Game day brings excitement — and obnoxiousness — to campus

Yesterday marked the day of the last first home football game of my undergraduate career, and I have to say, it was an experience to remember. Or not.

Except for a brief stint in the Six Pack the second semester of my freshman year, I've lived in Urbana for my entire university career. If there are two things that don't go together, it's Urbana and football. Generally, you would never even know a game was going on over there except for the rushes of traffic and the Peoria Charter buses shuttling people back and forth.

Now I live on First Street. I had no plans of waking up before 11 a.m., but I was woken up at 10 by cars driving down the street and people hooting and hollering in reply. Now, I'll say this before I go any farther — I don't have a problem with football in and of itself. I've been to games and I've been to all-day tailgates, and I love them both, but when you aren't planning your day around all that, it can get to be a bit much.

Things weren't that bad, though, until I tried getting on a 22 Illini later in the evening. That was a mess. Either I'm dumb or the reroute signs made no sense, because I could not figure out where that bus was going. I resorted to just walking across campus.

I had to brave a lot of orange on the way there though. Much of my family is from Wisconsin, and our high school PE shirts were orange, so the color just reminds me of sweat and deer hunting...yum.

Campus bars were a mess that night too, which seemed strange even with all the ISU kids here. THAT many more people were going out just because it was a game day? I guess.

All said, it wasn't as bad as it could have been. We go to a Big 10 school, so crazy busy football games go with the territory. It's just taken me a while to be in an area where people actually care about the game.