I've always not liked the college football thing, *especially* for the droves of people that roll in to Norman and make it impossible to even go to the grocery store and for the drunken idiots afterwards that are either behind the wheel, or are pissing under your apartment window. For this, I've never been to a college football game, for the purpose of watching football, at home or away during the 5 years of college, and this year...

until yesterday.

(Quick note: I've been watching the OU games pretty consistently. One thing I hate about the games is if it's closely matched. I can't take the tension and suspense) A friend from work got two tickets to the OU-Baylor game yesterday. A couple things made me say yes to going. First, it's Baylor and I hate close games, so I couldn't refuse on that one ;-). Second, because it's a gimme, the crowd should be both tame and less numerous. So I figured I'd go to see if I liked it.

I was able to park at my fraternity's parking lot and walked to the stadium. Thank God I didn't need to find other parking. The campus was nuts with people, vendors, live music, etc. But not in the cool kind of way like Austin Music Fest, or 6th street in the same, but in a werid way that I can't describe. There was no beer other than Bud Light, and the only food was nachos, pizza and hot dogs; nothing too exciting. So it was a very bland scene despite the noise and people, if that can be believed.

I got seats in the NW upper deck and the view at first was staggering. It was hard to believe that what I was seeing was the real field, it looked both small and immense at the same time. I seemed to also be sitting in the 'old folks' section. And everyone next to us was worse than Brent Musberger on ABC with their incessant, inane commentary. Add to this, the endless parade of vapid shows, contests, awards, and dance numbers that populate what would be a commercial break on TV. Thankfully, they're not televised.

Oh, and don't purchase anything within the walls of the stadium... $3 for a bottle of water?! no.

It was pretty quiet up there aside from what I could only imagine is the student section yelling their heads off. The game itself was unremarkable, OU put away Baylor early with a 24-0 lead, then just went to sleep. So much so, that their defense stopped our running game and sacked White 5 or 6 times. :-/. We also gave up many many yards on the defense and let go a field goal, but never a touchdown. It wasn't the triple digit deficit game I was expecting, but it wasn't bad either, 41-3 in the end. They just made us work for it.

All in all, it was a good experience that I can say I did at least once. I had a banquet at 7 though so I couldn't properly enjoy the post-game festivities, which I'll have to wait til next year for.