Not bad seats for $12.50. 82,000 paid attendance - I am guessing 70,000 showed up.
What a great day to be living in downtown of Florida's Capital City. The temperature was 75 degrees - and you could not find a cloud in the deep blue sky. It was 3 PM - but the moon was already raising in the east.
Lulu and I left home on our Honda scooter in Myers Park just before 3. We like to drive down to the park - cut under the Apalachee Parkway - then head west on College Avenue. We like to park near the traffic circle at the end of Jefferson Street - it is free and safe from traffic - and we have a straight shot home after the game.
As we walked the last quarter mile to the south side of the stadium - you could see that lots of touts had pitfalls trying to sell tickets. We avoided them - we wanted seats in sections 31 to 35 - in the shade and among old people. We did not even get to our regular standing spot by the sportsman's statue - when we saw a tout offering a guy $10 each for a pair of seats. I noticed the tickets were in section 32 - so I asked him about the tickets. He seemed more interested selling them to me rather than a scalper - I offered him $10 each - he followed with 2 for $25 - so I bought the first pair I was offered. I settled way to early. We knew it would be easy.
Friday night before the game - we went to Dodd Hall. It is a museum of FSU history - not to be confused with the Sports Hall of Fame which is in the stadium. Dodd Hall was one time the FSU Library.
My problem with buying tickets so early is that I have to sit through the band performance then. Also - it is a pain with people coming in late and squeezing thru the seats.
The ticket collectors and bag inspectors did not check us or they would have found crackers - pretzels and two cokes. It is a shame they prevent people from bringing stuff into the stadium in the name of terrorism. What am I going to do - cut someone's throat with a Cheez-it?
The face value of seats for this game was $45 each - for Notre Dame they want $100 - same for Florida. How can a guy afford to bring his family of 4 to these events?
Before the game they had a flyover of 5 old World War II warplanes. They were just like the kind I saw at the Military Air Museum in Virginia Beach last week. They were up too high to see the markings - a few years ago they had a flyby and you could see the pilots' faces. All in the name of the politically correct safety - we suffer thru this. :-)
Wake Forest has some of the worst statistics in the country. This year they are 128th in defense out of 128 teams. So guess who scores first - the Deacons kick a field goal. 3 - 0. The first quarter ends with the Parents Day crowd scratching their heads. The Coaches' Poll dropped FSU to number 2 after such a start last week. The game went quickly - only 3 hours and 15 minutes - and the Noles scored 43 unanswered points. 43-3. Ironically Alabama lost today and will have to go begging ESPN and the coaches for mercy.
The highlights or lowlights of the game - Rashad Greene needs 4 more catches to pass the 212 career catch record at FSU. Instead he got a concussion and sat out the second half vomiting. Austin Barron the starting center broke his arm. So this was a costly victory for FSU. Next week they plays indoors at Syracuse.
After the game - we hopped on the scooter - met a little traffic - and were home 30 minutes from when the game ended. We put on the re-play of the game and I was snoring by 8:30 and did not wake up until 7:30 this morning. It is now in the 50s outside - still brightly sunny - but fall is in the air.
This is what it is like - living in this "Southern Georgia" town of students and politicians - surrounded by SEC fans. As the UVA announcer once said - welcome to Florida even if it is only Tallahassee. But us locals love it here.
The pre-game flightier of the Affordable War Birds is always a hit on Parents Day. They could have been a bit lower.
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