College: National Championship Game
Year: 2015
Game: Ohio State 42 Oregon 20
Rating: 10
Cost Index: Very High (Face Value of tix is 450)
Tickets: Moderate
Cost Index: Very High (Face Value of tix is 450)
Tickets: Moderate
Stadium: AT&T Stadium Dallas, TX
This fall one my oldest and dearest friend was able to procure tickets to the first ever CFP National Championship game in Dallas. He had a tough decision on who to invite to go with him. He is a former player and the high school, college and semi pro level and he's also a current referee. He lives in the Boston area, I live out here in Chicago. He has a young son. Fortunately for me he gave me the honor of going because we have been friends for a long time and we know that we travel well together. So I start here by thanking him for the opportunity and acknowledging that I owe him one.
Traveling is very interesting to me. I don't always travel because it's fun, I mean there are times that it's fun, there are times it's a pain in the ass and there are times when you just don't feel like going. In this case we had about as much fun as two 40 year old married guys can possibly have.
The game was on a Monday night, we structured the trip to spend the weekend in Austin because Ignatius had never been to Austin before. He had actually never been to Texas. I had flow into Dallas on Friday night to pick up the car and drive down to Austin and met Ignatius at the Austin airport on Saturday morning. I picked him up and we checking into our hotel. This hotel was perfect because it was a suite and we each had our own floor...therefore we had our own bathroom so we could each take a shit in peace. This is very underrated when traveling....many times I've been somewhere strange and had to shit and not known what the fuck to do. In fact by my count I have now shit outside in inappropriate places in three different states, one time on the steps of a church. Not my finest hour.
This weekend was the divisional playoffs and we are both Patriots fans so we had a couple of beers at the hotel and headed to downtown Austin. There was a Patriots bar there but they weren't letting anyone else in so we went a few doors down to another bar. It was the right place at the right time for us, we drank a few beers and started watching the Ravens beat the shit out of the Patriots. At this point we are used to Patriot playoff loses and this game had all of the tell tale signs of a playoff loss. The Ravens were running on the Patriots, kicking their ass. They were going right at Darrell Revis and succeeding. The Patriots couldn't run the ball and were turning it over. The weather was shitty all weekend in Austin and our seats in the bar were near a drafty area so we decided to get out of there and head to a place called the Moontower Saloon in south Austin.
The Moontower was not crowded and provided a great spot to watch the second half of what became a great football game. The Patriots did something they rarely have to do: go all in to win a game. This was the game where they used bizarre formations to make non traditional players in-eligible receivers, it was the game Edelman finally threw a pass and it was a game they fumbled 2 or 3 times and were lucky to recover them all. We finished watching the game there with some locals and the Patriots pulled the game out of their ass. Very likeable team this year. The next spot we went to was Rainy street which is one of those places that exists only in Austin. Evidently only a few years back it was a run down spot full of residential houses. In Austin you can turn any house into a bar, the zoning lawas aren't strict, so now it's a street with a few houses and a bunch of bars. At the end of the street is a lot full of food trucks. When I was in Austin last year I had the best pizza I've personally ever had at the Via 313 truck in the back yard of Craft Pride on Rainy. I had to take Ignatius there...he was initially put off by the fact they had an arugala pizzia (it is Austin, after all) but I think he liked it. He will have a chance to add his own section so I will know for sure at some point. Here is a picture of the meat lovers we got (no arugala)
Let's talk about the Austin food truck scene: it's legitimately awesome there. Tons of them, all seemingly original and high quality. It's a local treasure and you could do worse going there for a weekend and just sampling as many as you can. Right when we were done eating our pizzia a dude from Chicago walked in that I recognized from a German class I took last year. This is a guy I live less than a mile from but haven't seen over the past year, I run into him in Austin. He was visiting Austin with a friend, doing the same thing we were except they weren't going to the game. His name is John, his friends name was Brian. We shot the shit with them for a while and I got his number and Ignatius and I proceeded to head out with the intention of checking out another bar or two on Rainy. We stopped at one but it we quickly realized because of the shitty weather no one was out and we were on the older side. Austin is THE millennial town, it's where the younger people are moving and, since every generation creates their own culture, it was pretty clear that we didn't fit in. I have to say the feeling was mutual. We went home and called it a night.
We got back to the hotel and hung out for a bit. I passed out and Ignatius went to sleep with his CPAP. For the one or two people who stumble across this and don't know what a CPAP is it's a machine that a person wears to ensure they are able to breathe at night. Specifically it helps with sleep apnea, which can be fatal (think Reggie White). When you see the fucking thing the first thought is that it looks like the shit that Keanu Reeves was hooked up to in the Matrix. The second thought you have is: Even though it may save your life, are you sure it's worth it? Ignatius is fond of saying "Try not to fuck me while I'm wearing my CPAP!"
I passed out and we both got a decent, but not great, night of sleep because of the strip club next door. Evidently it is the only strip club with an outdoor patio. They were playing music until 4AM.
We got up the next day and proceeded to head down to the Moonshine Inn to get brunch. We were there for a couple of hours, mainly because it was a really, really excellent brunch. It was buffet style, good drinks, laid back, great bartender. We just sat there eating and hanging out until the Dallas @ Green Bay game kicked off. Then we walked over to Champions and watched the game with the guys we met the night before. One of the guys was a Green Bay fan. We had a good time with these guys, normally you get 4 guys who don't know each other and everyone has their cock out trying to see who's is bigger. Not this case, we just hung out and watched Dallas get fucked over by the Dez Bryant non catch. The week before Dallas had fucked over Detroit on the picked up PI flag. The week after Green Bay lost one of the most improbable playoff games to Seattle. By this logic Seattle should get fucked over in the Super Bowl which would make Ignatius and I very happy.
After the Dallas game was over Ignatius and I kind of meandered around Austin. We went to a sports bar and played a few games of bubble hockey (I kicked ass) and watched Indianapolis dispatch Denver from the playoffs. We wanted to see some music so we made our way to East Austin after that, to the White Horse but there was some Mexican Polka band there.....we were not amused...which sucks because I had high hopes for that bar as the last time I was there it was excellent. After checking out a couple of more places and determining that East Austin was dead we were hungry and tried to find some famous Austin BBQ. The night before we got some recommendations from some locals, the first was John Muellers but that was closed. We ended up going to LaBBQ...it was the best BBQ brisket either one of us had ever experienced.
After the brisket we went to an arcade, which wasn't far from our hotel. It was pretty good as far as these things go, but nothing crazy. We were also tired and I think a bit sick of the Austin short hair and long beard scene. We went back to our hotel and played "hide the CPAP"!
A note on Franklin BBQ: Everyone says it is, indeed, worth it but you have to get there early and wait in line. Tough to justify that if you are there for only 48 hours. My understanding is that you should treat Franklin's like you are tailgating: bring some beers and get in line early and throw a football around for a few hours, then you'll get you BBQ and you'll be happy. Next time I go down there for a UT game this is what I'll do.
A note on Austin: This was my third time here. My first time was 2004, I was here last year for a UT game and now in January 2015. I have no doubt that at one time, perhaps for a long time, this was one of the best cities in the United States. It has it's own vibe and it's own culture. Unfortunately in our society once a person or a place stands out for originality or character the rest of the culture either works to destroy it (see Deflategate) or the douche bags invade and suck the fun out of the place. This is what has happened to Austin. The douche bags have invaded, it's a corporate hot spot, it's out growing it's infrastructure and you can see the soul being sucked right out of it. It reminds of what happened in Seattle in the 90s. R.I.P. Austin -- I mean, we could not find live music on a Sunday night in Austin. WTF?
We got up on Monday morning and started the three hour drive from Austin to Dallas. Waco is dead between the two cities so we made a quick detour to see the Branch Davidian Ranch where the confrontation between the government and the David Koresh cult took place. It was creepy, no doubt. We took a couple of pictures and got the hell out of there. We also stopped and got a quick look at Baylor's new football stadium. Very well done structure. I will have to attend a game there at some point, hopefully while they are still good.
Onto the game itself, the whole reason we went down there...whoever was responsible for this game got it 100% right. The venue was perfect for this inaugural championship game. Whatever you may thing of Jerry Jones or income inequality or our culture in general....AT&T stadium is nothing short of a marvel of engineering. It looks like a giant spaceship decided to drop into a Dallas suburb to explore Walmart and Best Buy.
The 3 people who read this blog may notice that I complain that at some games the incessant marketing and tributes range from annoying to obnoxious. There was none of that at this game. Those hosting the game gave only the information you needed, it was very refreshing.
The atmosphere before the game was pretty good and it just built up from there. I would guess the Ohio State fans outnumbered the Oregon fans 8 to 2. One of the complaints about Dallas is that the Cowboys don't have a good home field advantage in the new stadium. That has nothing to do with the stadium as the Ohio State fans were dominant during this game. This is a problem in the NFL: they've priced football fans out of the crowd, now they just get the corporate types who aren't going to create the type of home field you get in KC or Seattle.
The game itself was an ass kicking. Oregon took the opening kick and drove right down the field and scored. The rest of the game was all Ohio State. They won 42-20 and turned the ball over 4 times. It could have been much worse.
In life sometimes shit does not go your way, but sometimes it does and for some reason we tend to forget that. The only way this trip could have been better is if we got a national championship game like USC vs. Texas or Ohio State vs. Miami. I would 100% recommend this event, even considering the price.
If you want to make it part of a larger trip: This one stands alone given the time of year
This fall one my oldest and dearest friend was able to procure tickets to the first ever CFP National Championship game in Dallas. He had a tough decision on who to invite to go with him. He is a former player and the high school, college and semi pro level and he's also a current referee. He lives in the Boston area, I live out here in Chicago. He has a young son. Fortunately for me he gave me the honor of going because we have been friends for a long time and we know that we travel well together. So I start here by thanking him for the opportunity and acknowledging that I owe him one.
Traveling is very interesting to me. I don't always travel because it's fun, I mean there are times that it's fun, there are times it's a pain in the ass and there are times when you just don't feel like going. In this case we had about as much fun as two 40 year old married guys can possibly have.
The game was on a Monday night, we structured the trip to spend the weekend in Austin because Ignatius had never been to Austin before. He had actually never been to Texas. I had flow into Dallas on Friday night to pick up the car and drive down to Austin and met Ignatius at the Austin airport on Saturday morning. I picked him up and we checking into our hotel. This hotel was perfect because it was a suite and we each had our own floor...therefore we had our own bathroom so we could each take a shit in peace. This is very underrated when traveling....many times I've been somewhere strange and had to shit and not known what the fuck to do. In fact by my count I have now shit outside in inappropriate places in three different states, one time on the steps of a church. Not my finest hour.
This weekend was the divisional playoffs and we are both Patriots fans so we had a couple of beers at the hotel and headed to downtown Austin. There was a Patriots bar there but they weren't letting anyone else in so we went a few doors down to another bar. It was the right place at the right time for us, we drank a few beers and started watching the Ravens beat the shit out of the Patriots. At this point we are used to Patriot playoff loses and this game had all of the tell tale signs of a playoff loss. The Ravens were running on the Patriots, kicking their ass. They were going right at Darrell Revis and succeeding. The Patriots couldn't run the ball and were turning it over. The weather was shitty all weekend in Austin and our seats in the bar were near a drafty area so we decided to get out of there and head to a place called the Moontower Saloon in south Austin.
The Moontower was not crowded and provided a great spot to watch the second half of what became a great football game. The Patriots did something they rarely have to do: go all in to win a game. This was the game where they used bizarre formations to make non traditional players in-eligible receivers, it was the game Edelman finally threw a pass and it was a game they fumbled 2 or 3 times and were lucky to recover them all. We finished watching the game there with some locals and the Patriots pulled the game out of their ass. Very likeable team this year. The next spot we went to was Rainy street which is one of those places that exists only in Austin. Evidently only a few years back it was a run down spot full of residential houses. In Austin you can turn any house into a bar, the zoning lawas aren't strict, so now it's a street with a few houses and a bunch of bars. At the end of the street is a lot full of food trucks. When I was in Austin last year I had the best pizza I've personally ever had at the Via 313 truck in the back yard of Craft Pride on Rainy. I had to take Ignatius there...he was initially put off by the fact they had an arugala pizzia (it is Austin, after all) but I think he liked it. He will have a chance to add his own section so I will know for sure at some point. Here is a picture of the meat lovers we got (no arugala)
Let's talk about the Austin food truck scene: it's legitimately awesome there. Tons of them, all seemingly original and high quality. It's a local treasure and you could do worse going there for a weekend and just sampling as many as you can. Right when we were done eating our pizzia a dude from Chicago walked in that I recognized from a German class I took last year. This is a guy I live less than a mile from but haven't seen over the past year, I run into him in Austin. He was visiting Austin with a friend, doing the same thing we were except they weren't going to the game. His name is John, his friends name was Brian. We shot the shit with them for a while and I got his number and Ignatius and I proceeded to head out with the intention of checking out another bar or two on Rainy. We stopped at one but it we quickly realized because of the shitty weather no one was out and we were on the older side. Austin is THE millennial town, it's where the younger people are moving and, since every generation creates their own culture, it was pretty clear that we didn't fit in. I have to say the feeling was mutual. We went home and called it a night.
We got back to the hotel and hung out for a bit. I passed out and Ignatius went to sleep with his CPAP. For the one or two people who stumble across this and don't know what a CPAP is it's a machine that a person wears to ensure they are able to breathe at night. Specifically it helps with sleep apnea, which can be fatal (think Reggie White). When you see the fucking thing the first thought is that it looks like the shit that Keanu Reeves was hooked up to in the Matrix. The second thought you have is: Even though it may save your life, are you sure it's worth it? Ignatius is fond of saying "Try not to fuck me while I'm wearing my CPAP!"
This is not a picture of my friend
I passed out and we both got a decent, but not great, night of sleep because of the strip club next door. Evidently it is the only strip club with an outdoor patio. They were playing music until 4AM.
We got up the next day and proceeded to head down to the Moonshine Inn to get brunch. We were there for a couple of hours, mainly because it was a really, really excellent brunch. It was buffet style, good drinks, laid back, great bartender. We just sat there eating and hanging out until the Dallas @ Green Bay game kicked off. Then we walked over to Champions and watched the game with the guys we met the night before. One of the guys was a Green Bay fan. We had a good time with these guys, normally you get 4 guys who don't know each other and everyone has their cock out trying to see who's is bigger. Not this case, we just hung out and watched Dallas get fucked over by the Dez Bryant non catch. The week before Dallas had fucked over Detroit on the picked up PI flag. The week after Green Bay lost one of the most improbable playoff games to Seattle. By this logic Seattle should get fucked over in the Super Bowl which would make Ignatius and I very happy.
After the Dallas game was over Ignatius and I kind of meandered around Austin. We went to a sports bar and played a few games of bubble hockey (I kicked ass) and watched Indianapolis dispatch Denver from the playoffs. We wanted to see some music so we made our way to East Austin after that, to the White Horse but there was some Mexican Polka band there.....we were not amused...which sucks because I had high hopes for that bar as the last time I was there it was excellent. After checking out a couple of more places and determining that East Austin was dead we were hungry and tried to find some famous Austin BBQ. The night before we got some recommendations from some locals, the first was John Muellers but that was closed. We ended up going to LaBBQ...it was the best BBQ brisket either one of us had ever experienced.
After the brisket we went to an arcade, which wasn't far from our hotel. It was pretty good as far as these things go, but nothing crazy. We were also tired and I think a bit sick of the Austin short hair and long beard scene. We went back to our hotel and played "hide the CPAP"!
A note on Franklin BBQ: Everyone says it is, indeed, worth it but you have to get there early and wait in line. Tough to justify that if you are there for only 48 hours. My understanding is that you should treat Franklin's like you are tailgating: bring some beers and get in line early and throw a football around for a few hours, then you'll get you BBQ and you'll be happy. Next time I go down there for a UT game this is what I'll do.
A note on Austin: This was my third time here. My first time was 2004, I was here last year for a UT game and now in January 2015. I have no doubt that at one time, perhaps for a long time, this was one of the best cities in the United States. It has it's own vibe and it's own culture. Unfortunately in our society once a person or a place stands out for originality or character the rest of the culture either works to destroy it (see Deflategate) or the douche bags invade and suck the fun out of the place. This is what has happened to Austin. The douche bags have invaded, it's a corporate hot spot, it's out growing it's infrastructure and you can see the soul being sucked right out of it. It reminds of what happened in Seattle in the 90s. R.I.P. Austin -- I mean, we could not find live music on a Sunday night in Austin. WTF?
We got up on Monday morning and started the three hour drive from Austin to Dallas. Waco is dead between the two cities so we made a quick detour to see the Branch Davidian Ranch where the confrontation between the government and the David Koresh cult took place. It was creepy, no doubt. We took a couple of pictures and got the hell out of there. We also stopped and got a quick look at Baylor's new football stadium. Very well done structure. I will have to attend a game there at some point, hopefully while they are still good.
Onto the game itself, the whole reason we went down there...whoever was responsible for this game got it 100% right. The venue was perfect for this inaugural championship game. Whatever you may thing of Jerry Jones or income inequality or our culture in general....AT&T stadium is nothing short of a marvel of engineering. It looks like a giant spaceship decided to drop into a Dallas suburb to explore Walmart and Best Buy.
The 3 people who read this blog may notice that I complain that at some games the incessant marketing and tributes range from annoying to obnoxious. There was none of that at this game. Those hosting the game gave only the information you needed, it was very refreshing.
The atmosphere before the game was pretty good and it just built up from there. I would guess the Ohio State fans outnumbered the Oregon fans 8 to 2. One of the complaints about Dallas is that the Cowboys don't have a good home field advantage in the new stadium. That has nothing to do with the stadium as the Ohio State fans were dominant during this game. This is a problem in the NFL: they've priced football fans out of the crowd, now they just get the corporate types who aren't going to create the type of home field you get in KC or Seattle.
The game itself was an ass kicking. Oregon took the opening kick and drove right down the field and scored. The rest of the game was all Ohio State. They won 42-20 and turned the ball over 4 times. It could have been much worse.
In life sometimes shit does not go your way, but sometimes it does and for some reason we tend to forget that. The only way this trip could have been better is if we got a national championship game like USC vs. Texas or Ohio State vs. Miami. I would 100% recommend this event, even considering the price.
If you want to make it part of a larger trip: This one stands alone given the time of year
Don't Miss: The Branch Davidian Compound
Avoid: CPAPs and dudes with long beards and short hair
Avoid: CPAPs and dudes with long beards and short hair
Attendees: Bones, Ignatius P. Reilly
Game Recap: http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/recap?gameId=400610325
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