Oh well...

Well, I'm back from "The Ville" where Louisville ended WVU's thoughts of a national title. Disappointing? Yes. Unexpected? Not really. I could go over why WVU lost (ummm, when you're in a game where they can't stop you and you can't stop them, you can't tall the ball over OR where's the secondary), but I'll save that for a time when I really feel like getting into it. Instead, I'll just talk about my experience in Louisville and Papa John's Stadium.


First, the Stadium kinda sucks. I mean, it's nice once you are inside, in your seat. The problem is that it took 45-minutes to get into the gate. They were doing full patdowns. It was pretty bad. Then, once inside the gate, you had to wait in line to get to your seats. The problem is that 4 sections head in the same entry way...and they have restrooms on each side of that entry way. So, basically, you have lines trying to merge into the bathroom and lines trying to move to the left or right to get to their section. That equated to a lot of gridlock and pushing and stuff like that. It was really bad. Papa John's holds around 40,000 people...they are going to expand to hold 65,000 but they need to make some major renovations to their infrastructure to make it work.



But, once inside, I found my seats were 5 rows from the field and the seats were individual seats, not the bleacher-style seating. But the seats were a real hard plastic and really cold. I sat twice throughout the entire game...mostly at halftime. Steve Slaton's brother sat in the row in front of me and we had some other player family around us. The Stadium scoreboard is awesome but the Cards entrance leaves a little to be desired. They need to work on it some.

The Pride of West Virginia sat in the upper level behind me. They never took the field...apparently Louisville's halftime was already taken...by a rapper named CODE RED. He sucked. I booed...heartily. They did recognize a few people at halftime who probably deserved recognization. The man sitting next to me heckled them much to my embarassment. Code Red deserved heckling...not the autistic piano player.

Second half obviously sucked for the Mounties. The Louisville fans, who had been quiet all game, finally turned up the volume in the 3rd quarter. The C-A-R-D-S, Cards cheer was annoying. The rap they kept pumping over the loud system was also very annoying. Lots and lots of rap in Louisville. And as much as I really like Jay-Z's "Show Me What You Got," I only need to hear it 6 times in one game. Not 37 times.


Louisville rushed the field at the end of the game which was fine. I wanted them to. If WVU fans do it, it's disgraceful. If UL fans do it, it's cool. At least that's the way ESPN reports it. I thought it was deserved.


For the most part, the Cardinal fans were polite. I had a couple offer me alcoholic beverages which I promptly rejected (I just wanted food) but it was nice to offer. Only one heckler really. And that was pre-game. After the game they were all pretty cool. Nothing like Pitt fans.

So, all in all, Louisville is cool I guess. They need to work on their stadium but that's okay. They might be a little too Miami for me...they have a weird attitude down there. I think it's the same red-headed stepchild attitude that Marshall suffers from...most people there remain UK fans.

Lastly, driving back, there was a sign hanging on the overpass in Huntington that said "MU says GO CARDS." I hate Marshall.