Big 10 Football Tour

So the moment had finally come.  After sitting in traffic for over 30 minutes, the journey that was seemingly less than a mile was complete. 

I had made it to the Rose Bowl grounds, where non-permit parking was going for $50-$70.  The scalpers were charging over $300.00 per ticket and there was so much merchandise being sold, that it was difficult to pick your souveneir.

There was some mild tailgating going on, but you had to think that it was difficult for many of these people to bring all of their tailgate gear as they were either flying or traveling over 10 hours by car to the game.

While I saw many interesting Duck-inspired tailgates, I made my way to the sponsor grounds.   Here, there was a large stage with a live band, a free taco stand, punt/pass/and kick activities, and most importantly, the beer tent!  For a mere $9.00, you could get a 16 oz beer in a nice Rose Bowl plastic cup.  Unfortunately, the service was miserable and we waited about 25 minutes to get served.  Next year, I'm simply carrying a case of beer under my arm.  Within this tent, seemingly every other bowl game was televised and I watched Northwestern lose a thriller and Penn State win due to an idiotic play by an LSU player. 

As we headed towards the authentic merchandise tents, I began to notice the balance of power shift in the fans.  After only seeing a handful of Buckeye fans through the first few days, I began seeing more and more of them heading into the stadium.

Before heading into the stadium, I purchased a lanyard to protect my ticket stub with the Rose Bowl logo on it.  I'm sure it set me back $10-$15, but being that it was probably the most impressive ticket I had ever seen and it was the pinnacle of this long journey, I wanted to save it from destruction.

As I reached the stadium, the Oregon player buses started to arrive and the Duck fans became more rabid.  I would strongly suggest getting near the gates as the players arrive because it becomes nearly impossible to cross any road for a good 30 minutes.

The gentleman off to the side had an interesting Duck hat, but the button attached said "Huskies Belong in the Pound" which didn't make much sense as the Huskies had nothing to do with today's matchup.  Maybe he lost his "Buckeyes Belong in a Tree" button.

Finally the time came to enter the game.  Gate F to be exact.  No stumbling in late this week, I wasn't missing this beginning!

It was here that I began to notice the age of the stadium.  There was a serious backlog at the tunnels it could take up to five mintues to get through.  No worries however as the outside of these tunnels were the most scenic I've ever seen anywhere.

We made our way to our seats and took in our first views of the stadium.  The yellow and green Duck fans, the Scarlet and Silver Buckeye fans, the San Gabriel mountains, and of course - the playing field. 

Perfect timing on getting to the seats as the Ohio State marching band as taking the field.  In case you've forgotten, I missed the band during my visit to Columbus and took a lot of flak from the OSU fans in subsequent weeks.  Regardless, I finally witnessed the "script Ohio" and the "dotting of the I."

The Oregon marching band showed up as well, but it was not even a competition between the two bands.  OSU just embarassed the Oregon marching band in every category.  Check out some of my videos of the bands below.

Finally the game was about to begin.  Prior to the coin flip, I predicted that Ohio State would not be able to stop the Oregon offense in lose by double digits.  Pardon my skepticism Big 10 fans, but I think everyone feared the Oregon offense at this point, plus Ohio State had recently deemed a bunch of key players ineligible.

Before long, the teams came storming out!

A bit later, the national anthem, the traditional flyover and some fireworks.  Somehow I managed to capture the fireworks, the planes coming and the planes flying away in a matter of seconds.

It was coin flip time and the Buckeyes chose to receive after winning.  My optimism began to grow that maybe OSU would score first and make this more of a competition. 

Sure enough, OSU drove down the field on their first drive and Brandon Saine caught a 13 yard TD pass from Terrelle Pryor less than 4 minutes into the game.  Obviously the Buckeye fans quickly woke up, and started to outmatch the Duck fans, which had been so much more boisterous during the pregame and first few plays.

I took a few moments to take in the Rose Bowl Hall of Fame.  Out front was the Rose Bowl shrine/statue.  Whoever left the coffee/bottled water on the statue should have been immediately escorted from the premises.  That's just unacceptable!  

A large wall plays home to the Chrysler Corporation COURT OF CHAMPIONS.  Plaques from each year shows the final score, the names of the head coaches, and the outstanding offensive/defensive players.

Almost hidden in the bottom left corner of the wall if the Hall of Fame, where it lists the name and where the person came from.  Tiny little plaques with no real explation of why these individuals are in the Hall of Fame.  I imagine that there is somewhere else where the contributions of these individuals are a little more extravagantly noted? Right? Right?

The Buckeyes would add a field goal before the end of the 1st quarter to make the score a surprising 10-0 in favor of Ohio State.

The Buckeyes dominance would quickly end in the 2nd quarter lass the Ducks kicked a field goal before a single minute passed.  When the Ducks got the ball back just a few minutes later, the moment most fans had been waiting for arrived.  With Oregon just 3 yards from the endzone, a new back came running onto the field.  The crowd started yelling "Blount" as LeGarrette Blount came running onto the field.  Oh, you forgot who LaGarrette Blount is?  Yeah, he's the guy who punched the Boise State player on the opening week of college football.  After a lengthy suspension, he came back to dominate on short-yardage runs.  1 play and 3 yards later, Blount was in the endzone and the score was tied at 10.

Ohio State managed to get two more field goals before halftime; ending the first half with a 16-10 lead.  To begin the 3rd quarter, the Ducks quickly drove down the field and Jeremiah Masoli scored on a 1 yard run.  Suddenly, Oregon had taken the lead and the fans could sense that Oregon was now clicking on all cylinders and would seize control of the game.

Not so fast.  Despite Oregon seemingly scoring at will during the past 20 minutes, the Buckeyes were resilient.  Devin Barclay would put the Buckeyes up once with a 38 yard field goal, with a score of 19-17.

My friend Josh kept telling me that "Chip (Kelly) will figure it out."   He kept telling me that as Ohio State clutched to its 2 point lead to start the 4th quarter.  He kept telling me that a good 7 or 8 minutes into the 4th quarter when Terrelle Pryor led the Buckeyes 81 for yet another touchdown; concluding with a 17 yard touchdown pass to DeVier Posey. 

As night fell, the Buckeyes seemed to gain more confidence.  When most expected them to quickly give the ball back, they converted first down after first down and kept the ball out of Oregon's hands.

At approximately the 2 minute mark, I noticed a group of Rose Bowl employees setting down boxes behind the Ohio State bench; guessing that they were the championship hats, t-shirts, and fanny packs.

The Buckeye sidelines began to get extremely animated and Pryor continued to move the ball down the field until the final bell rang and the Ohio State Buckeyes were Rose Bowl champions!

Although it wasn't a home game, the Buckeye players ran over to the band/student section and sang the school's alma mater, "Carmen Ohio."  Doug Worthington was going nuts, waving the Ohio flag around all over the field. 

Finally, the OSU players gathered in a gated area in the center of the field to receive the rather unimpressive looking trophy (it looks like something you can buy at a Waterford crystal shop).  A big congratulations to the Big 10 champion in winning the Rose Bowl.  THe Buckeyes represented the conference well in this game and could not have provided a more appropriate ending to the tour. 

And that was that.  The Big 10 tour was in the books.  As Josh and I walked from the stadium, we noticed many of the street hot dog vendors had shown up outside of the stadium.  These weren't your typical hot dog carts, but rather a can of sterno, baking pan, and a prop to hold the pan up.  If you've never had the Los Angeles hot dog, it's absolutely worth a try.  While it sounds absolutely disguisting and will probably shorten your life by 3 years; you must try it.  The hot dogs are wrapped in bacon, the bun in covered in grilled onions and peppers, and finally it's topped off with ketchup, mustard, and MAYO!

Josh and I reminisced about the experience, although I could definitely sense some disappoint in his tone as after a few days of excitement, he had a 15 hour drive home the following day.  Especially after so many expected Oregon to win this game handily.

While I sometimes have the desire to get as passionate about one of these schools as many of these fans do, I also love to be a part of these events as an unbiased spectator and simply take in the emotions of both sides.

I began to contemplate the idea of going to a different bowl game every year from here on out.  But then again, I just experienced "the grand-daddy of them all" and the bowl experiences would only go down from here.

I looked out at all of the souveneir stands and noticed that all of the Rose Bowl merchandise was now selling for 50% off.  I can't imagine how irritated some of the fans were after purchasing a $60 sweatshirt and seeing it for $30 on the way out.   I guess these peddlers hope for new, naive fans every year.

McCormick and I then walked a mile in the wrong direction to in hopes of taking the metro back to Hollywood. Great.  Regardless, nothing could wipe the smile off my face on this day!