Words by Keith Arnold, who↵is touring the country with his brother Phil as they invade a different↵college campus each Saturday during the football season. They’ll be reporting back in this space with their various adventures. You can also keep tabs on their vagabonding over at RoadtoGameDay.com.
Road to Game Day: Week 8, Columbus
On Thursday, they were in Morgantown for the Auburn-WVU↵game. Saturday night, they traveled to the Penn State-Ohio state↵contest in Columbus.
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↵So it looks like we probably won’t be going back to Morgantown any time soon. Fine by us, and apparently, very fine by Mountaineer fans. A quick thank you to all the wonderful WVU fans who flooded the comments section and our personal inboxes with words of encouragement like:↵↵⇥“This is the most ignorant trash I’ve ever read.”↵⇥↵⇥“I have one word for the writer of this trash ... Ignorant.”↵⇥↵⇥↵⇥“You and your brother were the only trash in Morgantown last ↵⇥night. Unless your mom was there too!”↵⇥
↵⇥↵⇥“Forget about a journalism career unless you want to work for↵⇥the New York Times.” (My personal favorite)↵⇥
↵↵After reading through everything, I don’t think I’ve seen words like “ignorant” and “trashy” thrown around this much since I stayed home sick a few years ago and watched multiple episodes of Jerry Springer and Maury Povich. Who would’ve thought that a recent study found that West Virginia is the #1 state for angry, anxious, moody, and tense behavior? Hopefully that closes the book on our infamous Thursday night in West Virginia. We honestly had a great time, and didn’t think the few minor digs we took were going to create the stir they did. ↵
↵It’s only 205 miles from Morgantown to Columbus, but it feels like a different country. The mountains go flat, the cluster of towns turn into a city and its suburbs, and the backwoods accent disappears. We were greeted Friday to artic temperatures and a constant downpour of rain that was expected to continue throughout the weekend. That made it pretty tough to gauge what a normal football Friday night was like in Columbus, especially since we weren’t really dying to roam cluelessly through a town in a monsoon. ↵
↵↵What wasn’t difficult to figure out was how big of an event a game like this was for Buckeye fans. There was a different feel to the fans of Ohio State than the other places we’ve been this year. It didn’t reach the fanatical levels we’ve seen, but it certainly had a religious feel to it. This was more of a ritual, the same people coming from the same places year after year. This was both Phil and my first time in Columbus, and we were incredibly impressed. The campus was huge, but it still felt like a campus. The people were incredibly accommodating, whether it be students having a beer pong tournament (disappointing finish for Team RTGD), or the group of brothers we met that had been tailgating together for over 20 years. ↵
↵↵This was an impossible ticket to get. I’m not sure what possessed us to get on eBay before getting to Columbus but I’m glad that we did, because we barely saw any tickets for sale, and would’ve been scrambling frantically around campus until well past kick-off. And while the annoying trend of fans being asked to all wear the same color to the stadium continued on Saturday with “Scarlett Fever,” it was an impressive site seeing 100,000 people wearing replica jerseys. Merchandise sales must be golden.↵
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While the game didn’t turn out the way Buckeye fans wanted, it was amazing to see the way the loss was digested. Levelheadedness ruled the evening. I watched multiple Ohio State fans shake the hands of nearby Penn State fans, wishing them luck in finishing off the season undefeated. I even saw a guy text his friend, “At least we get to watch someone else get beat in the national championship.” And while I expected Terrell Pryor to get shredded for his crucial fumble and late interception, everybody we talked to was just excited for his future. ↵
↵↵No matter how impressive 106,000 screaming fans look and sound, you can only marvel at the punting skills of A.J. Trapasso for so long. For being a close one, this game was pretty boring. And while it had the feel of a heavyweight slugfest, it did give us the best halftime show we’ve ever seen. As someone who usually hates marching bands, and all the attention they get, the Ohio State band (also known as TBDBITL -- google it) was legit. And we were honestly fired up when the “Script Ohio” was flawlessly executed. Add in the pyrotechnics that went off during the 1812 Overture, and well, we’ve got our favorite college marching band.↵
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↵It was an exciting weekend of football, and certainly an exciting weekend of emails. A special thanks to all those people who helped me find my missing head. Who’d have ever thought it could get lodged way up there?↵
This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
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