Free Garlic Sauce with each Ticket

So yesterday, Paul, Stew, JD, Mark (JD’s friend) and I went to the third installment of the Papajohns.com Bowl at historic Legion Field. Sadly, I don’t think they had invented spell check when Legion Field was built??

I heard Bo Kerr (Head of Sales & Marketing for the PJB) speak a few months back about the Bowl and how important it was for Birmingham to support it, the economic impact for our city, yada yada yada, and I was pretty pumped as this was supposed to be the first year to feature an SEC team (too bad we could only qualify 8 teams, and Papajohns.com got the 9th pick). Luckily, Birmingham scored an ACC team instead of having to go to the Sun Belt conference (I know everyone does enjoy a good LA-Monroe game though).

Face value for a ticket to watch the N.C. State Woflpack (6-6) duke it out with the Rutgers Scarlet Knights (7-5) was $43. We got 5 for $40 at the gate, and I think we could have gotten them cheaper, if we had tried longer than 5 minutes with a scalper.

We sat in the NC State section the first half, and then moved to the Rutgers section for the second. Since my Mom and Grandparents are from the great state of New Jersey, I had to support the Scarlet Knights. Did you know Rutgers was the first school to play college football (vs. Princeton in 1869)? If you forgot, Rutgers fans were sure to remind you with their festive “throwback” headgear (PS – did anyone see Leatherheads? That movie looked awful).

I think Rutgers is only team to ever score a touchdown on a Fake Field Goal and then miss the extra point?? They probably should have faked the extra point . . .

Even though Rutgers was down 6-17 at the half, they came back to win 29-23 in what was actually a pretty exciting 4th quarter. I read in the paper, that about 38K fans made it out to the game this year. I’m sure next year, when ‘Bama plays UConn (or some other 6-6 Big East team) it will sell out . . . too bad Andre Smith won’t be playing in that bowl game either . . . in ya face, Saban!!