Reliant Stadium is beautiful, even if you are four rows down from the roof in the endzone, which we were. It actually had its advantages: we were completely out of the sun and had air from the vents. We also had the exact same view as the cameraman doing the full-field shots since he was right next to us. And we were at eye-level with the jumbotron! It was really strange to watch a game from that angle, though, especially since most of the action ended up happening at the other end.
By early in the fourth quarter, the score was 63-3. Odysseas leans over and points out that Louisiana-Lafayette is better than the Big XII north champs since they only allowed us 60 points in the season opener.
What no one told us is that the year your team plays for the national championship is kindof boring. We haven't had an interesting home game all year, although the Cotton Bowl was fun just
for gloating purposes. Yesterday was no exception. With the ten touchdowns completed by early in the third quarter and third string QB Matt McCoy in by the fourth, we got a little bored. Luckily, lots of funny things kept us entertained, including the fact that there was no Dr. Pepper for sale at the Dr. Pepper Big XII Championship (only Mr. Pibb), and that the plastic cups for the Texans feature David Carr completing a pass in hologram (the lesson we learned? that suspending reality is apparently okay for promotional items and/or $5.50 cokes).
My favorite parts of the day were when the game ended and Mack and the Longhorns accepted the trophy and the bouquet of roses from the Tournament of Roses president. We sang "The Eyes of Texas" and everyone just hung around to enjoy the moment before heading out into the horrific Houston traffic.
Driving back into Austin after a looooonnnnng day, we came over a hill on 71 and saw the tower, lit in orange from top to bottom. Someone says, "Oh. Now that's nice." It is.
So Texas is now officially set to meet USC in the Rose Bowl on January 4! Everyone in Austin is just walking around smiling. Even my OU-fan pastor said something in church about how great it was (the prominent attorney's wife who sits in front of me turned around and laughed. We agreed that he didn't sound too convinced.). It's really cool to be here for this.
Michael Corcoran's column in the Statesman on the Rose Bowl hype is really funny, primarily because of lines like this: "How are we going to taunt the Trojans? ...Pointing out that the USC sidelines looks like a Wes Anderson film because Owen Wilson is playing the coach?" Oh, what fun it is to be playing for it all. I'm so excited about heading to Pasadena!
In other football news, the Ravenwood Raptors won the Tennessee 5A Blue Cross Bowl and state championship last night, despite only having had a varsity team for three seasons. My best friend and her sweetheart both teach at Ravenwood - congrats, y'all and Laura, I'm so proud of you for learning about football this year! :) Also, in a game that's sure to be more interesting than last year's OSU-times-two bowl, Nebraska will meet Michigan at this year's Alamo Bowl in San Antonio on Dec. 28th. That will be fun as always.
