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Bourbon Street

The French Quarter was flooded with Michigan and Virginia Tech fans for most of game day. I walked down Bourbon Street to take some photos of the fanfare.

"Sugar Bowl Headquarters" on the corner of Bourbon and Canal. If true, would explain a lot.

These street musicians didn’t play jazz, but bluegrass is basically the blues. Right? No? The guy in the middle hails from Grand Rapids.

Michigan fans enjoying the view. Pretty sure that woman is/was a dude.

And for something completely familiar, Michigan sorority girls on their way to …

Rick’s (American) Cabaret.

(more after the jump)

Pregame

After tasting alligator for the first time ever (it’s pretty good -- like rubbery chicken), I made my way to the Superdome at around 5 local time.

This is the view from Canal Poydras Street, the main road to the stadium from the French Quarter and waterfront.

The Michigan Marching Band held a pregame pep rally in the plaza just outside the stadium. That’s them beneath the jumbotron. I assume Virginia Tech did the same, but I wasn’t there for them.

A frightening thought just occurred to me: Domino’s Big House.

I made it up to the press box to get set up. It’s located on the seventh level, and while it is high up, it wasn’t noticeably higher than the press box at Michigan Stadium. The cool thing is that it is open to the stadium, which provides a great access to crowd noise and other sounds from the stadium. No glass also meant there was no distortion to the view.

On the Sideline

Then I made it onto the field. College Gameday was located near the media entrance, so here’s a shot of their set. More on them shortly.

Gobble gobble.

Giant flag making its way past the MMB.

Cheerleaders. Note the massive hole in the VaTech balcony.

Pom poms of death. I’ve liked them more and more since their UTL debut. They accomplish what a maize out could never do, and that is drown out all the other random colors that might show up, e.g. red.

They also make the stands look a little less empty.

View from the Michigan end zone. As stupid as “Mercedes-Benz Superdome” sounds to me, the logo on the ceiling looks really sweet.

And away we go!

=(

A couple minutes into the game I looked at the woman standing to my right, and I was like, “Huh. You look kind of familiar.” And then I turned to my left and saw Kirk Herbstreit.

Immediately I began to mentally compose text messages to my buddies.

“I am watching the game with Gameday.”

“I’m standing between Erin Andrews and Kirk Herbstreit.”

“Michigan just went three and out again, but that’s okay because I’m within oops-I-accidentally-tripped-into-you range of Erin Andrews!”

“OMGOMGOMGOMGOMG”

Curt Mallory and the secondary shortly after a heated talking to. Not a happy group here. BONUS: In the foreground to the right of this image you can see Holly Rowe studying what appears to be her postgame battle plan. 

Michigan just died again on offense and Virginia Tech scored another field goal. Sad faces all around.

Offensive line having their own talking to. Khoury switched numbers. Used to be 63. Now 78. I have no idea whether that’s significant.

Anyway, this is where I decided to head back up to the press box.

Gibbons Put It Through Uprights

I went down to the sideline again toward the end of the game. I held down the shutter button during the final kick. 

I probably should have kept going until the ball went through the uprights, but the crowd behind me and the whole Michigan winning the game thing were too distracting.

And After

Buried deep somewhere in there is Gibbons.

There he is.

We can has kicking game!

Molk is not looking at Doug Karsch.

That is a “shit-eating grin” if I’ve ever seen one.

Adam Rittenberg and Mike Martin.

And boom goes the dynamite.

Wide angle.

Mike Martin and Tony Anderson heading into the locker room.