The Gauntlet

 It has been said that each man sets out to climb their own personal Mount Everest in life, and along that climb there are highlights and lowlights. For this writer, attending a home game and pregame festivities at all 129 Division 1A programs, and then some, is my climb. This past week for me will surely be categorized as one of the highlights of my personal journey. As I indicated at the end of last week’s write-up, I was attempting a feat I had not previously embarked upon during my 17 years of climbing: five games in three states in five days. I am happy to report that the attempt was successful with the added bonus of doing it with a group of my oldest friends and one of my brothers.

The gauntlet consisted of games at Miami of Ohio, Ball State, Duke, University of North Carolina, and NC State from Tuesday through Saturday. These were all first-time visits for me. Because of the number of games attended, I will provide brief highlights of each and a little less detail than I normally would for a venue I attended for the first time.

On Tuesday, I linked up with my Brother Navy Brian, AKA Cousin Eddie, in Cincinnati, and we made the short drive up to Oxford, Ohio, where the campus of Miami University sits. For any passionate college football fan, Miami is well known and is referred to as the “Cradle of Coaches,'' as so many great coaches began their careers there. These legends include Ara Parseghian, Bo Schembechler, Re Blaik, Paul Brown, Woody Hayes and more recently John Harbaugh. But to make the trip complete, we pregamed at a legendary dive bar off of High Street called Mac n Joes. After pregaming, we stopped off at the basketball arena to tour the Miami Hall of Fame featuring their best student athletes and coaches. The most notable player to ever come out of Miami is Pittsburgh Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger. The stadium, Yager Field, has a row of life size statues inside its main entrance of each of the legendary coaches that launched their careers from this hallowed institution. Yager was built in 1984 and is a pretty typical MAC school stadium that seats about 30,000. The Miami RedHawks played Bowling Green University, who are in the midst of an exceedingly difficult season. Miami dominated on both sides of the ball behind an offense led by Brett Gabbert and All American WR Jack Sorenson and a stingy, hard-hitting defense. Miami won the game on this chilly night 34 to 7 in front of approximately 3,500 fans.

Clockwise from top left: Real tix, Ara's Statue, game action, Cousin Eddie and me.

 

 

We made the 90-minute drive after the game to Muncie, Indiana, home of Ball State through winding, two lane country roads. After an adequate number of hours of sleep and a day of work, we drove into a local campus haunt called Brothers for a taste of local flavor before the game. Ball State’s most famous alumni was none other than David Letterman. The weather reports were calling for rain, so we were well prepared attire wise. The Ball State Cardinals were hosting the Central Michigan Chippewas out of Mount Pleasant, Michigan. The attendance at Scheumann stadium (The Shoe) appeared to be even lower than what we experienced the previous night at Miami. However, the thing that stood out the most to us was the school band that played great music all night even during the heaviest parts of the downpour. As it turned out, they played significantly better than their brethren on the gridiron who were thoroughly dominated by the Chippewas. Lew Nichols rushed for over 200yards, and WR Kalil Pimpleton caught five passes for 67 yards and two scores for CMU. Final score CMU 37 - Ball State 17.

Ball State takes the field, stains in the rain and the awesome Ball State band.

Thursday morning, I left my brother to fly into the Raleigh Durham metroplex for my annual reunion with the high school crew. We rented essentially an entire inn within the confines of the gated Governor Club community in Chapel Hill. This would position us perfectly to be able to get to all three schools that we earmarked. As far as the accommodations, anything less than this palatial structure in the future will be a letdown. Each of us had our own private suites with our bathrooms and wet bars. There was a boardroom in the basement that we used to vote on next year’s destination and a full kitchen and family room where we spent the majority of our time. The house sat on one of the fairways of the golf course inside the gates.

The board room vote, my breakfast concoction, chilling at the crib and our crew in front of the Inn.

Thursday night, on the recommendation of my sister we picked up chow to go from a famous local BBQ restaurant called Bullocks. We drove over to the Duke campus and had the equivalent of a trailer park tailgate with a cooler of libations and a bag of que enjoyed out of the back of one of our vehicles. We made our way into Wallace Wade Stadium (highly-esteemed former coach from many years ago) by walking by the iconic indoor arena where Duke plays its basketball games under the watchful eye of Coach K, now in his final season. We snapped up seven tickets and entered the blue clad stadium. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice it was as I had heard less than positive reports from others who had attended. The combination of Duke being a basketball school and the football team suffering their worst season in a decade left the stadium with mostly empty seats on that night. In fact, I dare to suggest that there were barely more people at this Power Five school’s game than the MAC conference games I attended on the previous nights. However, that was all made up for as the night was warm and the beer was cold, and I got to enjoy it with six of my lifelong friends. The Blue Devils hosted the Louisville Cardinals who came into the game with a .500 record. By the looks of what took place on the field, we swore Lamar Jackson had suited up for this game. Louisville QB Malik Cunningham made numerous spectacular Lamar-like runs and passes through a defense that appeared to be playing with pianos on their backs. The Duke offense also put up respectable offensive numbers as the two schools combined for almost 1200 yards. Louisville would go on to win by the final tally of 62-22.

Sights and sounds of Wallac Wade Stadium at Duke.

 Friday was a day of work, rest, and activities for our crew as the coup de grâce would be the double header on Saturday with games at UNC and NC State for some of us. With our celebrity chef and lifelong friend “Feasty” Jon Mayer missing this year’s trip, our biggest concern was who would make our traditional Saturday morning breakfast feast and what it would be. So, I had a vision of what would occur throughout my dreams on Friday night. I awoke and assembled a team of sous chefs to assist me with my concoction. The oven set to 450, the baking pan was greased with real butter and layered with two bags of hash browns, sausages, onions, peppers, Mexican cheeses, 24 beat eggs, and salt and pepper. An hour later, voila! (See pic above.) The only thing missing would have been season salt to tasty up the potato layer.

With breakfast complete, five of us made our way over to the Bowles tailgate lot on the campus of UNC, Chapel Hill. We retold tales that continue to grow and had a few cold ones to get the engines going. The Tar Heels were hosting FCS school Wofford, so we were not expecting an overly competitive game. It was a beautiful, crisp, late fall North Carolina day with kickoff set for 12 noon. The Tar Heels play in Kenan stadium which has seen major upgrades in recent years. With Thanksgiving week upon us, we were surprised to see the number of students in attendance as most kids typically opt to go home. The same could not be said for alumni and local fans as the stadium looked to be at approximately 40% capacity. The most amazing aspect of the stadium to me was the number of beer stations and concession stands that were open. There was hardly ever a line throughout the whole game. The Tar Heel band competed with the tunes that blared over the loudspeaker system throughout the game. The cheer squad kept the students engaged, and the Tar Heels delivered the expected victory despite their All-American Quarterback Sam Howell sitting the game out. Final score UNC 34, Wofford 14.

A beautiful fall football day in Chapel Hill

Three of us jumped into an Uber for a 30-minute ride over to Carter Finley Stadium, home of the NC State Wolfpack. We would reconnect with the two guys from our gang that opted out of the NC State game. The other two gentlemen went to Franklin Street in Chapel Hill to experience college life and watch football on TV. NC State’s opponent was the Syracuse Orangemen. Carter Findlay stadium is an impressive autumn cathedral with noticeable new upgrades. With 75% of the seats occupied, there were more fans at this game than the other four combined that I attended during the week. With kickoff starting at 4 p.m., we arrived slightly late and apparently missed a flyover. NC State was honoring all military veterans and active-duty service men and women with an evening of incredible patriotism. The halftime performance was one of the best ever that ended with the unfurling of an American flag that covered the entire football field. NC State came into the game ranked 19th in the nation with a 7-3 record. Syracuse having somewhat of an up and down season and being unpredictable, could not be overlooked. After a quarter of feeling each other out like two boxers with no real scoring, NC State's skill and depth would become apparent as they started putting points up at will while only surrendering a couple of drives resulting in scores for the Orangemen. When the Wolfpack would score, the sound of a howling wolf was played over the loudspeaker, and we would howl along with it in support of the local team. Wolfpack QB Devin Leary tossed the pigskin for over 300 yards. The Wolfpack would win by a final score of 41 to 17.

A patriotic night at Carter Finley stadium.

Around the Country - Two teams that were previously in that mythical “conversation” about the college football playoffs will now be playing purely for the love of the game. Michigan State was annihilated by Ohio State in Columbus, OH, and Oregon was upset and beaten like a native American war drum in Salt Lake City by the Utes. Despite Alabama's Bryce Young having a record night passing for Alabama, the scrappy Razorbacks made it a much closer game than the natural order of things would suggest. Mizou clawed out a win over the Gators in Columbia, MO, guaranteeing that Florida’s head ball coach will be seeking employment elsewhere next season. Texas lost for the sixth straight week, this time to the Mountaineers from Morgantown, WV, and Oklahoma eked out a win over Iowa State. Cincinnati solidified their claim to a playoff spot by trouncing an SMU team that the pundits thought had a chance to beat them. Notre Dame put up double nickels on the wreck from Georgia Tech. UTSA won a last second, miracle touchdown over UAB to keep their dream alive of a New Year's Six Bowl. UCLA obliterated USC in the game’s most colorful pageantry with the colors of each team’s uniforms. 

Clockwise L- R: The Panoviches taking in the Nerdwester game at Wrigley,
The Healey brothers out from prison on work release to enjoy the Navy game>
The Maddalons watching UCLA get revenge on the Trojans.
The Zeisings and Mike O at the Cal Poly game.

Bieber

-  Goes to our good friend and celebrity chef Jonny "Feasty Boy" Mayer for putting work over fun and missing our epic North Carolina weekend. As one in our crowd proclaimed, "I've known Jonny for over 40 years and have never known him to put work over anything!" Jonny, the trophy is in the mail and you have some making up to do next fall!

 Ginger - This goes to the following people for indulging me and participating in my junket this past week: Brian Donnelly, Mike McCabe, Esquire, Dr Garth Dahlen, Esquire, Dr Alfred Rector, AKA Alabama Al, Tony Anfernee Pifer, LTC Joe Johnny Quest Anderson, and Tim Bieber Kauffman. I am most thankful to have spent parts of this past week with each of you and am looking forward to next season at LSU and more MACtion.

Next Up - After 20 years, next Saturday I will be co-hosting my final Notre Dame at Stanford tailgate along with Irish Mike Iorio who is actually Eye Tallion. This will be an epic tailgate as planning has been underway for a period of time. This will also be my final game of the season more than likely as I go into quarantine to stay healthy for the wedding of middle daughter Sooner Erin on December 19th. Should something change, you will hear about it.

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Happy Tailgating!