I’ve been attending OSU football games since I was a little kid.  Not that I attend every home game, but I try to get down there for one game a season.  OSU is one of the top football programs in the country and I’ve always wondered if the experience is similar if you attended say USC, Texas, Florida, or Tennessee.

I can only compare OSU to a few other colleges that I attended games at.  I went to Indiana and let me say their football game days are a little left to be desired.  You could probably get good parking right by the stadium, without a parking pass, a couple of hours before game time.

I was at a Notre Dame/USC game at South Bend back in the mid-90’s and I wasn’t impressed.  If I remember correctly, the stadium was in a neighborhood setting.  There was tailgating going on, but nothing like what OSU has.  I attended a Wisconsin game last year and enjoyed it.  They had a lot of activities going on around the stadium.  Plus, you get to “Jump Around” at the beginning of the fourth quarter, so that was neat.  But, I don’t think there is anything quite like the Buckeyes.

First of all, there are estimates of half a million people down by the stadium on game days.

That means that roughly 400,000 people are down there just partying.  The Horseshoe is in a neat part of campus, with other school buildings, sports venues, and campus bars all around it.  Radio stations hold parties in hotel parking lots with live bands and tons of beer vendors for your partying delight.  If you don’t have tickets, they have the big screen tv’s there for you to watch.

This past weekend was the first OSU game of the season and it was a big one at Ohio State as Urban Meyer began his coaching tenure with a game against Miami (OH).  People were pretty amped up to see hopefully a new style offense to OSU.  Despite Jim Tressel having an awesome winning percentage, a national title, BCS victories, and multiple Big Ten titles, many OSU fans were sick of his very conservative offense.  Urban Meyer was the answer to their high scoring prayers.

Parking is usually tough if you don’t know where to park or have the shuttles to take you to the stadium, but expect a walk of at least 20 minutes to get to the stadium.  More if you stop by tailgates.  As you are walking to campus, every space of parking is taken up.  You’ll see RV’s, tents, inflatable Brutus the Buckeye figures, generators running for TV hook-up, and food like you’ve never seen.  It always amazes me how early these people get down to the campus area to claim their spot to tailgate for the day.  Some get there the evening before.

The Shoe holds about 110,000 people and they’ve got new scoreboards that show all the action on the field.  I was sitting in the northwest end of the stadium (the closed end of the shoe) and found myself watching the jumbotron more than the play on the field.

At the beginning of the game, the players were lining up to race the field waiting for the band to get in position.  The jumbotron showed Urban Meyer waiting to run on the field with the players and boy the place erupted.  They were anxious to see him in action.  Once the game started, the crowd was getting tense when the Buckeyes failed to score on their first 3 or 4 possessions and Miami came close to scoring two touchdowns, but could only muster 3 points.  Then, OSU scored 35 unanswered points and all was better in the world.

Few things I made note of during that game:

  • These football players are big athletes.  When Zach Boren was a senior in high school, he did some training with a track coach at my facility.  I’m 6′ 1″ and he is maybe an inch taller than me.  You look at him on the field, he looks small compared to everyone out there, but he is 6’2 or 6’3 240.  That is a big boy.
  • These are real athletes.  There is a reason they are playing D1 football.  Even the punter, Ben Buchanan has some real athleticism as I was watching him move on the field.
  • I first heard the White Stripes, 7 Nation Army song at OSU/USC several years ago.  It was cool then, I’m about done with it now.  I think it was played at least 10 times during the game.
  • The thing to do now is kiss your significant other after OSU scores.  Two different couples were doing that throughout the game.  I guess that is easier than doing push-ups.
  • Would the Debbie Downer arm-chair quarterbacks please shut-up during the game.  I don’t mind talk of what’s going on, but everything that comes out of your mouth is negative and irritating.  “Oh Braxton didn’t learn to throw.”  Enough.  Let’s see you make all your throws accurately with 250 pound guys charging at you.

My wife and I ended up leaving the game early.  We’d seen enough and wanted to get home to our kids.  Plus, we wanted to beat the traffic.  If we had stayed, we could have easily stayed for another 7-8 hours down there as there are all sorts of live bands playing with tons of people partying.  If you’ve gone to another football school’s games, I want to know about it.  Post comments on the blog below of the highlights of these games (tailgating and the games themselves).