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State College, PA Penn State Vs. Michigan St. HAPPY VALLEY HAPPY AGAIN…..AT LEAST FOR A DAY
By Tyson E. Campbell d7tailgate.com Staff Reporter
State College, PA - If you think that things are bad in College Park, just try dealing with what the folks in State College have had to put up with. Imagine watching your once proud football powerhouse fall farther than Sputnik. Imagine listening to an endless stream of criticism about your program and legendary coach coming from mass-produced ESPN SportCenter anchors – half of which don’t even remember Testeverde’s five interceptions. How frustrated would you be? So when my brother-in-law asked if I wanted to attend the Nittany Lions season finale last weekend, I felt……sympathy. I felt like I owed it to Joe Pa himself to take up a seat in that (sure to be empty) stadium and cheer for an icon. Plus, it would certainly mean a weekend of drinking and tailgating at a major college football game…..which one should never pass up. Plus the Clemson/South Carolina tilt wasn’t going to be covered so I agreed – even though I couldn’t care less about either program. Here is a run down on the weekend:
Friday
How excited can you get for a 3-7 team that you don’t care about taking on a 5-5 team that you care even less about? It would be one thing if this was my first trip to Happy Valley – it would be another thing if they were playing someone with cred like Ohio State or Michigan. But the key here is past experience. My previous two trips were two great games – Larry Johnson passing 2000 yards two years ago and last years near upset of then undefeated Ohio State. Also, three words we shouldn’t forget – Al, Co, Hall. Both trips were a blast and included jacking Evan Williams whiskey in 0 degree wind chill and Flip-Cup battles with random Penn State Alumni. Sad that this is an important part of anyone’s life….but what else is there.
So looking to recapture some of that previous magic, my two brother-in-laws (Michael a.k.a Joey da Face and Matt Marty) and I head screaming out of Harrisburg around 8 on Friday night with my wife’s Jeep packed to the gills with crap. The plan is the meet up with Michael’s co-workers at The Black Horse Saloon in Milroy, PA. Now Michael’s co-workers are a pretty rough bunch (see – jacking Evan Williams - above). They like to drink heavily – even for my standards. Let’s not get into the details of the night here but we need to hit some important points:
……I mean ANY women.
The final count of the night:
9 Miller Lite Bottles $25 Dollars in the hole 3 VO and waters 2 Smoke filled bars 4 Bon Jovi songs played on jukebox (scary) 0 “Hot” chicks encountered – no matter what anyone tells you 1 Confrontation diffused over misunderstanding about Local Yokel’s “Hot” Girlfriend 75 “Gay jokes” 1 Can of honey roasted peanuts – housed!
I think we had about as much fun as someone could have in Milroy, PA. It wasn’t for lack of trying. With all the “jokes” flying around though, I slept with one eye opened and my ass to the wall.
Saturday Morning
Now as J knows when planning a tailgate for a noon game – you have to have your shit together. For example, one little mishap (like missing legs) could push your flip-cup game back to 9 a.m. and ruin your day. How about not getting up until 8:30??? Are you serious? This is not a good way to start the tailgate. What’s worse is not leaving for the game until 9:30. What’s even worse is getting caught up in traffic at 10 and not reaching your parking spot until 11. WTF!
Side note: Now I was pretty hung-over and getting up before 8:30 would have been next to impossible so I blame myself as much as anyone…..talk about throwing a shoe for the weekend. F.
Looking to right the ship we crushed some beers in the traffic making sure to keep a lookout for the Staties (EYES! EYES!). We knew we had only an hour to fit a lot in, so we organized. Dip was out, beers were drank, games of washers were played, post routes were run, Nerf footballs were thrown, and college girls were hawked. It was an efficient tailgate to say the least.
Meanwhile, backtrack. How about an hour of traffic? How about Penn State showing up in SERIOUS numbers for a meaningless game??? Respect.
Penn State is serious about tailgating. They were out in force. There were dozens of large tents set up with buffets and more important – scores of high school drinking game competitions. It was impressive – but seriously if you’ve been to State College you would soak up every ounce of that festival atmosphere. Place makes Elkton look like Times Square. And how about those hills??? The walk to the stadium couldn’t have been more opposite of the one at Texas A&M. The high school drinking game of choice seems to be beer pong. I’d say it out numbered flip-cup 2-1. There was also a rumor of a bull-shit pyramid and colander head sighting….wow.
Saturday Afternoon/Night
Beaver (he-he) Stadium is impressive. It’s located on top of a hill that over looks pretty much the entire region. It’s also huge. Really huge. 100,000+ actually entered the gates. That’s for a meaningless game too. How many people would make it out (in rainy weather, mind you) for a pointless MD/Wake matchup under similar circumstances. Well, minus 15 losers from the D7 clan – not many. And they weren’t just there to watch the game – they were into it from the student section to the old alumni with good seats all the way up to the stupid rednecks who sat behind me. They were making some noise. It was really impressive.
In the first half Penn State’s offense sucked. Made Maryland look like the Colts. But with a decent defense and an average opponent – the score was close at half. Damn I was looking to get out of there early. The first half was really boring with no team taking advantage of the other’s mistakes. Meanwhile, THIS was the same team that knocked off Wisconsin last week? Talk about inconsistent!!! ….reminds me of some team I know…hmmmmm.
Side Note: What in the hell does Joe Pa do when he is “coaching”. If you didn’t know who he was you would think that he was the old equipment manager from the local old folks home who gets a sideline pass because he’s cheered for Penn State his whole life or something. I mean really he doesn’t even talk to anyone during the game. I say Penn State just hire a new coach and just tell him that he’s still the coach. The real coach will be like “Yeah, yeah, Joe….run the sweep, gotcha….sounds good, could you step back please.” I’m telling you he wouldn’t know the difference.
Moving on - not nearly enough rundowns of the Eskay Out-of-Town Scoreboard during the first half but I’m just happy to hear the 14-7 lead Clemson has over the Cocks.
So the Lion’s roar back in the second half. Totally embarrass the Spartans and everyone loves Joe Pa (Yawn). They were even chanting his name at the end of the game….awwwww – how’s that for hypocritical? All’s well that ends well. The Tigers also scored a huge victory 29-7 over much hated USC. That type of thing puts a spring in your step – so the crew moved to the center of town and filed into The Ratskellar. Typical dark dingy college bar located in a basement. I can’t think of a MD bar like it off the top of my head – please fill in here. Anywho, the pitchers were rolling, wings and nachos were crushed (where is Olympis when you need it?), college football games were watched. Meanwhile, it’s ironic that the whole Clemson/South Carolina thing has been playing non-stop on ESPN for the past two days because Number One – I had to hear about it from Kara over the phone and Number Two – didn’t see a replay of it until late that night. Now I can’t walk by a TV screen without seeing Lou Holtz look like a child caught in a shit-storm. The final count of the day was:
7 Miller Lite Bottles 5 Pitchers of Miller Lite 2 Orders of Wings crushed 1 Giant Nacho crushed $70 Dollars in the hole (including tickets) 1 Penn State Home win against Big Ten (Yawn)
Well, there you have it – just goes to show you that unless it’s your team - it just doesn’t matter that much. Maybe it was the lack of pancakes and sausage sammies, maybe it was the lack of Gilmore throwing up in the stands, or maybe it was the fact that I had to drive home but this game was just missing something……still better than a Georgia game.
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