Nebraska-VT tidbits

As promised, thoughts from the Nebraska-Virginia Tech game:

--There really is nothing in sports (that I've seen, anyway) like the atmosphere at a big-time college football game. The sheer volume of noise, the band, the student section, the red, everything. I've never been to an NFL game, but they all look so sterile in comparison. (Except for games at Lambeau, of course--I've heard that's the closest place to a college environment in an NFL stadium.)

--We sat on the floor, about 10 or 12 feet behind the Virginia Tech bench, with the other Red Cross Day volunteers. Let me just say I was not impressed with the Virginia Tech defensive players. During Tech's nail-in-the-coffin drive on offense (the one with the three personal-foul penalties), they were standing on the bench and would turn around to the crowd and pose or yell at us. There were state troopers standing between us and them to make sure we didn't taunt them or otherwise interfere with them. That job becomes a little bit tougher when the players you're protecting are the ones initiating the taunting.

--Nate Swift's punt return in the fourth quarter--wow. I had to watch it on Huskervision (we couldn't see over the VT sideline), but that was still the coolest play I've ever seen live.

--Before the game, Erin Andrews set up shop a few feet away from us. She's ESPN's top sideline reporter and the hottie du jour in the sports Internet world. (I would tell you to Google her, but you will feel violated if you do. And for the record, she seems pretty cool--takes her job seriously, hasn't posed for Playboy or anything--though Dana and I agreed her pants at the game were almost comically too tight.) At first I was annoyed because bunches of guys my age and pervy middle-aged guys were crowding around her (which also meant crowding around us) with their camera phones at the ready. But she spent the whole game on the actual sidelines, so that turned out not to be a problem. But it was funny to watch as she walked behind the line of guys leaning over the sideline fence to watch warmups, and one by one they snapped their necks around after she passed as you could see them going, "Whoa, wait--that was Erin Andrews!" It cracked me up.

--That was the fifth Husker game I've seen live, and the fourth that they've lost. Still, as far as the overall experience went, it was more fun than any of the first four. (The one win, Iowa State last year, wasn't too hard to top.) Just think how much more fun it'll be when this team actually starts playing well.