After getting up Saturday and shaking off the groggy-ness we hit I-70 west to Columbia. Our hotel was conveniently the first exit and right next to the highway. While waiting to check in we hit up the hotel restaurant/sports bar and saw some of the BG traveling party. By happenstance we hotel.com-ed the team hotel. After getting a beer and sitting down a Missouri table of old timers called over to ask us the first “Where is Bowling Green anyway?” at 2:15. As we watched CMU knock off MSU the mostly BG, pro-MAC crowd in the bar gave up a collective cheer. Once our room was ready we went out to get our bags and up to the room as the Falcons were piling out and loading up the buses to head to the stadium.
By this point it was about 3pm and we were debating on what to do next. We had received the tips on here that parking wasn’t exactly easy unless you had donor passes and it could be a hassle. The hotel offered a shuttle that left at 4:30, but I didn’t really feel like waiting or being at their mercy. We loaded up 5 guys in to the car, hit the nearest gas station and purchased a six pack each to take over (which, incidentally, we could drink legally during the car ride to the stadium). The hotel was on the same road as the stadium, creatively named Stadium Boulevard which also took us past the equally creatively named mall in town- Columbia Mall. As we got closer to the stadium people were just pulling off the side of the road and setting up shop, which with the aforementioned lax open container laws did not seem like a wise choice. Once the stadium was in sight the PASS ONLY signs barred us from gaining access to any of the surface areas around the field. Remember the mention of a garage on here from a Mizzou tipster, I spotted the U. of Missouri Hospital parking garage where we paid a modest $15 and abided by the “NO GRILLS ALLOWED IN GARAGE” sign which makes me believe that in the past Mizzou fans have actually tried to set up grills within the covered structure of a parking ramp…
The garage was not a far walk from the stadium as you can see in the view from the top level:
We quickly “set up” our tailgate by opening the trunk and getting the beers out.
After it was revealed we were donning the orange and brown, we heard the occasional “Bowling Green SUCKS” from the fratastic crowd on the row over from where we parked, but nothing too bad. The worst/funniest came while I was in line for the port-o-john. This older Mizzou fan, maybe 55-60 years old tops, spots me and gives me the old up yours arm hand gesture and says “Go Back to Kentucky” to which I replied “Geography major, were ya?” He made a befuddled look and stepped in to the port-o-let no doubt marveling at the modern technology. After that exchange a student aged Mizzou fan sarcastically said “You better be careful, he’ll chop you up in his tractor and use you as feed” going on to apologize for their fan base saying they have some of the rudest in the Big XII and he thinks it’s because of an inferiority complex with some of the other schools. I thanked him for chiding his own and told him it was ok, I had experience much worse.
About 45 minutes before game time we decided to grab some for the walk over to the stadium and head in since there was a pretty large throng of people wearing yellow, don’t let them tell you it’s gold, t-shirts milling about outside the stadium. This gave us a chance to see what the tailgate scene was like. There definitely were a ton of people set up wherever they could. Circling the parking garage families had blankets and grills and chairs on the grass next to the sidewalk, not what I would call a fun spot, but it works I guess. The lots and surface around the stadium were really patch worked around so people had to do what they could. There were a lot of people but I didn’t really like the scene that much. Better than Northwestern, similar to Wisconsin in there wasn’t a lot of surface, but no bars within walking distance and not a lot of space to work with. Nonetheless we didn’t get heckled at all walking through the main tailgate areas and heard a few people saying they thought it would be a good game.
The stadium itself is a typical countersunk stadium with horseshoe seating and berm on the open end of the shoe. Our seats and sightlines were nice, but it really messed with depth perception. Sometimes Geter’s 2 yard runs looked like 10 yard runs and his 10 yard gainers looked like 2 yard gains. Here is the panoramic view I photoshopped together:
Prior to the game a B2 stealth bomber flew over head:
The BG section was mostly family members of the players but there were a few fans and student aged folks sprinkled in. Definitely got some good BG, SU chants going.
Here is how we lined up before the first TD of the game. Look how soft they are playing Hutson.
Hutson not only makes the catch in traffic but he slices right by the other two defenders and in to the end zone as well.
Early on we were really executing a great gameplan. Our offense was dinking and dunking down the field. Tyler looked poised in the pocket and not locked in on just on receiver. The play calling mixed in a decent amount of runs and when Geter was hitting his holes he was picking up good yardage. I give major props to the offensive line. They were protecting Tyler and they were opening up good holes for Geter to run through.
Defensively our drop back coverage was doing a great job forcing Gabbert to look at #2 and 3 options which was giving our line, sometimes just a 3 man rush, to get in and flush him. Our defensive looks and switching forced Gabbert to make some bad decisions, throwing in to traffic, scrambling laterally and even fumbling. Sheehan outplayed him in the facet of decision making. Sheehan threw the ball away, yet Gabbert believed he could always make the play- this burned him on the fumble, got him hit out of bounds and another time it got him crunched as he was trying to escape to the boundary. That instinct also helped though when he tossed the tying TD pass through the hands of Roger Williams and in to his receiver’s hands for the TD. From our angle I thought Roger got the pick.
Overall, I left the game feeling as good as you can while not winning. Very similar to the seven point loss at OSU in 2002. People were quick to compliment us on the exit and even joined us for postgame beverages as we waited on the garage line to snake out.
The thing that makes me feel very good about this team is we weren’t just fighting back and having things go our way, for much of the game it felt like we were in control. I’m not saying we were having our way and walking all over the bigger, stronger Mizzou team, but we were executing a great gameplan to a t, on both sides of the ball.
The past few seaons we’ve had the talent. We just couldn’t put the pieces together for a multitude of reasons. It is a game like this one that makes me think we are on track and the closest we have been in a while to getting back on track.
