Being a Part of Missouri's Rise to Modern Prominence

Moving to St. Louis in 2005 put me further than a quick drive down the interstate away from major college football for the first time in my life.  I grew up in central North Carolina, where there are four ACC schools within 100 miles; I went to the one farthest east (North Carolina State).  All the while, being in a major Midwestern city put me in an environment with a unique college football history to explore.  I'll admit that I never took full advantage of that during my four football seasons living there, but the intention to travel to universities across the nation that ultimately became my College Football Tour was born of STL friendships forged of mutual gridiron passion.

During the summer of 2006, a Wisconsin Badger diehard named Nick and I decided that we should make it a yearly tradition through our time in professional school to go to college football games.  We were talking to our Boomer Sooner-loving buddy from Oklahoma, Jeff - who I later joined in Norman for an OU game in 2010 and in Dallas for the OU-Texas game in 2015 - and noticed that the Okies would be traveling to Columbia for an October date with the Missouri Tigers.  For three guys swamped with 36 hour trimesters of school work, it took little more than a quick online purchase of a trio of tickets to a football game to make life a whole heck of a lot better.  Though it would prove to be the lone journey instead of the first of many pigskin-themed road trips, we had a good time and were all pleasantly surprised by University of Missouri football.

The Tigers were fortunately on the rise in 2006.  Gary Pinkel has made headlines in recent years for coaching Missouri to two straight SEC East titles in the program's first three seasons in the Southeastern Conference.  They were expected to be a league doormat by many pundits, but anyone who paid close attention to them from the latter part of the 2000s into this decade would know that they were building toward their recent success for a long time.  They first came on my radar during my college years at NC State.  We watched football each Saturday and played EA Sports NCAA Football video games the rest of the week; there weren't many good players or teams that we didn't know about.

Brad Smith was the quarterback responsible for leading Pinkel's early Missouri teams out of the doldrums.  Our '06 travel group assumed that losing Smith to graduation/NFL would mean a step back for the Tigers and a likely mediocre team come the end of October against the Sooners.  However, Chase Daniel emerged as a bonafide star and was the catalyst for Missouri's progression from bowl-eligible upstart to consistent conference title threat.  The Tigers got off to a 6-0 start and, by the time that we arrived on campus for the 10/26/06 showdown with OU, they were 7-1 and ranked in the Top 25. 

On the Friday before the game, we headed straight out I-70 west to Columbia.

Football was actually the icebreaker that started well over half of my friendships in St. Louis.  Nick, for example, was outside grilling a steak two buildings down from my apartment on the opening weekend of the '05 season.  We exchanged a nod.  Turns out that we were both in the class that began their Logan University careers in September 2005.  Our first conversation was about college football (as was our last, I'm sure; haven't talked to him in years, so hope he's doing well).  Fast forward a year to a month prior to our trip to Mizzou and Nick and I were joined by Tony, another friend that I made thanks to college football, to go to a local high school game, each of us sporting polos featuring the emblems of our favorite teams (Notre Dame, Wisconsin, and Ohio State); a couple of dads saw us walk in together and gave us a look that said "Oh my God, are these guys scouts?"  (FYI - that was the point of the polos, so mission accomplished #nerdculture).  We had planned to make that a thing that we did, but it - like our football road trips - stopped at one in a row.  We should've pretended to be scouts to see former 10th overall NFL draft pick Blaine Gabbert play at Parkway West High School, which was less than a mile from my apartment (I went as a plain old fan a year later).  Jeff, meanwhile, became my go-to sports discussion partner for the last decade and counting after we initially connected over our shared football and pro basketball fandoms.

Tony may not have been with us on the trip to Mizzou, but his presence was felt in the car thanks in no small part to the fact that he lent us the all-time classic hit cassette tape: WrestleMania: The Album (the 156,894th best selling album in the history of Amazon).  Featuring original songs by WWF superstars from the early 1990s, The Album provided us with extreme listening pleasure.  In all seriousness, that tape was a total trainwreck, but it was good for many laughs.  I believe that mine is the only college football blog that features two references to "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan, whose song "USA" surely would have been the most downloaded track on iTunes if such a thing had existed in 1992.  USA, U-U-U-USA, USA...HOOOOOO!!!!

Though not nearly as noteworthy as The Album, a stop at the mall to eat dinner on the way to Columbia allowed me to finally find - after a year of searching - a place in Missouri that served the southern staple beverage, sweet tea.  I'll never forget asking for sweet tea at the first restaurant at which I ate in St. Louis.  The waitress looked at me like I had a six eyes.  They had raspberry tea, but not tea with sugar in it.

You could say that iced tea without sugar is missing that special something.  The same could be said about college football without tailgating.  To this day, the only College Football Tour stop that featured no tailgating was Missouri.  That was no fault of the Tiger faithful, but rather an oversight by an inexperienced trio of foreign game dayers.  Reflecting back, it's an absolute must to do some sort of tailgating because it is the best way to gauge the atmosphere of the host campus.  Sharing a few adult beverages or a signature food item with fellow football fans ingratiates you as a one day member of the local fraternity in a way.  To merely get to the game shortly before it begins strips away a major part of the college football experience.  Aside from a beer or two at the restaurant near our hotel on Friday night, no cocktails were consumed in Columbia and no Tiger-specific tradition was encountered.

College football, though, is college football, with or without tailgating.  When you walk into a stadium for the first time, it's always special.  Each school has its own unique history.  Mizzou being resurgent rather than incumbent in its modern prominence at the time, I knew little about their long-term track record.  Two names immediately jumped out at me on their Hall of Fame circle: Kellen Winslow Sr. (whose son was a huge star at Miami in the early 2000s) and Dan Devine (who coached my Irish to the 1977 National Championship).  I was unaware that Devine had once coached the Tigers between 1958 and 1970, won 70% of his games, and won a pair of conference championships.  So, even without conversing with any Missouri faithful, I could see via notable names on their stadium's ring of honor and the mass of humanity crammed into the venue that Tiger football was worth watching live.

We joined 70,000 other people that day at Faurot Field to see Oklahoma control the game and defeat the Tigers 26-10.  Chase Daniel never could get the offense going and the Sooners did just enough without the aid of all-world running back Adrian Peterson, who had injured his shoulder earlier in the season.  It would have been awesome to say that I saw Peterson play live in college, but alas I can say that I saw the prolific Daniel play QB in college.  Daniel was one of the most underrated players of last decade and finished fourth in the Heisman Trophy voting in 2007 (the year Tim Tebow won the award).

Chase Daniel - one of the best college QBs of the 2000s

Missouri will be remembered fondly for essentially starting my College Football Tour, but it will simultaneously be viewed as a part of the learning curve for how best to appreciate a school that I'd not previously visited.  To be frank, I'd like to plan another trip to Columbia in the future.  When I arrived, they were on the way up.  They've been on one of the best runs in program history since then.  I suspect that their success combined with my tour-savviness would create for a much more engaging campus experience the second time around.

Virginia Tech And Its Laundry List of Traditions Impresses

Lane Stadium has quietly become a destination site for any college football enthusiast whose fandom goes beyond their own team.  Home to the Hokies of Virginia Tech, it has been voted by several notable sports media sources (including ESPN) as the number one home field advantage in the nation.  The 66,000 seat venue holds some of the countries most devout fans, who help make it very, very loud - sitting in the confined quarters of your car with the radio turned all the way up loud.  Since head coach, alumnus, and former VT player, Frank Beamer, got the team headed in the right direction roughly twenty years ago, the Hokies have become one of the top programs in the country (even though they've taken a few steps back in recent seasons), driving the decibel levels for home games to near ear-piercing limits.  In two words, I would describe the experience of Virginia Tech football as "must-see."

I had a friend who had offered to take me to a game in Blacksburg for several years.  In 2011, I finally decided to take him up on it.  I got a look at the available games and got my eyes locked early in the season on the Clemson game.  The Tigers figured to, at the very least, put a respectable team on the field and I always desire to see a game that will be relevant to the bigger picture of a season, if possible.  VT-Clemson had the makings of a competitive match-up prior to the season, but when the game drew nearer, both teams kept on winning.  The Tigers, led by future sure-fire ring of honor inductee Tajh Boyd in the first of his three years as Clemson's starting QB, knocked off Florida State in late September, clearing their path to an undefeated record by the time they went to play the Hokies on October 1.  All of the sudden, it became a game between teams that would control their own destinies to their respective division titles.  It would potentially be (and did end up being) the first of two games between the teams, as winning their divisions would put them on a collision course for the ACC Championship game in December (that's exactly what would ultimately happen).

It was a rainy, cold night in Virginia when I arrived on campus.  The smell of warm turkey legs permeated through the chilly air as we got off the bus that had taken us from our chosen parking lot to the stadium.  A "Hokie" is a turkey, replacing the old Va. Tech mascot of the "Gobbler" (good call if you ask me).  I find it somewhat ironic that perhaps the most intimidating home crowd in the land has quite possibly the least intimidating mascot in the history of sports.  My middle school soccer team was nicknamed the Camels; that's worse, but not much worse.  Maybe it's better that people keep wondering what a Hokie is.  Anyhow, a hot turkey leg will warm you right up, trust me.  That was divine feasting.  At VT, they celebrate the turkey; they eat the turkey.  Amen.  Washed it down with some hot chocolate and I was good to go.  I got some hokie leg remnants on my Fighting Irish coat, draped over a Fighting Irish hooded sweatshirt with a Virginia Tech t-shirt pulled over it.

That's actually a tight shirt pulled over all that garb

We had excellent, perfect to my tastes seating.  It gave me a great view of the foliage behind one side of the stadium.  I think the trees add a nice aesthetic dynamic to the place.  It makes it unique.

Once we were seated, I got my crash course in Va. Tech football traditions, of which there are many.  Although I did not see it, the first of the lot is the corp of cadets known as the "Highty Tighties" walking the team, coaches, cheerleaders, etc. to the stadium.  Va. Tech, as I came to learn, strongly embraces its military ROTC programs.  They are actually considered on par with some of the service academies, designated as a senior military college.  I thought that was cool.  With the military tradition, VT once had a rivalry game with the Virginia Military Institute (VMI).  During that time, VMI would fire off a cannon and taunt VT for not even having one.  So, two Hokie cadets decided to make one.  Naming it "Skipper" as a tribute to JFK (who was the captain/skipper of a PT boat in World War II) after his assassination in the early 60s, the Va. Tech cannon remains one of the football traditions to this day; it's fired after every score (sadly, I only got to hear it once). 

Most teams have some sort of pregame walk and many other schools fire a cannon, but I'm not sure that it carries the same meaning everywhere else that it does at Virginia Tech. 

As the game was about to start, I had a question answered that I'd been wondering about for years and never got the chance to ask.  My buddy Brian, with whom I went to the game, has always been known to me as "The Sandman."  I never really understood why.  I just went along with it.  So, as the players were running out onto the field, "Enter Sandman" by Metallica starts blasting over the loud speakers.  That had been one of my many running songs on my iPod over the years.  I love that song.  There might not be a more adrenaline pumping song in the history of music; and that's where he got the nickname.  Lane Stadium feels like there's a rare Virginia earthquake when "Enter Sandman" is playing.  Definitely one of the most intense moments of the Va. Tech experience.

Well, let me get out of the way that Clemson basically shut down the Va. Tech offense, managed the game well, and won handily 23-3.  The crowd was pretty quiet in the fourth quarter.  I was quite surprised with the outcome.  It was the only ACC loss for VT in the regular season and they got another shot at the Tigers with the ACC title on the line, but they got blasted 38-10 in the rematch, too.  Oh well...

The first half was a good display by both teams of solid defensive strategy, so neither team had many long drives down the field that would accumulate numerous 1st downs.  Thus, there were not a ton of opportunities for another of the Hokie fan staples, but enough to know that you were witnessing something pretty cool.  On every third down, Hokie fans take out their keys and start shaking them.  Imagine 61,000 (we'll give the visiting team 5,000 seats) sets of keys jingling.  You've got a helmet on and you're trying to tell other guys with helmets on what to do.  Think that might be tough?

My personal favorite memory from Va Tech might be something that I misinterpreted.  Throughout the game when Clemson was on offense, the Hokie faithful would yell, "HOOOOhhhh."  You'll often hear "OOOOhhh" in many a sports venue; not just for football.  I thought it sounded like the Hokie nation was adding the "H" because of HO-kie; I could be wrong.  Well, Brian and I became friends in college through a mutual childhood appreciation for professional wrestling and, during our formative years as WWE fans in the late 1980s and early 1990s, there was a 2X4-wielding wrestler named "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan.  His signature catchphrase was to yell, "HOOOOhhhh!!"  So, after quietly finding this amusing for awhile, I decided to add the Hacksaw touch to the Hokie third down tradition, giving an emphatic thumbs up and doing my best Duggan impersonation.  That got a rise out of the Sandman and, thus, we had the joke of the trip.  I tweeted about it when I got home and, sure enough, old Hacksaw retweeted the comment (I later found it that it wasn't really Hacksaw, but a parody account, which made it only slightly less awesome...HOOOOOOOhhhh!)

"Hacksaw" Jim Duggan - HOOOOhhhh!!

Though I'm sure I've had a tendency to hyperbolize each tour stop, I don't think it's exaggerating to say that there's a lot to like about the Virginia Tech football experience.  The atmosphere is as raucous as anywhere in the country.  Passion emotes from the Hokie fanbase as much as any with greater football history.  The best concession item on the tour, by far, is the turkey leg.  If any of the other college stadiums that I've visited have a signature food, I was never made aware of it.  Besides, I can't imagine eating a bulldog, a gator, a fighting rooster, a wagon (sooner), etc.  Buckeyes are poisonous.  I'm surely not eating a little Irish guy.  Perhaps they serve a steak sandwich at Texas. 

All joking aside, if you're a fan of college football, do yourself a favor someday and check out Lane Stadium in Blacksburg.  HOOOOOhhhhhhh!