The Wife and I headed to Manhattan around 1:30 yesterday, with an idea to hang around town awhile before the game. First things first, we head to the Manhattan Town Center to do a bit of shopping.. Had to pick up some purple ponchos from the K-State store because it had just started raining, and we didn't want to be wet AND miserable. Nothing new at the mall, really. Headed to the student union to find her paver on the senior sidewalk..surprise surprise, they hadn't put it in yet. Went bowling at the student union, and I had the two worst games of my entire life. I bowled a 40 in my second game...damn. I said to my wife "I hope the cats play better than I do, or we are in for a long night." Little did I know...
We drive to the parking alot near Ahearn/East stadium, and parked. We had planned on walking..it's a long walk, but we enjoy it. Instead, we saw a bus there, figuring it was a shuttle, we board. I asked the driver "Is this the shuttle?" "Sure!" He drives us and a few other passengers to the jardine area and drops us off, and we head to the stadium.
Tailgating was in full swing, even in the rain. We headed over to the west side of the stadium just in time for the "Wildcat Walk". The band was there playing Wildcat Victory, and as the players passed us, it was truly...un-inspired. None of them even smiled, high-fived, or anything. Just eyes straight forward, listening to their MP3 players, ..just, very business like.
Shortly after the walk, the gates opened up. Bought my program, even though I knew it would get soaked in the rain. Bought a bag of Powercat popcorn (very good), and headed down to our seats in Section 2, row 1. Nothing much going on a couple hours before the game, they played a bunch of inside.kstatesports.com videos on the north end zone video board, which did not look that much better than the last one.
Half an hour before the game, Snyder came out riding in a Purple Mustang convertible, with his family behind him in a stretch hummer limo. He gave his speech, which was very similar to the Missouri game speech (even Bill admitted such before hand), and all was well.
Pre-game...Willie finds the "purple cord" and plugs in the new video board. It's ok - very bright, but I wish they would use the ENTIRE BOARD for replays and such, rather than using nearly half of it for stats and such, and the bottom for advertisements. Sound system still sucked, as I heard they did not replace that. The north end zone looked beautiful, much better than the folding chairs. They also revealed the BILL SNYDER FAMILY STADIUM lettering on the pressbox.
Back to the Vanier Complex...the Cats came out behind a black "curtain" like thing that rose up, and smoke was puffed out the exit as they ran out. They announced starters on the North Endzone video board to the Monday Night football theme music (lame). After that, they did a Saturday Night Live promo thing, featuring Ron Prince, Willie the Wildcat, and a few Wildcat players (also very lame).
The band played a couple new songs, my favorite being the Immigrants song by Led Zeppelin. They did not play the Wildcat march (thank god), but they didnt play the Wabash Cannonball before the game. It could be because of the time needed for the dedication of the stadium.
That's about it. The game sucked. After the game, Yamon Figurs and Zach Diles did the Tennesee "directing of the band" thing, which was kind of lame, but the players had fun doing it, so whatever. The construction around Jardine and Denison makes it a pain in the ass to get out.
We went back to the place where the bus had dropped us off, and the bus driver (a different one) said "This is for event staff." &@#%. We walked back to our car, stopped by Wendys, and headed back to Topeka, listening to Wyatt and Stan spin this near-loss in to a good thing.
Go Cats.
