The BCS game, as it was seen at sea.

[NWLB]

OK, so the ship I was on (Royal Caribbean's Navigator of the Seas) had about 3400 passengers, half or more of which were European. Mainly Irish, Scottish, and British. By the time I crossed the GA boarder the sports talk on the radio and in the papers shifted to pro-SEC/Florida and how OSU was overrated.

On the ship, the night of the game, I saw a fair number of OSU related items on. The bar tender in The 19th Hole bar on deck 14 (148 feet above the water) said a group of Florida fans had tried to reserve the bar for their use. That isn't allowed, so they were mainly elsewhere. Indeed, I saw very few Florida fans before or after the game.

The previous two nights had been crowded with NFL playoff games. Lots of Eagle fans. They were even singing the team fight song by the end of the game.

I left my main seating dinner a bit early to head up to watch the game. Already there were about two dozen OSU fans, with various Buckeye gear on. Some confused German soccer fans were there not understanding why the European soccer tourney that was underway wasn't on the TVs. They also seemed confused why the people, whose view of the screens they were blocking, were unhappy. They left.

Maybe its an OSU fan thing, but the fans couldn't figure out that the ship was getting the direct feed from Fox, not a local affiliate feed. So the gaps in audio, the pre-set of replays and clips confused them all night long. Even after having it explained six different ways.

There was exactly one Florida fan, sitting in the middle of the bar itself. The only American officer in the ships hotel staff came up to watch too. The first play, Gin's kick-off return, got the OSU fans in a froth early. And from there it was a slow confused decline into a stupor. The drink sales lagged until the officer called down the kitchen, and waiters arrived, shuttling slices of pizza to the crowd. That perked people up, and sales picked up.

By the second half, there were still no Florida fans around, but SEC fans started creeping out of the woodwork and took up the Gator cause. The rumble of "overrated" and various knocks on Jim Tressel, the Big Ten, and such began in earnest.

Personally, I bailed out, wearing my BGSU orange shirt with Gator Blue shorts, as the third quarter was ending.

After the game, there wasn't an OSU shirt, hat, or anything seen the rest of the week. The SEC fans though, could be heard talking about it during dinner, and other events during the week.

In all, as sports viewing venues go, it rocked.