westcoast_sooner
1/9/2010, 12:02 AM
My son gave me a ticket to the game in Pasadena for last night's game as a Christmas present. So I fly down to Burbank yesterday, he picks me up and we go get tailgate stuff, check into the hotel and head to the Rose Bowl.
We partied all afternoon next to a GREAT bunch of people from Bama. They invite us down to Tuscaloosa next season for the Bama/Penn St. game, hand us a Jack & Coke as we prepare to head to the stadium and just were wonderful.
During the walk up, the UT crowd was big and orange. The Texas-Exes tailgate must have been huge - we walked past as it was breaking up.
Getting into the stadium was crazy, but always is when there is 90+ thousand people trying to get to one place at one time. We had endzone corner seats - basically the same location, just a little higher up from when I was at the OU/UCLA game in '05.
Sitting next to me was a kid that was blind. He was a huge Longhorn fan, listened to the game on the radio. He and his dad were there and it was just great to be around. Wouldn't have expected that he would enjoy being there, but I guess there's something about being in that atmosphere whether you can see it or not.
Some of the Bama fans were just idiots - but you get that with any fan groups. Basically every time Texas would have positive yardage that Saban was an idiot, or that someone on the coaching staff needed to be fired. I just had to laugh at the ignorance.
The ebb and flow of the game was incredible. Texas made some early plays til Colt went out. Then Bama took over and pretty much dominated the rest of the first half. But bone-headed plays were on both sides of the ball.
Texas came back to get close, but the Alabama defense took over the game. Again, incredible changes and swings from high to low or vice-versa. Thought Bama got some extra calls, but need to see the game again to review - they weren't showing any replays in the stadium.
I'll say it's probably the best atmosphere I've been in outside of an OU/Texas game.
After all was said and done, just and incredible experience.
We partied all afternoon next to a GREAT bunch of people from Bama. They invite us down to Tuscaloosa next season for the Bama/Penn St. game, hand us a Jack & Coke as we prepare to head to the stadium and just were wonderful.
During the walk up, the UT crowd was big and orange. The Texas-Exes tailgate must have been huge - we walked past as it was breaking up.
Getting into the stadium was crazy, but always is when there is 90+ thousand people trying to get to one place at one time. We had endzone corner seats - basically the same location, just a little higher up from when I was at the OU/UCLA game in '05.
Sitting next to me was a kid that was blind. He was a huge Longhorn fan, listened to the game on the radio. He and his dad were there and it was just great to be around. Wouldn't have expected that he would enjoy being there, but I guess there's something about being in that atmosphere whether you can see it or not.
Some of the Bama fans were just idiots - but you get that with any fan groups. Basically every time Texas would have positive yardage that Saban was an idiot, or that someone on the coaching staff needed to be fired. I just had to laugh at the ignorance.
The ebb and flow of the game was incredible. Texas made some early plays til Colt went out. Then Bama took over and pretty much dominated the rest of the first half. But bone-headed plays were on both sides of the ball.
Texas came back to get close, but the Alabama defense took over the game. Again, incredible changes and swings from high to low or vice-versa. Thought Bama got some extra calls, but need to see the game again to review - they weren't showing any replays in the stadium.
I'll say it's probably the best atmosphere I've been in outside of an OU/Texas game.
After all was said and done, just and incredible experience.