This is Rice Football On Homecoming Night

By Andrew Hard

Saturday's Game: Rice Owls 52, Louisiana Tech Bulldogs 14 (Rice Stadium, Houston, TX)



This wasn't a pregame shot. It wasn't an end-of-game blowout shot. And it wasn't a meaningless cupcake game against Central Directional State. No, this was a live shot during the 2nd quarter of Saturday's Conference USA matchup between the 6-3 Rice Owls and the 4-5 Louisiana Tech Bulldogs.

And ohbytheway, it was homecoming for the bowl-bound Owls. I think the blue blob-ish around the 40 yard line (behind the small tarp) is the band... I have no idea where the student section is. Maybe they were all so confident Rice would win that they just didn't show up (rightly so -- Rice won by 38)? Or they were just crushing the books in the library on a Saturday night (more likely)?

There were two places they weren't -- at this game, and at the Ginger Man pub down the street, where my wife and found ourselves in the middle of the third quarter by the time Rice had more points than fans in attendance. And if you think that this small crowd still packed a punch, think again -- when the Owls scored their third touchdown on a 30-yard toss sweep, the fans on the alumni side DIDN'T EVEN STAND UP! Apparently, anything more than a golf clap is completely inappropriate for even the most diehard Owl football fans. As far as I could tell, there weren't any.

If you're looking for a good "fan experience" at a Rice game, though, there is a positive note to this sad story: they serve beer at the stadium.

College football count: 15/123; Total count: 58/592.

--The Road to 592 is a pipe dream started by a diehard Atlanta fan trying his best to keep up with all the new stadiums (being Atlanta and all). Read up on my unending pursuit here and check out the full list of venues here. For those sick of conference realignment, you can also relish in another pipe dream of mine -- the 28-team SEC. Follow me on Twitter @andrewhard592.

Welcome to the SEC, Aggies

By Andrew Hard

Saturday's Game -- Texas A&M Aggies 56, Vanderbilt Commodores 24 (Kyle Field, College Station, TX)

Were these the only 6 Vandy fans at Kyle Field on Saturday? A survey of most A&M fans in the crowd says yes.

It's very rare for a Vanderbilt fan to have a bad time at an SEC road game. Having now seen Vanderbilt play at 9 of the 13 other stadiums in the conference, I can say that there are four good reasons for this:

1. Vandy is not very good. Opposing fans know this, and they are not threatened.

Sure, the Bobby Johnson-era days of the 'Dore mats have long since passed. Under James Franklin, Vandy rolls over much less than they used to. But make no mistake about it, this doesn't mean that the 'Dores are going into enemy territory and coming out with anything more than a moral victory and a couple of tweaked hammies. Vanderbilt's reputation precedes it, and the SEC behemoths always go into Saturday knowing that Vandy will (likely) be an easy win.

I've written before that college football fans are way nicer than NFL fans, and this applies doubly in the SEC. But ask any Alabama or Georgia or Florida fan how it feels to stroll into Knoxville for a game weekend, and they'll tell a different story. Hell, even Knoxville cops get in on the act. Last year, a couple of Missouri fans wrote about their arrest for public intoxication when they were doing nothing more than trying to find a cab home. Fans of the School Out East (like most Vandy fans, I will never use their popular two-letter moniker that rightly belongs to the Longhorns) do NOT take kindly to any perceived threat to their manhood, and this includes the crime of wearing the opposing colors of a team that MIGHT have a chance to knock off the Vols.

Even Out East, though, Vandy doesn't get this treatment (at least, not until the last couple of years). When no one expects your team to roll into town and come out with a win, they treat you well. "Aww, thanks for coming, Vandy! You guys tried so hard. We'll see you in two years to whip your ass again!" And usually, they're right.

2. Vandy does not have very many fans. It's cute to give us the far corner of the stadium, because that's all the people we bring.

Now yes, I know you're going to make jokes about how Vandy can't even out-fan opposing teams in our own stadium. I blame most of that on the student section, who can't be bothered to make their way into Sections P and Q when they'd rather be off at the frat house getting drunk and taking home some beautiful... okay yeah, I guess I get it. But when "GO DAWGS, SIC 'EM" is clearly audible on every kickoff in your own building, you know you've got a problem.

On the road? We're lucky to take up 1% of the 980,000-seat stadiums elsewhere in the SEC. To most people in the South, meeting a Vandy fan is like meeting an Arizona Cardinals fan -- you know they must be out there somewhere, and you think you may have met a friend of a friend one time who went there for business school or something, but you never really see them around. It's easy to not feel threatened by an opposing fan base that can usually fit on one or two charter buses.

3. The vast majority of Vandy fans graduated from Vandy, so they're generally smarter nicer less likely to destroy your frat house and set your car on fire.

Sorry, it's true. Unless we're talking about Vandy's own frat houses. Stay classy, SAE.

4. Vandy fans are generally more concerned with having a good time than having a good game.

At the Grove in Oxford, Ole Miss fans have a classic saying that goes something like this: "We may not win many football games, but we never lose a party."

Vandy fans will tailgate, pregame, postgame, and blackout with opposing fans because we just don't really care that much about the result of the game. Sure, we're ecstatic when the 'Dores win (if you had seen me and my buddy Jordan high-fiving Mr. Commodore on the sideline in Athens in 2006... or me and my buddy Scott drinking, well, everything after Vandy murdered The School Out East last year... or me and my buddy Pete doing likewise in Oxford last year... well, you get the point), but we also like to travel to new places and enjoy true, authentic college towns. Nashville is one of the most fun cities in the entire country. But it is not really a "college town" in the sense that Athens, Oxford, or Baton Rouge are TRUE college towns. Sometimes, it's just fun to get out and have a good time in a new place, regardless of what happens with the game.

So, how does Texas A&M fit into the Vandy-pounding checklist? Judging by last Saturday, I'd say they fit right in. We rolled into College Station for the 11:21 AM kickoff (please tell me why this seems to always happen to Vandy) at around 8 AM and started unloading our tailgate equipment next to a few A&M fans. Now when I say "tailgate equipment," bear in mind that there were only six of us, so this consisted of one small table, a tiny charcoal grill about two feet high, and a few small coolers filled with beer and breakfast tacos.

Seeing how "cute" we were, an Aggie fan in his mid-60s or so saunters over from their tailgate. "Hey, y'all want to join us?", he asks. He might as well have said, "ain't never seen a VANDY fan before!"

Just like that, the nicest people you'll ever meet were feeding us beer, giant sausages, hamburgers, all while watching College Gameday on two large flat-screens with A&M-logoed satellite dishes plugged into their giant generator. And after Johnny Football was finished treating our defense like the Napoleonic army at Waterloo, they kept partying with us well after the final buzzer.

Welcome to the SEC, Aggies. Beating up on Vandy is a decades-old tradition. Just keep inviting us to the party.

College football count: 13/123; Total count: 54/592.

Next one up: The Road to 592 is headed to Indiana next weekend to catch the worst Big Ten game of all time -- Indiana-Illinois. Colts-Rams will follow, and a lot more shenanigans promise to be in between. Follow the hashtag #bloomianapolis592 for live updates.

--The Road to 592 is a pipe dream started by a diehard Atlanta fan with a sparse history of truly great sports atmospheres (being Atlanta and all). Read up on my unending pursuit here and check out the full list of venues here. For those sick of conference realignment, you can also relish in another pipe dream of mine -- the 28-team SEC. Follow me on Twitter @andrewhard592.