Time to post the trip.
I flew up saturday morning into Chicago with my father and then we headed east into Indiana. The first thing I noticed was how fucking flat Indiana is. Now I like to think of myself as experienced in a good amount of the eastern US, seen most of the biggest cities and most of the states in my life, but I was really taken back for some reason how boring everything looked.
Pregame
Well we get into South Bend around 2 pm and drive by Saint Marys and Holy Cross, and my excitement level is already thru the roof. Seeing all the ND fans everywhere, I knew immediately this was probably gonna be the best day of my life. We park at a lot near Holy Cross and across the golf course and then head on over to the campus. Now my dad isn't a fan of ND, but is a sports fan and he always wanted to see the campus and such, being Irish Catholic and all.
So we head into the heart of the campus and neither of us have any clue where everything is besides what we can see in the distance, so we just try to take everything in that we can and head to the landmarks we can see. We saw the Basilica, Golden Dome, Touchdown Jesus, the dorms, the memorials, and such. We never saw the Grotto but I am not that upset about it, I am sure I will be back some time later in my life. We head into the stadium, gate D by the Lou Holtz statue.
Stadium
We do our usual pregame sporting event meal with 2 hot dogs and soda(got the collectors cup which will hold my beers for the rest of my college career) then head to our seats. We sat in section 22, row 40ish. Pretty good view of TD Jesus and the ND sidelines. Now something that did hit me by surprise was the foot of space on a wooden plank that was supposed to be my seat. Now ND makes about 45k from a student thru tuition and you are telling me they can't spring for atleast a metal bench? I have never been in a stadium with wooden seats like that, at least Fenway painted theirs a couple times.
Atmosphere
One of the most intriguing thing for me to notice was the atmosphere. This was like a football game I have never been to. It feels completely different than any other event I have been too. My dad said it best when we were leaving, he said "People aren't here to have a party, they come here to be on the sacred grounds and enjoy the football game." Going to school at UT, football games involve drunken people partying all over the place yelling and screaming and singing Rocky Top 100 times. At ND I saw families taking pictures and more soda cans than beer. I didn't even see anyone throwing up which is a first for a college football game. Hell even Vandy games there are always people to drunk to walk 10 feet. It felt very odd for me.
Also I notice you guys talking about the atmosphere of the crowd and how it never seems electric. And I will confirm this is probably the weakest crowd I have ever been to for a football game. I felt like if they didn't play music so loud during games, the noise level would be equal to a Reds or Braves game in mid June, not so much a football game.
The actual game impressions
As for the game, I was pretty disappointed in ND's performance. Rees played like absolute shit. Te'o really can not cover. I felt like most of the game it really wasn't ND out playing BC but rather BC not being very good and not making plays. BC usually had a player open in the middle running crossing routes almost all the time. Rettig would either barely miss some receivers or they would just drop it completely. I was impressed with Jonas, the run d, Toma, and Floyd (besides dropping some passes and not going hard enough for the open deep ball). On that play I saw immediately Floyd one on one with no over top safety and was calling for a check from Rees. To my surprise he saw it too and it probably should have been the big play if Floyd runs a little harder for it. All in all I am glad they won on my trip. Would have sucked if they lost.
Random thoughts
I do think they need a video board of some kind. The not knowing if Toma caught the ball and such is kind of lame as you wait there and hope. It would really be nice to re see some plays which is why I had to rewatch the game after. I also thought it was neat with the Senior students throwing marshmallows(I learned was a senior day tradition), Bon Jovi leading on the band to Livin on a Prayer and Chicago playing with the band. I will say ND's band is a lot better than the pride of the southland band here at UT. I was also glad to be there on Senior day for the player specific walk outs as it gave me a good chance to thank and cheer for the players I have watched for years. We drive back to Chicago and fly back to Nashville sunday morning and I spend my day driving back to Knoxville.
The place probably is my heaven on earth and I loved every minute of it though. While I do enjoy being at a college with crazy parties every night and a lot(and I mean a lot) hotter girls, if I had the chance to attend ND it probably would be the greatest time of my life. Just to be apart of something I love so much would be worth it in the end. And I wouldn't have to hear Rocky Top anymore.
edit: woah this was long, I will put headlines to put the gists of each paragraph
