I know I sparred with a few of you prior to the game but it was all in good fun and thought I would give a somewhat in-depth trip report about my recent visit to your part of the world.
My family flew into Kansas City a little before noon the day of the game and rented a car to drive out to Manhattan. The drive wasn't much. About what I expected. Maybe not quite as flat as I had envisioned, but I hear if you go not too much further in just about any direction and it gets a lot more "Kansas-like". There were also modestly more trees than I expected. Topeka wasn't much (especially after the game, more on that later). The "Flint Hills" I believe it was looked more like rolling plains but was still reasonably scenic. I did get a kick out of a place to take pictures between I-70 and Manhattan. It wasn't THAT scenic, but I suppose relatively speaking it was at a nice elevation.
Parked right in front of Rock-a-belly's and went in. We all had a couple beers and a sandwich along with the other 2 dozen or so Auburn fans we were meeting. Nothing to write home about, but my reuben was good enough and we were starving. While there, David Price showed up to the bar and naturally a few people were starstruck but from what I gather he is a semi-regular fixture around KState so it wasn't that big of a deal.
We decided to walk to the stadium from Aggieville just because we wanted to see the campus. It was nice, but a bit spread out. Seemed like there was almost too much green space between buildings. It made the walk awfully long (close to 2 miles, but we knew that going in). I liked how a lot of the buildings had a castle-looking architecture to it, including what looked like a baseball field under construction(??? only saw this at night and didn't mind it much attention). There were also what looked like relatively new student housing near the stadium which looked nice.
The tailgating scene is not like it is on most SEC campuses, but it was adequate. Perhaps the fact the game was on Thursday trimmed down on some of the tailgating festivities... perhaps it was just the size of the stadium or that it was all in very specific areas close to the stadium and not spread out over miles and miles, but it just seemed smaller than what I'm used to (but I expected that).
The game itself was about what I expected, although I expected both teams to score more points. They both certainly had their opportunities. Kansas State did a good job in not letting the game get out of hand despite their miscues (especially in the first half) because they were very good on 3rd down (early in the game). Auburn had some curious playcalling and personnel decisions late in the drive they had to go up 20-7 when I really thought Gus outthought himself and if we just play Auburn football we go up 24-7 and effectively end the game. But then again, gotta trust the guy you say are geniuses and pay millions of dollars a year to do this.
After the game, walked back to Rock-a-belly's which seemed twice as long after the game as before, but at least the weather was comfortable and we had won.
Before the game most people were friendly and welcoming to us, and after it, it seemed like the Kansas State fans could do little more than poke fun at their own misfortune. Didn't hang out at the bar too long after the game (but thank you to the KState fan who bought my dad and I a couple shots of Jameson) because we had to get back to Kansas City and were, again, starving.
We stopped at Steak n Shake in Topeka but it was slammed and my family was unwilling to wait, so we ended up at Denny's. Basically the same thing but we stuck it out, and an hour later got a pretty poor meal. But hey, it was Denny's and they were understaffed
You would think fast food restaurants in Topeka by the interstate would know there is a night game in Manhattan and plan their staffs accordingly. The staffs seemed so surprised but seems pretty predictable if you ask me, no?
Had my cousin's wedding on Saturday in Kansas City, MO, which was a blast and got to head out to the Power & Light District in KC which was a lot of fun. We were in a big courtyard with loud music and a bunch of bars nearby. All-around a very fun night which ended in an Uber ride back to the hotel, after a stop through the Burger King drive through
tl;dr review of the city and game. generally liked the town, people and campus. thought both teams played poorly and was happy to see auburn get away with a win with a poor performance.
