Missing the Oregon State Upset

Biggest Upset of the Year...so far!

I don’t know what is worse, missing the biggest upset of the college football season…or having your girlfriend inform you of the biggest upset of the college football season?  Well I had both happen to me today and I couldn’t care less because now my Nittany Lions have a shot at a BCS Title game!!!  OK, reasons I missed the game, season premiers of The Office, My Name is Earl, and Grey’s Anatomy (said Girlfriend’s DVR choice and probably one of the many reasons I still have a girlfriend).  Plus!!!  I already have seen the Oregon State Beavers play at Penn State and we crushed them by the end of the first half and I watched our 2nd string play the 4th quarter.  So in my last NCAA post I said “All game times are EST, and I left off the USC at Oregon State game on Thursday because it will be a blowout (sorry Beaver fans, but I saw your team in person).”  Well I need to give myself a Stephen Colbert “Wag of the Finger” to myself and apologize to Beaver Nation for not respecting their ability to beat USC.  I would also like to thank the Beavers for making my Nittany Lions better than the Trojans from the Transitive Property!  And in turn making me feel a lot better about our trip to Columbus, OH in a few weeks.

No Longer No. 1

Since I got a chance to meet a few Oregon State fans when I was up in Happy Valley a few weeks ago, let me say this couldn’t happen to a nicer fan base.  The fans that came up to Penn State were supportive of their team throughout the game and stayed until the end.  I am sure they were disappointed in not winning during their trip, but I hope they enjoyed their time in State College, PA.  At that time, they probably were feeling down, but can you imagine how happy they are today!  It must feel like Christmas morning for them.  The fact they get an extra few days to enjoy the victory will really help their match up next week when they head to Utah.

Another thing that this game has proved to me, is just how difficult it is to win on the road in college football.  The home field advantage for these schools is tremendous and the main reason is the Fans!  The student body alone gets home teams pumped and with the band and supportive alumni, it is really hard to not get excited for an upset of a ranked school.  As for away teams, if your alumni don’t travel it is hard for you to get excited to play an underdog.  Most schools give visiting teams less than 3% of their tickets.  So if you have 100,000 seats, that means less than 3000 away fans can get tickets through their school.  Away teams need the secondary ticket market to buy into stadiums to show their support and some use it quite well.  My belief is if you can get a good road following to come and cheer on your team, the odds of an upset like last night go down significantly.  Let’s be honest most people in LA probably didn’t want to head up to Corvallis, Oregon to watch a blowout.  I guess in hindsight it was a good thing they didn’t make the trip, because it would be a long trip home after blowing an Undefeated National Championship season.