It took me 36 hours to get to New Jersey from Chattanooga. I left ridiculously early on Saturday morning(7am), despite the fact that I barely slept from the after-party. I just got to my dad's house in New Jersey a couple hours ago. I know that ya'll have had a couple chances to talk about the football team, but since I had a few pictures and thoughts, I figured I'd hit up a quick post before we shift back to 100% basketball.
I've been a following Villanova Football since I was an undergrad. At first it was just something to do on a saturday afternoon. My friends would drag me out of bed from South Campus and up to the stadium. Win or lose, we had a great time chanting "Purple Pants" at the James Madison players (they wore white pants the next year), or telling the UMass players what we "did" to their Mother/Sister/Girlfriend the night before. From then on, I've made a point to try and get out for at least one game every year.
When I noticed that the championship would be in Chattanooga early in the season (and fully expecting us to get there, of course), I knew that when we got there, I would be on my way up from Atlanta, where I go to law school, for the game. Andy Talley and his boys held up their end of the bargain, and so did I.
The game was great, I only wish more of Nova Nation would've been there. I was extremely disappointed to discover that the Villanova Band didn't make the trip down to Chattanooga. Everyone from Montana was there. The band, the cheerleaders and maybe about 15,000 Grizzly's fans. Their fans were obnoxious and went out of their way to try and make Nova Nation feel uncomfortable. We didn't let it bother us.
When the ESPN2 Cameras came by for a crowd shot of the Montana fans, you may have even noticed two Villanova fans being just as loud standing right in front of them -- that was me and my friend and fellow alumnus (Class of 2006), Nick Marini. The Montana fans tried to shut us up, so we got louder . . . and when the 'Cats took the lead, they were the ones who shut up.
I won't go into much detail about the game. It wasn't perfect, but we had a ton of great plays. I won't recap much from the field -- you saw it on TV.
About half the fans rushed the field: All of the students, the young alums (myself included), and even some of the older guys (though most of them were smart enough to find the stairs -- me and Nick jumped a wall to get down there). The celebration on-field and afterwards was great, so here are some pictures, some of which you might have seen on my Twitter feed on Friday:
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| Championship Pictures |
*Thanks to Dan Valles for the screencap picture.
Also: Our friends at IBBW think that it might be time for a move to FBS football. What do you think?