Before we even left Hillsborough at about 10:45 AM for the 140-mile trip, we benefited from some alert Web browsing by Tony, who noticed (on the WRAL-TV web site) that there was a major traffic tie-up on southbound I-85 in Alamance County. A tractor trailer had overturned blocking 3 of the 4 southbound lanes.
With that knowledge, we planned an alternate route and took US-70 from Hillsborough through Mebane and into Graham where we were able to pick I-85 backup (5 or so miles after the mess at mile marker 154). The going was slow on US-70 (it is 2 lanes in stretches with a fair number of lights and fairly heavy traffic) but we were back on I-85 by 11:30 or so.
Some fellow tailgaters we talked to at the game that were coming from Raleigh-Durham indicated that it took them about an hour to go 10 miles through that accident scene and the backup was reported to be about 7 miles long at its worse point.
We pulled into our parking lot in Charlotte by around 1:15 for the 4:30 PM kickoff, with a nice chunk of time for a leisurely tailgate. A funny thing occurred as we pulled into the parking lot. We paid $20 for our parking tag and we didn't notice that it had an assigned space number on it. So I just randomly find a nice spot in the lot for me and Tony to pull into and cut the engine. I pull into Space 107. Tony pulls in next to me and says something about assigned spots on the parking pass. We look at our tag and our tag shows Space 106 - queue the Twilight Zone music! What are the chances of that happening in a decent sized parking lot that had a ton of unused spaces?
Bank of America Stadium is the home of the Carolina Panthers and this was my second trip there, having attended Pitt's 23-16 loss to Virginia in the 2003 Continental Tire Bowl (Larry Fitzgerald's last game at Pitt and the game that snapped his NCAA record for catching a TD in 18 consecutive games).
Though the stadium is right smack in the middle of uptown Charlotte, there is excellent tailgating with a number of surface lots within a 10 minute walk. Our parking lot was at the intersection of 4th Street and South Graham Street.
Nice shot of the Charlotte Skyline.....
followed by a shot of Bank of America Stadium from our tailgate.....
The day was overcast and chilly (with highs around 48), but no rain. Since we endured steady rain during two of our Duke home games this fall, all in all, it was a good day for football.
I handled the tailgate cooking and we made our normal fare. Course 1 was Marinaded Chicken with Potato Salad. Course 2 was Brats and Dogs. Complemented with chips and nachos with salsa and a case of Bud Light to wash it all down. Good stuff and everybody seemed to enjoy it.
Chris and Tony graciously wore Pitt gear (though in their hearts, they really wanted to wear their Duke apparel). That Duke-UNC rivalry runs pretty deep for those guys. (It is a shame that Joe, Jr couldn't make it, but he just couldn't get off of work.)
Pitt only brought about 5,000 fans to the game, so we were definitely in the minority, but the tailgate was a good time. Some nice Carolina fans parked next to us stopped by to chat amiably (they were from Martinsville, VA) and another Pitt fan from Cary from another tailgate stopped by as well. Then Flaskman showed up.
Flaskman was about my age and sported long, shoulder length, and wavy hair and several earrings. He was sporting a Lesean McCoy jersey and I think was a Pitt grad working in Greensboro. His main goal in talking to us was to inquire about the odds of being able to smuggle his metal flask of Crown Royal into the stadium. Both Bob and I both told him that in 2003, there were metal detectors and you had to place cell phones and keys in buckets at the gate to get through those detectors.
That should have been the end of it, but the dude just kept hanging around our tailgate. You know the type - kind of clingy and doesn't really perceive subtle body language that you really want him to get the hell away so you can eat and drink. Our conversation dried up several times with him and he just kept on ackwardly standing there with us. I don't know if he was waiting for us to offer food or beer, but I wasn't going to encourage him. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he said that he would be taking the Crown Royal flask back to his car in another lot as he couldn't afford to risk it. So we thought that was the end of Flaskman.
We finished up eating and drinking and packed everything up and grabbed a Bud Light for the road and headed to the stadium. Usually, this is an interesting part of a road trip when you have to run the gauntlet of home team fans talking crap and harassing folks wearing the other teams apparel. But we hardly heard anything. Tony got into it a little bit with a vendor selling Duke Sux tee shirts, but other than that, it was uneventful.
We get settled in our seats (Section 541 in the upper deck on the Pitt side at the 40 yd line - excellent seats). We look down at the exit and here comes Flaskman coming up to sit in the row in front of us, but to the far right of the section. So while Bob and I were looking down and away from him to avoid eye contact, Tony yells "Crown Royal" at him (thanks Tony!) and now he had latched onto us again :-) At halftime as we passed him, he was complaining to us that he would have had no trouble smuggling the Crown Royal in and that we had screwed him.
Bob had the misfortune of having a totally wasted 20-something sitting in front of him. He was blotto by the middle of the 2nd quarter, but never stopped drinking (Bank of America Stadium had a decent variety of beer that was sold during the game).
Well, there actually was a game played and a pretty exciting one at that. Some of my observations:
- Pitt has a small fan base and doesn't travel well, but the core set of 4-5K die-hards that do travel are great: emotional, passionate, and loud. When I watched the replay of the game on ESPNU, the Let's Go Pitt chants came through loud and clear.
- Attendance was announced at 50K, but I think it was more in the range of 42-45K.
- Carolina fans on the other hand were quite subdued. The only point where it got really loud was when Pitt lined up for the game winning field goal with a minute left.
- Bank of America Stadium is a great place to watch a football game - great sight lines, all the amenities you would expect in a NFL stadium - even in the upper bowl, I felt right in the action.
- After our last 2 heartbreaking losses to the Hoopies and to UC and being so close to the BCS, we were all worried about whether the team would show up. But they were really into it. Credit goes to this alum.
- Pitt left a lot of points on the field, I counted seven or eight times inside the Carolina 25 but only 1 touchdown and 4 field goals.
- Depending on who you talk to, Carolina has 6 or 7 NFL players on defense, so it was so satisfying to win the game with a 14 play drive that started at the Pitt 5 and took about 10 minutes of the 4th quarter.
- Freshmen came up big for Pitt. Mike Shanahan made 4 or 5 tough catches over the middle (including a big catch on the last drive where he got the snot knocked out of him) and linebacker Dan Mason played strong and had a pick in the end zone.
- And of course Dion Lewis is as awesome in person as on TV. Butch Davis said that Lewis reminds him of Clinton Portis. I think he is a stronger, quicker, and tougher version of Warrick Dunn from Florida State. Worth the price of admission.
- The teams were essentially evenly matched and they both run pro-style offenses and similar defensive schemes. It was actually refreshing to watch a game where neither team ran the spread nor threw the ball 60 times.
The return trip back to Hillsborough was pretty uneventful once we got out of Charlotte. Getting out of Charlotte (as you can imagine with any downtown stadium) requires some patience and of course there would have to be a big pileup on I-77. Thankfully, Bob's GPS helped us out. We got back around 11:00 PM.
All in all, it was a good day rooting on my alma mater to their 10th win with family and a good friend. Pitt had not won 10 games in a season since I was there as a Sophomore in 1981 (Dan Marino's junior season). God, I am feeling old now. Hail to Pitt.
