The drive to Waco was uneventful. A stop for gas, an easy to find stadium and plenty of people in red made for a nice pregrame. We stood and watched the USC v ND game at a little make shift sports bar under a tent where we shared a stand-up table with a woman who reminded me a lot of Laurie B.
We walked over to the stadium and watched an Omaha sports guy try to light up while shielding his cigarette from the wind. The stadium was nicely constructed and clean if small. There were other Huskers already finding their seats and we talked about Omaha and Texas and all sorts of things while the teams were warming up. As they left, the Baylor marching band lined up to march around the field before taking their seats. It was a nice little tradition as they marched and played. The thing that was a bit strange though, was the Baylor hand signal for the Bears. In front of the band, the flagettes and twirlers were holding their right arms in the air with their fingers curled. Clearly they meant it took look like raised bear claws, but you couldn’t shake the scary resemblance to the Third Reich.
Once the band was seated, NE came up from their locker room and the fans went wild. The stadium was no where near capacity, and of those there, about 1/3 were wearing red. Nice. While our team stood on the sideline, the student section lined up in the same area where the marching band had been. Then they entered and ran around to the other side so they could cheer the Baylor team as they rushed in. Behind all of the Baylor college students were two junior high Husker fans wearing red. They got plenty of cheers from Husker fans as they ran along the field. With the students in place and the cheerleaders forming a barrier between the tunnel and the students, out came the bear. A seriously drugged, most likely toothless bear and about five handlers walked out to midfield. When the players ran onto the field, some ran right alongside the bear as she lumbered to the end zone, where she sat, for the rest of the game and played with a sign.
The game began and NE started off on defense. Ridiculously Baylor marched down the field and “scored”. Now, mind you, we did not have the benefit of dissecting the play over and over again like one does on tv, but from what we saw, it pretty much looked like the guy ran out of bounds with the ball before ever heading into the end zone. Lame. This was the point when all of the NE fans began to understand that we were not playing Baylor. No, no. The game was really NE vs The Officials. It got worse from there. NE players were actually punched in the head and NOTHING was called. But really, the play of the game goes to the officials who, after reviewing a call for FOREVER decide that, even if they’d ruled the Baylor player down at the 1 and even though they had not actually officiated who recovered the ball in the end zone, what the heck, why not just give six points to Baylor. Then, after a broken up play for the extra point, we’ll just let them try again so that they can put up another point. The fans were wild at each of these turns. We weren’t in the all NE section, so when we got loud the Baylor fans weren’t exactly thrilled. Most of them left early anyway. Good.
A few other items of note:
While glad to be at the game, we called Rick & Paula’s a few times to check in with the party there. If given the opportunity to watch with them or go the game, I would’ve chosen the first one.
The little boy sitting in front of us, Jake, was so adorable. He was five and bored, so he did stuff like try to count all the people in the stadium, remove the string from his shorts and whip it around his head or pretend that it was headphones. He also had a few dances he broke out from time to time and believed in cheering for the green team, despite his father’s best urges to keep him a Husker fan. Jake had on a green soccer jersey, so we’re pretty sure he’s used to rooting for the green team.
Jud had to use the restroom after the game so we stopped at a place in Waco that we may travel back to just to eat there. Yeah, it looked that good and yeah, it was also a gas station.
Kim was pretty proud of herself for getting off on the right exit to get home and for the combined navigational skills to get the rest of the way home.
Final Outcome: NE whooped up on Baylor. The Officials changed out of their stripes before leaving the stadium.
