Great day to be a Cougar -BYU 14 OU 13

I was able to go to the game Saturday. I went with Mike, my friend in the ward. We drove down that morning and got to the stadium hours before kickoff. There were a few things to do like listen to the ESPN radio guys broadcast, spin a prize wheel for corporate sponsored junk and sweat profusely.

We lined up to go in the stadium about 3 hours before kickoff when they were going to start letting people inside. It was very refreshing when they first opened the doors and you could feel the cool breeze of Air Conditioning. $1.2 billion well spent, I say.

The inside of the stadium is even more impressive than the outside. The best word to describe it is huge. One thing I have heard a couple of times is that if you put the Statue of Liberty at midfield, the flame of her torch would not touch the roof. The big screen is amazing. 65 yards wide and 75 feet high. All in HD. $40 million well spent.

This was my first away BYU game (there is no way on earth this was a neutral field) and I have to say I was impressed with the OU fans. First of all, they outnumbered us like 6 or 7 to 1. We had probably 17,000 fans out of the 72,000 at the stadium. One thing that I think BYU fans need to learn from the OU crowd was how impressive they looked wearing the school colors. There was crimson everywhere. It absolutely kills me that the Bookstore sells BYU apparel in colors other than blue, white or even gray. When you go to home games at LES, you see people wearing these travesties and some people who aren't even wearing BYU apparel. It is hard enough when our school colors don't stand out the way they used to, but when people aren't even wearing the fairly common navy blue... Come on people. (side note: in looking for examples of BYU fans, I did come across this gem)

The OU fans were LOUD. There were a ton of them and we were in an enclosed arena. It was deafening. The BYU fans, especially the ones all sitting together had pretty good volume too, but 54,000 >>> 17,000. Even hours before the game started, when the players were trickling out onto the field for various pre-game warmups, the fans went nuts. They would get especially loud when the big screens would show Sam Bradford or Bob Stoops.

Our seats were right in the middle of OU fans. The people we sat by were nice and we ended up discussing the game before long. They were complimentary of our players. We did get a few adverse reactions from some OU fans (mostly BEFORE the game, mind you), but I was impressed with their fans overall. After the game I even got my first drunk-hug from a guy who was a few rows ahead of us. Nice guy. He slurred his approval of BYU winning the Title this year.

After the game on the walk back to the car, whenever we would see another group of BYU fans, we would just exchange smiles as if we were fellow members of the Ocean's 11 crew-we got away with robbery and almost couldn't believe it.

Let me tell you, the best sound in the world is silence. Especially after 3rd and 10 and BYU converts.

And 6 tries from within the 10-yard line and them only getting a field goal-sweet.

And my drunk-hug friend repeatedly yelling "BOOMER!" with no reply of "SOONER!" from those around him is one of the highlights for me.

We drove to the stadium from the hotel with Jeff and Tyler Nevens. On the freeway on the way back to to the hotel, flashing lights came up behind us. Jeff, being the courteous driver pulled over to the emergency lane (we were in the far right-hand lane). 2 police SUV's and 2 cruisers drive by us. Then Jeff sees a gap right behind the cruisers and pulls back into traffic. The bus that he (sort of) cut off honks at him, he honks back and speeds up. Then a motorcycle cop pulls right next to us and yells at us to "Pull your {yewt} over." Jeff pulls back over to the emergency lane and that bus that honked at us and 2 more just like it drive past us, followed by 2 more police cruisers with lights flashing. We almost cut off the OU football team's busses from their police escort. Perfect way to end the day.

Benny and I before I left. We were watching highlights from the 2006 and 2007 seasons.

Lilia ready for the game.

Faith took the boys to get some ice cream before the game. I love this face.

The outside of the stadium. That big square is a screen onto which they project the game.

Cops on Segways. Reminded me of G.O.B.

The big screen

The Pride of Oklahoma. Grandma would have loved it. They even have the sweet drum major. Very impressive.

A vertical picture to show the height of the stadium. That screen is 90 feet off the ground.

Scoreboard.

A video to show the size of the stadium and the amount of crimson.

The last play of the game.

With Mike after the game.

A view of the stadium from the lower concourse. Note the dejected OU fans.

The stadium at night.

Tailgate Bonus: What is wrong in this picture?