My entire weekend surrounded a relatively last-second decision to go to the game, and the logistical nightmare to get there, but
damn did it pay off!
Last Monday I decided to hunt for a ticket. I usually go with friends, but this time --since the prices were pretty high and it was short notice-- I opted to go solo. So I bought a "cheap" (still $200+) ticket off of StubHub. Getting to Columbus at the last second by plane was out of the question, as it was a regional airport so the prices were already above $1000. Therefore I took a play out of my travels last season and did a fly/long drive combo: I flew to Chicago (for under $200 round trip) on Friday late afternoon, then drove for 3 hours to Indianapolis. I stayed the night then drove the next day the 3 hours to Columbus. It didn't help that I've been sick since getting back to the States last week. I spend time on the Buckeyes campus, their fans were nice enough (I'd heard they could be the raging a-holes of the Big Ten, but I've learned most of those stories tend to involve the drunk students which tend to be the worst at any school).
Oh, but then there was the side drama with my ticket... it arrived this past Wed with giant letters saying "STUDENT TICKET - OSU ID REQUIRED". It didn't say that in the listing! Thankfully, I knew StubHub is good about that ticket guarantee (equal or better, which is why I've switched to using them for sold out games), and they said they'd replace it (and then charge the seller for the difference in price, which I love from the vindictive angle). There was some initial confusion because they accidentally found me another student ticket, but by Saturday morning they'd come up with a solution: For every "major" game they set up a temporary field office near the venue, so I went to a hotel near the stadium where they had a small conference room as the StubHub office. They replaced my nosebleed endzone ticket with the only other single ticket they had available: on the 25 yard line, about 15 rows up!
and voila (needless to say I will swear by StubHub now):
The head coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers was sitting a few rows in front of me. It was sort of nice because even through I was one of only three USC fans in the entire section, the rest of the fans were more older, moneyed people who tend to not be the raging assholes. Besides the game was so awesome that it was fun for everyone until the end. The atmosphere was among the very, very best I've seen (probably better than Nebraska), the famous Script Ohio was neat to see live.
The noise was truly deafening. They had a record crowd of 106,033. I've only experienced worse once: when USC played VT in FedEx Field (90k, with 75+ being VT fans), and that's probably because the stadium was a complete oval. With that said, the atmosphere was the most hostile I've seen (not in the "jerk hostile" way, in the "OMG the world is ending as we're trying to call a play" sort of way). My ears were ringing by halftime. I watched my DVR recording and it obviously doesn't convey the insanity --but the announcers and various reporters did do a great job of conveying it.
A lot of key plays happened right in front of me, unfortunately I also watched Taylor Mays go down right in front of us but they were able to get a brace on him and keep him going. Will Ferrell and Marcus Allen were on the USC sidelines (they were cracking jokes to each other a lot) , Vince Vaughn was on Ohio State's.
The final drive was intense --after hearing OSU go bananas after USC caused its own safety, I actually started to wonder if I'd come all the way out there just to see a really close game where SC would lose to an strong Buckeyes team (not that I would've totally minded, I already felt the trip had been worth it). Their defenders were playing really well, great coverage on our best WR, Damien Williams. They were playing classic Tressel Ball: field position (which was greatly in their favor), a stifling defense, and conservative offense. They use that to win big games with relatively low scores. It seemed like we'd gotten trapped in that --something I've seen screw up for Carroll's teams against Kansas State and Utah early in his career and again in '06 against UCLA. For about 80% of the second half, the Buckeyes were on cloud nine --feeling the inevitable victory coming, just waiting for the score to put the game out of reach. Then (right in front of where I was sitting), on a 2nd and 19, Barkley started moving the team forward... and McKnight finally started to look like Reggie, and by the time they crossed into Buckeye territory the tenure in the stadium turned into a very anxious "oh shit, not again...
not again" moment. Hell, everyone was feeling anxious as hell because the 'SC fans were fearing a McKnight fumble or Barkley INT.
The OSU atmosphere truly is one of the best I've seen: they have their traditional songs and chants, their adopted classic pop song "Hang On Sloopy" (USC's got Tusk, Tennesee's got Rocky Top, WVU's got Country Roads, etc), but the neatest thing is that their student section goes totally nuts with the White Stripe's Seven Nation Army. Even when the song wasn't playing, their student section would start chanting that famous riff while jumping in unison --it was the closest thing I've seen to a soccer chant (I always thought that sort of fan participation was the neatest part about soccer games). It actually provoked the stadium officials to start the song sometimes midway through the student chants, as well as spreading the enthusiasm to the rest of the stadium. The funny thing was the USC bench would start jumping in unison to the beats as well --sometimes to the boos of the OSU fans. Actually, this led to one of my favorite moments of the game, one that didn't appear to be reported: after USC scored that final TD and the wind went out of the stadium's sails, you could hear just the USC bench doing the chant ...
PRICELESS.
This photo was after the game ended, as you can see the stadium was still 100% full. I'd heard the traffic out of the stadium was going to be bad, but it was
insane. I stayed in the stadium a bit to hear the USC band play its traditional victory concert ...but it had to be shorter than normal so they could do the GameDay Wrap-Up from inside the Horseshoe -- I stayed and watched. I also snapped this great photo of Barkley right before his interview with Fowler and Herbie:
Then, after walking about a mile and a half back to my car (no kidding --Ohio Stadium is terrible in that regard), I got to leave Columbus at 1am and make it back to my hotel back in Indy by 4am and then get back to O'Hare the next day. All of this amounted to me remaining sick for over a week and a half --but it was worth it.
I'm going to Seattle for the U-Dub game this weekend, but its not going to be the same. Some of the other USC vets in the stadium put it just under being at the Bush Push game, it was definitely one of the best I've been to live (equal to the 2004 USC-Cal game where it ended with USC causing a Cal 4-and-out on our own goal after Aaron Rodgers had earlier tied the NCAA record for completions).
When I rewatched the game on TV last night, I noticed Barkley did a better job than I saw in the stadium: most of the misses were simply mistimed throws where the receivers often seemed to be the ones missing marks (which, given the noise and the intense defensive play, was to be expected). The good news for Barkley is that playing at Cal and Oregon (I've been to Autzen) simply won't be as incredibly hostile as it was in the Shoe. I am curious to see how the players handle themselves against Sark, Holt and the Huskies...
