadcast in HD.
Me: ...

A minute or two later.

Me: Did you fly out here today? From Bristol? (trying to sound smart)
ESPN U Sideline reporter: Actually, ESPN U is based out of Charlotte.
Me: Oh ... so you cover a lot of the ACC games?
ESPN U Sideline reporter: Yep. ACC, Big Ten and now the SEC too.
Me: I saw that. That's a pretty big deal.

Soon there after, she made her way to the opposite sideline, probably because she didn't want to be bothered anymore. Conclusions I draw from this encounter:

1. She would have much rather been covering an SEC game than the Patriot Bowl between Kent State and Boston College
3. People are much more self-conscience of how they look knowing that they are being broadcast in high def.


Overall, a pretty good trip to Cleveland. Even though the city is fairly small and doesn't have a whole lot to offer, I'd imagine it was better than a weekend in Kent, Ohio.

Also making the trip worthwhile was seeing the Eagles got the job done. The defense was solid and the offense showed a lot of promise. Given the giant suck that was the rest of the ACC this weekend, the Eagles didn't commit any major mistakes and Crane was effective. No penalties, no turnovers. Add to this the defense shutting down Eugene Jarvis and I'd say mission accomplished. Few teams across the country can boast a shutout in their first game of the season ... even Chattanooga got 2 points.

More on the suck that is the ACC tomorrow.

One win down, thirteen to go.

Go Eagles!