Two Burgs in One weekend

Two weeks ago, my parents came to town for what we hoped to be an amazing weekend of football. Turns out the weekend was amazing, but the football was not so hot...

Friday night we hit up my favorite restaurant Clementines (whose surprised there?) for a lovely dinner and drinks. Luke and I were excited to order entrees and skip out on our usual burger or sandwich (thanks dad). After dinner, we headed home to prepare dips and brownies for the big game!

We got up at 6am the next morning (loyal fans) to leave one burg and head to another. That's right Appalachian State was playing Virginia Tech in Blacksburg! I had been looking forward to this game for months, so we were really excited to wake up early that morning and get on the road.

If I learned one thing from our weekend at VA Tech, I learned that Hokie fans are INTENSE. I mean, I have never seen so many magnets,flags, car decals, license plates, etc. with school pride. I am pretty sure I saw more maroon cars in Blacksburg than any other color (I'm down with the car decals, but really you are picking your car color based on your fave team?).

As Luke and I were driving down, we felt a little sad that we only had 1 sticker to represent our App State pride. So, Luke took matters in his own hands and took off his App shirt which I preceded to hang out our window. A little red-neck? Yes. But, we got a lot of people to check out our "flag" as Luke honked his horn at Tech fans. Most of them saw our pride and just laughed! We were hoping for at least one bird to fly our way...but that leads to the 2nd thing I learned this weekend...

another form of Tech's Intensity

VA tech fans are really nice. Now maybe it is because they knew we were going to loose, but their "good luck" and "glad to have you here" comments seemed really genuine. I was very impressed! I also think they really respect our football team for all our national championships and victory over Michigan, as well as the fact that we are both a bunch of hicks that live in the mountains.

This was very different from the horrible, no good, very bad game 3 years ago when JMU got lucky and beat App State in Harrisonburg. JMU fans were SO RUDE. Seriously, the meanest fans I have ever seen. Us Mountaineers and Hokies WELCOME people to our town...not try to run them out. OK, I'm done ranting.

Anyway, back to the game. We had a fabulous time tailgating with the rents. Houston and his girlfriend even made it up for the game and we had fun hanging out with them, as always. And then came the bad part...the actual game. I am pretty sure within the first 30 seconds App fumbled and Tech scored a touchdown, and from there it just kept getting worse. I knew we would loose, but really, by 40 (or something like that?!)???

App running out on the field..when there was still hope

See, loosing is hard for me. This was only the second time I have ever seen App lose in football! I may or may not have gotten a little teary eyed during halftime...but at least the band was great which helped...so the game was semi-entertaining!



My theory: Had JMU lost last to Tech then we would have won this year. Because JMU's football team isn't that good (despite their new stadium) Tech did not prepare at all for the game last year. So, this year, Tech was making a statement. They were not going to let what happened last year happen to them again, which I respect. I just wish the years would have been reversed...

In conclusion, we had a great weekend and I am looking forward to a great football season this fall! And, just so you know I don't hate JMU football for all of you die hard fans out there, I just feel the need to make my allegiance to ASU known :)