My Top 10 Favorite
College Football Game
I've Attended
I saw a great Division III college football game today at the University of Dubuque. (Al, in case you went to it, I decided to go at the last minute when another thing we were going to do didn't happen.) The UD lost to Wartburg, 42-39. It got me to thinking about my most memorable college football games. Most were games I covered as a sports journalist.
1. Wisconsin 21, UCLA 16: The 1994 Rose Bowl. It couldn't get much better than this, unless I somehow could attend an almost impossible National Championship Game involving Wisconsin.
2. N.C. State 28, Iowa 23: The 1988 Peach Bowl in Atlanta. The same paper as No. 1, the Dubuque Telegraph-Herald, sent me to cover this. Quite an experience.
3. Iowa 27, Wisconsin 21: My son, Shawn, and I went to Madison without tickets on Nov. 22, 2003 - just a few months after his mom died of breast cancer. A Badgers Hall of Fame member gave us two tickets on the 35 yard line.
4. Missouri 24, Army 10: On the first weekend of Sept. 1981, I had sideline passes to shoot photos of this game for the Fulton Daily Herald. My first ever big-time college football coverage assignment.
5. Brigham Young, 47, Baylor 13: Early Sept. 1984, I covered this game (and two others) for the Idaho Falls Post-Register. BYU went on to be named the top team in the nation that season.
6. Ohio State 62, Wisconsin 7: On Nov. 8, 1969, my dad, grandpa and I (age 12) went to see my first ever Big Ten football game. Camp Randall was huge. The result didn't matter - too much.
7. Idaho 45, Idaho State 42: On Nov. 10, 1984, I covered this wild game in the dome in Moscow, Idaho - a few hours after covering Idaho Falls High at Couer d'Alene in a playoff game. (Long, long day.)
8. Air Force 38, Utah 15: My friend Vic, from Denver, invited me out to visit in 1985 and we went to this game in Colorado Springs. Beautiful setting, not much of a game.
9. Ricks College vs. Snow College: I couldn't find the exact score, but I covered several of Ricks' high-scoring Junior College games in Rexburg, Idaho, in 1983. It was a feeder school for BYU.
10. Wartburg 42, Dubuque 39: Today's game was very exciting as the Spartans continue to see a resurgence in not only football, but as a universisty as well.
We shut off the combine and drove over for the game. It was a battle. The Spartans weren't as sharp as they had been and Wartburg slipped a "L" on them, just barely. Good, hard-nosed football battle in the most scenically-spectacular stadium in America.
ReplyDeleteIf I had to come up with another game it'd be any of those when Billy Marek was playing for the Badgers. The kid was amazing. He'd ram up into a pile of guys and emerge, legs churning, from it to tear off a big gainer. He was special.
This is how they summed it up at UWBadgers.com:
"...The 5-foot-8 Marek carried the ball only once as a freshman at the UW, then put together three consecutive 1,200-yard seasons. In danger of falling shy of 1,000 yards in 1974 after missing nearly three full games with injuries, Marek rushed for 704 yards in the final three games, including 304 and five touchdowns in a 49-14 rout of Minnesota. His play earned him Sports Illustrated's national offensive back of the week honors...."