Big 10 Football Tour

Another non-conference game this week, but the ante was upped as State was playing another in-state rival, the Central Michigan Chippewas.  The crowd was filled with "Chip" fans, which made for quite the atmosphere!

As we were walking to the stadium, we noticed many people throwing their cans and bottles on the ground.  We were a little taken back by the practice, but shortly thereafter we noticed both charitable organization and the homeless walking around and picking up as many as they could. 

Then it dawned on us...Cans/Bottles get a 5 cent refund in most states, but Michigan offers the 10 cent refund.  This of course reminded of the Bottle Deposit episode of Seinfeld.

Some of the sights that we encountered on the way into Spartan Stadium.  Then some more.  The trip to our seats took a little longer than normal as Adrienne was not allowed in the door because her purse was too big.  It wasn't that big of a purse, but it was too big.  Tip for all other females - bring small purses to Spartan Stadium.

One of the most impressive things about the MSU fans was that they were all in their seats for the kickoff.  There was a lot of people meandering in at the end of the 1st quarter - everyone was in their seat and ready to go for kickoff.

Prior to the game, former NBA player and DREAM TEAM II member Steve Smith was honored.  He's no Magic Johnson, but was one heck of a NBA player.

Early in the game, the cheerleaders brought out 3 large flags and would life each one so that the crowd would yell "M.....S.....UUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuu"

The crowd of 76,221 stayed fairly vocal the whole game.  Some other humous chants included "First Down Bitch" and "Fuck You Central."

Then there was the clip from the movie "300" where it asked, "Spartans, what is your confession?" to which the crowd would chant Woo, Woo, Woo!

A bell was rung after every touchdown, a lot of Sno Cones were sold, a lot of techno music was played along, children who looked really young were selling water & soda, the sing-along "When I Saw Her Standing There" echoed through the stadium, Zek the frisbee dog entertained, the largest downpour of beachballs that we've ever seen fell from the sky, & the band played 5 Bruce "The Boss" Springsteen songs.

The mascot interaction was great too!  Out waltzed a "bag of chips" that read Fire Chips across the front and we assume its name was "Chip Chip."  After a chant of "Let's Eat Chips," Sparty tackled Chip Chip (resulting in the loss of Sparty's head) and the cheer team continued to assult this Central Michigan "mascot."

One of our favorite pieces of crowd interaction was the Go Green/Go White chant.  Both sides of the stadium would work together on this one as some would yell "Go Green!" and the others would yell "Go White!"

While we saw a great game that could contend as our best of the season, we were disappointed to see the home team lose.  Below you'll see a highlight of what was not the final play, but essentially was the final play.