this was a ‘fanboy experience’. I won a contest sponsored by university credit union that was on social media some time back. Found out about it Tuesday night. Tried to get AgAlum to be my plus one but he couldn’t make it.

i didn't see slabs of beef, but there were tailgates as far as the eye can see. we drove in on a bus following the team buses, and when you cross the bridge from downtown into the campus, it was electric. You are greeted with the stadium lights, and tailgates and fans everywhere.

my experience was similar to those above, in terms of their fans. we had someone in the travel party with connections with a company in Montana, so we were invited to their tailgate. Fans were very welcoming, incredibly knowable about both teams, and not as confident as i would have thought. I meet with the son of former Giant pitcher Rob Nen and we shared a long talk AND a gunrock (part of someone's luggage).

Only blemish was when a young lady came across and loudly and profanely berated me for wearing a blue/yellow ski jacket. Apparently too close to Bobcat colors. During the tirade, Mr Nen quietly walked away leaving me to fight my own battle! So, if you saw a guy on the sideline holding his ski jacket all night, that was part of the reason; the other part was, once we went ahead, I wasn't going to tempt the football gods by putting it on!

Pregame, we went up to that Company's suite (50 yard line). They have private suites from the 10 to the 10 on both sides of the stadium! Incredible.

Atmosphere during the game was crazy. We had only a couple hiccups with the noise, otherwise, the poise of the players was something to marvel at. Miles seemed to be under control the whole night and the offense fed off it. I thought a HUGE play was following those hiccups. We got to their 10 in the 2nd quarter, facing that big endzone bleachers. False start, delay of game, false start....and....now we're facing a 42 yard field goal into the hostile crowd. Hunter Ridley CALMLY nailed it. A miss would have stoked them even higher. After i congratulated him on the huge kick. He said thanks and 'excuse me, what's your name again?'. I told him and he replied 'nice to meet you, Mike, thanks for coming'. Gave me confidence if we had to have a late game FG!

Second half was complete domination except for the TD following the pouch kick. Defense destroyed them. I was standing by Biggs and Daniel Alfaro most of the night, and they kept mentioning how their QB's just eyeballed their intended receiver the whole way. i think Coombs was able to confuse him with different looks, stunts, etc. which allowed the DL to get some pressured. they were in trouble once they had to rely on the pass. They seemed to just about give up the ghost with about 8 minutes to go, after our last FG.

OL was outstanding. In that noise, to be able to protect the QB (Montana ran a bunch of stunts and pressures counting on the noise to lead to communication issues) AND average 4 yards a carry was a special effort. This is quite a turnaround from the first part of the season!

And what more to say about Hastings. I think Plough and Shelton have been great mentors for him. He is so well prepared for the opponents, and handles issues that come up in the game with no panic (look at Idaho and Portland State).

I could have ‘sprinted’ on the field faster, and I’m 64 with two fake hips!

someone close to the team. I’d heard the Borra news from another very credible source.

I think it would be against us. If you sub on offense, defense has to have chance to sub. Offense has to sub early enough in clock to allow it. I think a combo of the noise (communicating need to sub out) and DELIBERATE pace of guys jogging in and off, led to that situation. I thought they stood on the ball once when we subbed during a timeout - they shouldn’t get time to respond to that

he walked Frat row last week with tickets and entry to Tailgate Town. Biggest turnout ever in TT; unfortunately, almost none of them stayed for the game!

Apparently injuries are effecting our current routine. Mani has a sprained ankle, and Cooper should be returning soon. As for Borra and Robertson, I believe their seasons are done - for Francisco, that would bd a career ender.

they all go back to the tailgate areas for more drinking. That was a key in 2018 - we got the second half KO and scored to get some momentum.

They shot off fireworks with two minutes before the end of the halftime - kind of a last call!

they didn’t really say anything, did they? Other than sac wants to move up obviously….else no meat

I’m 1-0 in Missoula; expecting to make it 2-0
Saturday.

No Borra, no Mani?

I did a little googling to find what the top NILs were. These are estimates, but a see similar numbers from various articles. Top schools like Texas paid out something like $20M, do the Sac12 would be able to jump to big boy table!

Of course, no one knows what NIL collectives will look like when the revenue sharing kicks in. Power 5 conferences can pay up to $22M - presumably most of that domes from donors redirecting their NIL ‘pledges’. Group of 5 limit is much lower.

i thought i had read somewhere that seats in the berm would actually decrease capacity.

according to Wikipedia (source of all knowledge) it cost $30M way back when which is $41M in today money. Not sure what LIGHTS (that was phase 1.1), and the additional 10-20k seating would add to today’s cost.

My last non-football mini-rant from the game : the new PA guy was terrible. Sounded like an old school FM disc jockey.

Did the Sac12 put out any numbers for what a new stadium and arena would cost? I’ve been googling for costs of new stadium/arenas and it seems like $300M for a stadium (San Diego St was something like $350M for 35k stadium) and $50M for an arena wouldn’t be crazy numbers. Edwards Center is a $60M project.

Here’s an article with some recent examples:

http://www.arenafanatic.com/ncaa.html

I think you have answered a big part of that!

I’m not saying they cheat BUT..at the 2018, I was on the field and noticed mikes placed every 5-10 yards along the wall separating fans from field. Pretty sure amplified fan noise is not supposedly to be allowed. Of course, there might be some other reason for the mikes.

cash-poor program/department. That’s why they usually play two FBS money games