Happy Turkey Day!
If the store was out of rolls, or if your family suddenly requested rolls, I can recommend this recipe.
Can go in the oven after the turkey comes out, comes together super-quick, tasty.
www.gimmesomeoven.com/1-hour-so…
It’s almost cookie season and I’m starting to plan my to-bake list.
So. What’s your favorite Christmas cookie? 🎄🍪
Sorry it didn’t work out for you, #bbn, but thanks for a lovely evening and letting me be a fan for a day.
And there’s your stop.
(A made field goal is also a stop in Big 12 math scenarios)
In retrospect, I might have picked the wrong shoes for this game …
I wore my WVU hat on the way to the stadium - and managed to exchange a hearty Horns Down with someone.
No one accosted me about hoops.
But successfully switched out once in-stadium.
Howdy from Kroger Field at The University of Kentucky.
Settling in for tonight’s game versus rival Tennessee.
This will be stop 23 of 130* in my quest to see a game at every FBS school.
* - Well. Might be more like 133 now.
More photos from a fun weekend down at Clifty Falls State Park (Indiana).
Pluses:
Ticket procured for the next leg of The Quest (barring something else working out before then):
Tennessee at Kentucky, November 6.
Winding my way out of East Lansing and to my bed for the night.
Congrats, Sparty.
Thanks for an energetic evening and a pleasant diversion from my team’s crushing loss.
Tie game here in the fourth quarter and I’ve also nearly drained my phone battery checking the WVU score …
I don’t mind, it’s a great song after all, but a late third quarter stadium sing-along to “Stacey’s Mom” is kinda weird there, Sparty.
Some light booing for Nebraska captains, an OK stadium intro bit and boisterous cheering for the home team.
Plus our first “Go Green, Go White” earnest appearance.
For the curious, those teams:
I can probably tolerate everybody else.
Putting this out here before kickoff.
On these trips, I root for the home team - unless it’s a select set of teams, or they’re playing WVU.
So I’m here to root for Sparty.
But I have a sinking suspicion that Nebraska is going to end up winning this game.
Hope I’m wrong!
How do I know I’m in Big Ten country?
Striped overalls everywhere.
I would joke about it being a pandemic, but … cries
Settled into my seat nice and early for the second game of the day, and with a sweet hat too!
Greetings from Spartan Stadium and Stop 22 of 130 for The Quest.
Now to see if I can catch a nap with this giant speaker right behind my head …
Thanks to the fine folks at SpartanTailgate.com for letting me crash their tailgate.
Also, here’s a magic photo of me next to a statue of Morgan Freeman?
Central Michigan, you’ve been lovely, but I need to head on down the road.
I’ll be following along to your incredible comeback on the radio, though.
Lovely afternoon for a football game.
One oddity: One of the few (only?) times I’ve seen the band play exclusively away from the press box/home sideline.
The marching band intro before Florida International at Central Michigan.
After this snippet came the alma mater - which included a fair amount of fans swaying.
Also! A surprise cannon firing at the end of the National Anthem.
Howdy!
Way up in Pure Michigan for the first of today’s doubleheader.
Settled into my seat (I think) for Florida International at Central Michigan.
This is visit 21 out of 130 for The Quest.
Back south for Nebraska at Michigan State tonight.
No idea where this will go, but I wanted to try and bring along little bits of the experience I get going to these games in an audio format - typically while I’m there.
I’ll probably mix in a few retorspective things from time to time, but right now, I like the idea of whipping out my phone, hitting record and uploading some thoughts or audio from these trips.
This particular “episode” is just a dashed off intro to the idea.
Next up for The Quest.
September 25, 2021:
12pm FIU at Central Michigan 7pm Nebraska at Michigan State
Best combo out of five (!) home games in the state of Michigan that day.
A few notes from tonight’s experience:
From the shores of Lake Michigan, greetings from Ryan Field for Michigan State at Northwestern.
And my 20th stadium of The Quest.
These trips are always better when the home team wins.
Congrats Illinois Football Team.
And a Happy Scott Frost Day to you and yours!
🏈
Halftime at the kickoff for the 2021 college football season with Nebraska at Illinois.
And my 19th visit of 130.
#HappyScottFrostDay #19of130 #TheQuest
I grew up in my home state of West Virginia around college football.
Each fall was spent either listening to the Mountaineers on hunting trips or traveling up to Morgantown for games.
After a while, I started going to road games as well here and there.
Later on, I started my career in sports departments of small West Virginia newspapers in Parkersburg and Clarksburg - eventually covering Marshall when Byron Leftwich was their quarterback.
I’ve had that base of things in my life, when a few years ago, I got this notion of wanting to see a home game at every FBS college team.
I’m up to 18 (of 130), and am knocking off a handful each year until my kids go off to start their adult lives and/or I retire some day in the future.
From now on, I’ll post more detailed things along the way, but I figured I’d load up the current list and state of things.
No progress here because moves arms in a circle at the general state of the world in that year.
Home team running onto the field.
One of the more-useful hats I collected along the way.
Buffalo in late November is quite possibly the ideal state for this visit to a tiny stadium tucked away in a mostly residential area.
Able to witness a nearly empty stadium, some light snowflakes, and a huge day from Buffalo running back Jaret Patterson.
Biggest oddity, though, was the lack of a halftime show of any sort … and there was a band there (as you can see in the first photo).
Good coffee, though.
Fans in the stands
Home team running on to the field
Me and Big Red (in water cooler form)
The second stop of a double-header day (more below on the visit to Vanderbilt earlier in the day), WKU reminded me most of games I’d attended at Marshall - just red instead of green.
One of the few times since I’ve committed to this quest that I didn’t pick up a hat - I couldn’t find an in-stadium merch store. All I have from here are photos, a themed game day t-shirt, and a long-digested belly of Cook Out for dinner beforehand.
Ended up driving home to Indianapolis around halftime - rolling into my driveway near midnight.
Likely my most-used hat from my trips so far - I can pretend the “V” stands for “Vannoy” instead of “Vanderbilt”
Sparsely attended … though a surprisingly large contingent of Northern Illinois folks.
Woke up and started my day with a drive down to Nashville - about four hours south of my home in Indianapolis - in time for this noon kickoff.
Vandy might be the weirdest of my trips so far (well, perhaps tied to Buffalo). It’s a strange atmosphere mix of SEC money, MAC enthusiasm, and an urban campus. Huge production/scoreboard, announcers and the like and a very “meh” crowd reaction throughout.
Didn’t help that the home team struggled mightily with a middle of the pack MAC team.
I brought a buddy to this one!
The band is on the field! The band is on the field! (they were supposed to be … this is pregame)
This is so far my favorite MAC experience. It feels like a small library arts college - but it’s a public Ohio university. A cute college town, a walkable campus, a fun culture and great small college atmosphere.
Super fun and I highly recommend it.
Nippert Stadium is really neat.
Nippert Stadium, where UC plays, is packed into and surrounded by this urban campus and is among the most unique venues I’ve been to.
Helped to watch them kick off the season with a solid win.
Also relatively easy to get in and out of.
Brought my other buddy to this one
With her brother spinning cubes at a World Cube Association event down in Findlay, my daughter and I went north a bit to catch a game at The Glass Bowl in Toledo.
Nice fall day, cool old stadium, and I enjoy the pettiness of the rocket (pictured above) supposedly pointed on a trajectory that would hit the fifty yard line ~25 miles down the road at traditional arch-rival Bowling Green.
Good local pizza, too.
I usually root for the home team, but there are exceptions.
As a WVU game, this sucked … but as an Iowa State experience, it’s hard to imagine better.
Reminded me an awful lot of WVU, which makes sense given the identical original stadium design. Ames is also a cute town, and it was fun to attend the official WVU tailgate thing before the game.
As I mentioned up the caption, as a WVU fan, this game sucked. We went in ranked #6 in the country and got positively pantsed.
As part of The Quest, though, this was probably the best-case scenario for seeing a night game in Ames.
Just sucked to have it happen to my team.
And the cookie-dough place in the stadium also sucked. Do better.
Top row, behind the endzone. Not bad seats at all, and ones that amde it real obvious how bad OSU’s pass defense was this year.
Great photo of me (other than the hat), taken by my wife (not pictured) who set up this game and the Iowa State one for my 40th birthday present.
Dotting the I is way cooler than I anticipated. Otherwise, this is pretty generic college football product.
No, I don’t much like Ohio State-Columbus … why do you ask?
A nice thing about MAC games is you can end up with pretty much any seat you want.
Chirp. Chirp.
Ball State has always been right up the road from my adult home here in Indianapolis, but I’d never made it up there until this trip.
This trip - done more or less on a whim - is also what triggered The Quest into being, really. I had such a good time (despite the lopsided score) with the fans, the game atmosphere, the stands and everything else that I figured I wanted to see all of them.
Photos exist for a few more of these, but they’re actual hard copies and I don’t feel like dragging out the scanner just yet.
A few others I’m hazy on the year, but am sure my Dad took me on a WVU road trip there.
Trip down to Bloomington with my wife - before we had kids and had fully settled in to Hoosier-dom.
Part of my brief time covered Marshall college football for a small newspaper in West Virginia.
Earliest I remember is a Miami at WVU game with Testaverde as the Hurricane QB in 1986 (they clobbered us).
Fun fact: Back then, “Scotty’s Pottys” provided the portable toilets. I find this funny to this day.
As I recall, there’s a Unitas statue out front - or was way back then.
I remember this one because some of the folks we were traveling with convinced a Maryland State Trooper to give me a hard time (I was maybe 12 at the time).
I can’t recall which specific games I covered, but I definitely made it down to Huntington for a handful during my time covering them.