OT: LSU @ Texas Game Report

The first of my annual 5-6 college football game tour began this past weekend. I had been to Austin several times over the years for ACLs and work/play weekends. However I had yet to check off a Texas game, so pretty easy decision to make this trip once this game was announced a while back.

My buddy and I stayed in a two bedroom hotel/condo type place called The Guild City Center:

Friday afternoon we had a great lunch recommended to me by a local friend at Turf N’ Surf Po Boy:

After lunch we found a very “cool” spot called Upstairs at Caroline. It was 102 degrees both days so anything that can get you out of that is very pleasant. This was a restaurant/bar that then had an open-ish area that was kept mostly cool by a shade structure but also from the A/C bleeding out from the main bar. We got there around noon and stayed until about 4 as other friends started to join us. It was absolutely packed at that point with mostly out of town LSU fans, great atmosphere. This was taken on our first beer when it was still mostly empty:

Friday night we had a great dinner at III Forks. Saturday, my original plan was to tailgate near the stadium so as to miss every snap of the dreaded Michigan/Army game. But due to my hangover, my fandom, and the 102 degrees I instead opted stay in the condo to watch every single snap of our game and lost years from my life accordingly.

We then took an uber to the stadium area a around 3pm. I have been to a lot of P5 stadiums/tailgates (think I’m at around 25 now) and I can say that this was the hottest I’ve experienced even in the shade. It also felt like what I would imagine OSU would be like (not one of my 25), 300,000+ tailgating when the majority will not be attending the game. People everywhere and not enough room/shade for all. We had wrist bands to get into one of the several private tailgates. We were stuffed in like a cattle herd, and I think I got the last two beers in the massive coolers now full of ice water. I think I’ve seen this type of can before, but still wanted to share because very cool:

We knew that they sold alcohol inside the stadium so due to the pretty crappy tailgate experience/heat we opted to head in to get shade, drink beer, and watch the 2nd half of the Nebraska/Colorado game in the concession area underneath the stands. One interesting thing to me was seeing Matthew McConaughey walking around by himself with no entourage or fans bothering him, seems like a pretty good gig. We had decent seats in a mixed fan area so some good passive aggressive banter going on all game per usual:

The stadium’s current capacity is ~66,000 but they are going through a renovation of the south endzone which will increase it to just over 100,000:

The game was pretty fun. Not to bring up actual football, but I think we are all hoping that our offense will be what LSU’s was in this game. Towards the end of the game as things looked bleak I was pretty amazed to see how many of the assumed “big money” fans bailed while most of the rest of the stadium stuck around. From this picture it’s pretty easy to see this delineation:

After the game we walked back ~2 miles to our hotel area and happened to walk past their state capital which is pretty cool at night:

I hadn’t sat on the correct side of the airplanes on my few flights back to LA in a while so I haven’t seen the new Rams/Chargers Stadium in some time. Well here it is yesterday:

Next up for me, for now:

ND @ Michigan

USC @ ASU

LSU @ Ole Miss

OSU @ Michigan