Pinstripe Bowl

I'm not going to lie, I was way too excited about the Pinstripe Bowl.  I want the Pinstripe Bowl to become a big event.  It has a solid name (check my last post).  I like football in Yankee Stadium.  I've said the Super Bowl should be there instead of Met Life Stadium.  Next year it will be an ACC-Big Ten bowl, which should be better than the current Big 12-American Athletic Conference set up.  But this year, thanks to the Big 12 not having enough bowl eligible teams, it meant that I got to go to an extra Notre Dame football game.  If we were going to play in a meaningless bowl, I couldn't have been any happier than I was with ending up in the Pinstripe Bowl.

It seemed for a while that we would end up in the Pinstripe Bowl.  Once I saw the official announcement made, I got on Stubhub and got two tickets in section 332B, which was the second highest level around the 25 yard line.  I bought at the right time, because prices had pretty much doubled by the next day.  I could have gotten slightly cheaper tickets from Notre Dame, but I probably wouldn't have had as good of a view.  I was on the Rutgers side of the field, but there were a lot of Notre Dame fans where I was sitting.  A day or two before the game, I got an extra ticket on Stubhub in the next section.

My dad and I met my brother Tom at Penn Station on Saturday morning.  I took the subway with two subway alums to the game.  My friends John, Vin, and Sean ended up going to the game at the last minute and were tailgating on top of a parking garage.  If I had known, I would have gotten there earlier and met up with them before the game.  But by the time we finally got to the stadium, we just headed in and got to our seats about 15 minutes before kickoff.  We sat in section 332B for about the first quarter, but then our row finally filled up and there wasn't a seat for my brother.  So we moved over to his section where there were plenty of open seats.  Those seats were around the 15 yard line, so they weren't quite as good of a view of the field, but it was still better than the view I had at any of the other Notre Dame games I went to this season.

The opening kickoff

Notre Dame about to score

I think the Notre Dame fans outnumbered the Rutgers fans, but the Rutgers fans were definitely more into the game than we were.  The team wasn't into the game in the first half either.  After a crappy half, we were tied at 13.  Tom and I went down a level to meet up with John, Vin, and Sean.  I hadn't seen Vin since the night before I left for England.  I watched the first Notre Dame possession of the second half from the concourse with those guys.  A penalty gave us a second chance after missing a field goal.  The second one was good and we led 16-13.  Then I headed back up to my seat.

My view at the start of the second half

A panoramic shot of Yankee Stadium

In the fourth quarter, I was checking out the stats on the scoreboard.  We were dominating Rutgers in terms of yards and first downs, but we weren't scoring touchdowns.  I was kind of worried about losing the game until Tarean Folston ran for a touchdown with 3:38 left to give us a ten point lead.  We tacked on a field goal after an interception and won by 13.  There were definitely some fans there that were upset about not covering the spread.  Zack Martin was named the MVP.  He was our best player this year, so I was glad to see that.  It's unusual for an offensive lineman to win the award so I thought it might be Tommy Rees (319 yards, no interceptions) or Stephon Tuitt (1.5 sacks).  I suspect that since nobody stood out statistically, they asked Brian Kelly after the game who should be the MVP and he said Martin.

Me, Dad, and Tom after the game

It wasn't an impressive performance, but it was a win.  Nobody can take that George M. Steinbrenner Trophy away from us.  The sad reality is that this was our second best season since I was a student.  Playing a bad bowl opponent certainly helped get us a ninth win, but our 8-4 regular season was better than every regular season since 2006 except for 2011 and 2012.  2012 was obviously much better.  In 2011, we might have also ended up at 9-4 with an easier bowl opponent, but Michigan State and Arizona State were definitely better than anybody we beat during 2011 (and USC probably was also).  The seniors won at least eight games every year for the first time since Lou Holtz was the coach.  Yes, part of that is that we didn't play 12 games every year until 2006.  But part of that is that we had three really bad coaches between Holtz and Brian Kelly.  This year wasn't good enough, but a big part of that was our starting quarterback getting himself kicked out of school back in May.  He'll be back next season.  I expect a better year.  The win also illustrates the silliness of the bowl system.  Am I supposed to be happy about winning the Pinstripe Bowl?  Last year we lost our bowl game (and it wasn't close), but it was obviously a much better season.

My dad and I finished the day by going to the 5:15 mass at St. Francis near Penn Station.  I always like to go to mass on Saturday night whenever I can.  Then at night I enjoyed Michigan losing to Kansas State and giving us back the all time winning percentage lead.  At least I can say I saw Notre Dame win a bowl game in person.  Of course, if I could have made a deal a year ago that Notre Dame would win the first bowl game that I went to, but they would lose the next one I'd go to, I gladly would have made that deal.

So that's it for the 2013 college football season.  I went to five games, which is the most I've been to since I was a student.  I added Jerry World to the list of stadiums I've seen Notre Dame play in.  I've seen us play in 11 different stadiums, which is actually more than the number of stadiums I've seen the Dodgers play in (10).  Notre Dame went 4-1 in the games I went to, running my all time record to 25-11.  That's a .694 winning percentage in games I've been to since 2005.  In games that I haven't gone to during that time period, Notre Dame is 47-31 (.603).  We're better with me in attendance than when I'm not there, so I guess I should go to more games.  I already have my tickets for the Syracuse game in the Meadowlands next year.  I'll probably go to the Navy game at FedEx Field.  I don't have a place to stay at Notre Dame anymore, so I won't be getting back to campus as much.  If I go to the Shamrock Series game in Indianapolis, I probably won't get back to campus at all for the 2014 season, but I'm still undecided about that.

My next sporting event is Notre Dame against Boston College in hockey at Fenway Park.  The weather is looking a little scary, but hopefully I'll make it up there on Friday night and survive the cold on Saturday night.  Go Irish!