Note from Jake: Building the Dam Nation, I would like to introduce you to "Beavers415", who will be writing on Building the Dam from time to time. He would like to tell you a little bit about himself. Continue after the break to access the story that the headline above suggests.
As a die hard Beaver fan who moved to San Francisco after graduating from OSU and then relocated to Seattle earlier this year, I have found it tough to casually discuss with local sports fans about my favorite teams. So in order to keep my fiance from going insane by talking her ear off about recruiting classes and spring games, I started writing on a blog called That Guy Sports (www.thatguysports.blogspot.com). Not only do I cover OSU sports, but my other favorite teams and our own award "That Guy of the Week." This award, and a lot of my blog, basically rags on the establishment and tries to weed through the BS that is our mainstream media (ESPN). But mainly it is just my perspective on sports.
But when it comes to college football I take it more seriously. The past two years I have written my own CFB preview (this year I predicted all 119 teams) and I will start submitting my own top 25 in a couple more weeks when we really know who the good teams are. I do this because I am sick of the established press pushing the stereotypical powerhouses on us and I would rather take a chance with a team like South Florida then BS the reason on why Miami or Notre Dame will be good this year. I call it how I see it and I want to be as objective as possible. Even with my beloved Beavs.
I hope you can all enjoy my work that will be posted here at Building the Dam. This week I wrote up my experience in State College from this past week. I tended not to focus on the game but make a point to tell the story of what made traveling to this road game so much fun. Since I am a season ticket holder and plan on traveling to UCLA later this year, I will continue to give you my stories and hopefully some good news on what is happening on the field starting this week against the Rainbow Warriors.
GO BEAVS!
-Beavers415
How many years is it going to take before OSU wins an out-of-conference game on the road? Better yet, how long is it going to take before they play a competitive game OOC game on the road? Other then Hawaii in 2006, which was at the end of the season, it seems like Mike Riley cannot get the troops off on the right foot to start the season.
But I am sick and tired of trying to explain why the Beavs cannot win a big game on the road to start the season. I'd rather focus on what I would say was one of the best college football road trips I've ever experienced (minus the 45-14 ass whooping).
It All Starts in Our Nation's Capital
Five of us took red eyes from the West Coast on Thursday night and met up at Dulles International Airport Friday morning. River and I travelled from Seattle, Seth and Greg from San Diego, and Brett from the LBC. Which brings us to our first pro of the trip.
Pro: This is a shout out to our friends Greg and Ethan (who showed up from NYC on Saturday morning) who are not even Oregon State alums but who rocked the orange and black in support of the Beavers. Even better, Greg is an Ohio State fan and Ethan Southern Cal. See folks, everybody loves a Beaver.
Our friend Jason who was in DC the night before picked us up at the airport in a rented minivan and started our road portion of the trip in style rocking five Beaver flags and an old glory. As far as we are concerned we set a record for most OSU flags on a single vehicle in the states of Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.
After a long drive winding through the Appalachian Mountains of SE Pennsylvania, which included stops at the Battle of Antietam and an unexpected side trip to the set of the film Deliverance, we arrive in Happy Valley. Which brings us to our first con of this trip.
Con: Purchasing Alcohol in the State of Pennsylvania.
I know that some states don't allow you to purchase liquor from regular supermarkets and such, but what state restricts you from purchasing beer at a "wine and spirits" store. Things like this make me miss BevMo in California.
After Bret and Greg spent an hour searching for beer for our Friday night prefunc, I symbolically started off the drinking in Happy Valley by shotgunning a 16 oz of Keystone. It hurt so good.
(it should be noted that the real reason I shotgunned this beer is because I lost a bet with the smartest guy in the car).
So after consuming a good amount of alcohol that might has well been bootlegged from West Virginia, we headed to our first stop of the night in State College at a bar called Rathskeller. Here we were greeted by our first group, of what will become many, very friendly Penn State fans.
Pro: Penn State Fans
It didn't matter where we went. We always ran into a ton of very friendly Penn State fans. The most frequent question of the weekend was "are you having a good time in State College?" After a while it got annoying having to tell everybody, "yes, we are having the time of our life (I'll tough on more of this later in the blog).
After a visit to down the road to the Sports Cafe, where we met more friendly Penn State fans which included the owner of the bar, we called it a night in preparation of what we were confidently predicting a very competitive football game. Other then the jackass who wasn't even going to the game the next day, most PSU fans agreed with us that it would be a "knock them out-drag them out" type game. Ohhh, were we all fooled.
The next day we would all eat crow with our inaccurate prediction. Who would have thought we could be so wrong after consuming 5-20 beers?
Game Day
I set the alarm for 7:30am. We woke up at 9:00am.....
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