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Written by: James Dailey (guest contributor)
Published: September 22, 2021
I made the long trip to State College over the weekend with my wife Abbey, my cousin, and my cousin’s wife. We flew into Baltimore, Maryland on Friday and stayed in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Friday night.
In Baltimore, we ate brunch at The Mills. It was good, but parking was ridiculous. The only public parking we could find was $30!
Once in PA, we went to Hershey Chocolate World. We got there late, so all the tours and stuff were closed. We just shopped and bought a bunch of chocolate.
We went to the state capital in Harrisburg; cool building. It was too late for a tour, so we went to several breweries, some cool places.
Saturday morning, we got up at 7 to make the trip to Happy Valley in the absolute middle of nowhere. State College is by far the most ‘college town’ I’ve ever seen. It’s just in the middle of nowhere and all they have is the college. Auburn is always called a college town, but it’s a metropolis compared to State College.
We went to College Gameday on Saturday; kind of disappointing. With all the hype, I thought it’d be packed, but compared to previous College Gamedays I’ve been to in Auburn, it was three-quarters capacity at most, and probably closer to half capacity.
We explored campus and the downtown area for several hours and ate at the famous creamery on campus. They are an agricultural school known for their food sciences program. We waited in line or 45 minutes to get ice cream; totally worth it. It was by far the best ice cream I’ve ever had.
We spent some time walking around Penn State tailgates. The older fans seemed nice and were very welcoming. The younger, college-aged kids were… typical college kids, talking a whole bunch of crap. One thing I don’t understand is any time Auburn plays anybody, opposing fans always just yell at Auburn people, “Roll Tide!” So stupid.
We also stumbled upon all the Auburn tailgaters, probably more than 5,000 of them. There was a tent with the Alabama/Florida game, so we watched some of that before heading to the stadium.
Getting into the game was an absolute disaster; 110,000 fans going through four gates. And each of the four gates had maybe eight metal detectors and 12 ticket takers. Just an absolute cluster.
The stadium itself was very nice, old and small concourses but retrofitted just enough to handle the crowd. My wife and I sat in a 100% Penn State section. The fans didn’t give us any trouble.
The hype about Penn State white out… the visual was awesome. So many people dressed in white. The orange specks really stood out. I’d say there were probably around 15,000 Auburn fans in attendance.
The crowd noise… all Auburn heard all week is that it was gonna be noise like Auburn has never experienced – definitely not true. I’ve been to The Swamp, Death Valley at LSU, Death Valley at Clemson, Kyle Field at Texas A&M, Sanford Stadium at Georgia, Davis-Wade Stadium at Mississippi State, and of course Jordan-Hare at Auburn well over 100 times. All were louder, considerably louder.
For the first three quarters, my wife and I could have a normal conversation at a normal volume. During the fourth quarter we had to raise our voices a bit, but Bo Nix never had to go to a silent count and was able to relatively easily communicate with everyone on the field.
Auburn had two false starts, and only one could be attribute to noise level. There’ve been times at LSU or The Swamp where Auburn would be in a silent count the entire game and get upwards of five or six false starts due to crowd noise. During the 2013, 2017, and 2019 Iron Bowls in Auburn, there were points in a game where, even when yelling at full volume, you were unable to hear the person sitting next to you. The noise level was just any other SEC game.
For the game itself, number 5 for Penn State is gonna be a stud in the NFL, an absolute PPR machine. There were two plays that changed the outcome of the game in my opinion. The first play of the second half was a reverse wide receiver throw, in which the receiver just fumbled the ball leading to an easy Penn State touchdown. The second turning point was the targeting penalty; I don’t know how you’re supposed to play defense in this day and age when you can get thrown out for trying to stop a runner from scoring. That call left Auburn without its best defensive player for nearly a quarter and a half. On the third down play from the 4 after the targeting, the young linebacker was out of position, and Zaxoby McClain would have almost undoubtedly been in position for the stop. Also, fades are the worst plays. They are so stupid.
Penn State was the better team, but Auburn showed fight. Penn State should be a 9 or 10-win team. Auburn should get 8 wins, maybe a 9th.
We made it back to our Airbnb in Harrisburg at 2:30 in the morning after the game, took a flight out of BWI just before noon, and made it home around 5. This was our second time through BWI; it’s a really nice airport, easy to get around.
It was a long weekend for sure, but a fun, once in a lifetime trip. I would’ve loved a win, but I’m glad I did it; won’t do it again though, hahaha.
We’re starting to plan our trip for when Auburn plays at Cal-Berkeley in 2023. We want to make it a bi-annual tradition, so we’ll plan to hit up Baylor in 2025, the Rose Bowl in 2027 when Auburn plays UCLA, and Miami when Auburn plays there in 2029.
I love home and home series so that we can get to experience new things. Neutral site games are such a waste, you don’t get to experience any of the other team’s culture and traditions.
We walked a total of 8.9 miles on gameday.
WAR DAMN EAGLE!!!
On college referees (or referees in general)
Referees had a bad weekend. SEC refs had horrible blunders in two games. In the Auburn game, the refs made Penn State punt on third down. In the Mississippi State game, the refs allowed a touchdown to happen on a downed punt.
I’m a high school referee. We preach two main things: never let a team play with 12 and never steal a down from a team.
For the Penn State situation to happen, eight on-field refs let it happen. There are times in high school games where the down marker box will show an incorrect down, or the announcer will announce an incorrect down. That should never influence the refs. Sometimes it does, but as soon as one ref realizes there may be a mistake, all on-field refs will get together and have a discussion. They’ll play back every play of the series in their heads. If it takes a two-minute conversation to fix it, fix it. Don’t steal a down. That’s what we do in high school. The crew in the Penn State game noticed something may be awry, but only three officials got together to discuss. All eight refs should have gotten together and if one disagreed, college has the option to go to the replay booth. We have the technology… USE IT! High school officials don’t have that luxury. Just poorly mismanaged.
The Mississippi State situation was a little different. By rule, the ball was still live and was returnable by Memphis. However, the covering official gave the hand signal to kill the play. It was inadvertent and shouldn’t have happened, but since it did the ball is dead where the play was inadvertently killed; simple as that. The ref made a mistake and killed the play early. It happens. It sucks, but it happens. The issue is that the other officials let the play continue and then the replay booth didn’t even review it. That’s a reviewable play and review would have clearly shown that the ball was dead as soon as the referee made the inadvertent signal.
Refereeing is at a critical stage. It’s not just an NFL thing or a college thing. It’s all the way down to the high school, junior high, and middle school levels. There’s an official shortage unlike any ever seen. Officials are hard to find. Good officials are impossible to find. Starting in middle school, referees make maybe 50 to 75 bucks a game and often have to travel upwards of an hour or two to call a game, all while taking off work. While at the game, referees get berated by the fans nonstop for four quarters. It doesn’t really make you want to keep coming back. You can only take so much berating before you just decide to stay home.
The higher the level gets, the more the berating you take. It gets to people. When you are told you are shitty at your job for three hours a week, why would you keep doing it? So, referees are quitting at an alarming rate. Even at higher levels, refs make between 75 and 100 bucks a game, still have to travel, and we don’t get compensated for gas or food and, in many cases, have gotten no supplies to help fight Covid. Masks, gloves, electronic whistles, and hand sanitizer are all bought out-of-pocket. All uniforms are out-of-pocket, as well. A high school ref can make between 1,500 and 2,000 bucks a year, minus between 250 and 500 in expenses. It doesn’t really make all the yelling and berating worth it.
Good middle school refs can become great middle school refs. Great middle school refs are good junior varsity refs. Good junior varsity refs can become great junior varsity refs. Great junior varsity refs are good high school refs. Good high school refs can become great high school refs. Great high school refs are good college refs. Good college refs can become great college refs. Great college refs are good NFL refs. Good NFL refs can become great NFL refs.
It’s a trickle-up system. It starts at the middle school level, and that is where the greatest shortage is.
I love being a ref. I don’t do it for the money, I do it for the love of the game. I’d like to consider myself a good high school ref. I’m not perfect. I blow my whistle inadvertently sometimes. I miss pass interference. I miss holding. I miss blocks in the back. As soon as a ref realizes they’ve made a mistake, it’s a horrible feeling. It happens maybe once a game if you’re lucky. You replay the play in your head and realize you blew a call. You may have ruined someone’s Friday night. Coaches can complain, referees can take it. We’re willing to take berating that is deserved. There should be consequences when mistakes are made.
The problem is when the berating occurs on every play. They want an offside on every play, they want a holding on every play, every pass is a pass interference, every hit is illegal. Coaches want everything. When you spend three hours a week getting berated and chirped for a couple extra spending bucks, refs quit. Good refs quit because of maybe one bad call hanging over their head. All it would take is one more week of game action for that ref to understand the rules that much better, one more week to become great.
Referees should be held more and more accountable the higher the level. The two referee crews from the SEC that made blatant mistakes last week are suspended this week. SEC refs make around $5000 a game, so it’s a major penalty. They are not going to be allowed to call the better bowl games. It’s a big deal. They probably deserve it.
Referees should have to answer to media in college and the NFL. It would help alleviate some of the issues. If the head ref that made Penn State punt on third down had to talk to the media after the game, it’d put a name to the face. It’d show accountability. It’d show that the referee feels absolutely terrible for making a mistake. Nobody is perfect. Nobody can be perfect. There are 22 players on the field. High school used five refs, college used eight, the NFL uses seven. Refs have so much to focus on, things are missed.
I’m a back judge on my crew. As soon as a play is over, I have to look at the play clock to make sure it is started properly. If it’s not started properly, I have to use a watch on my hand to get it correctly set. I then have to count and make sure there are 11 players on defense. I have to look at the line judge or the head linesman and confirm with them that there are 11 players. I then have to make sure I’m 15 yards away from the ball. Then I have to shade to the wide side of the field, then find the second receiver on the wide side of the field – he’s my key. I then have to look at the play clock and make sure there is no delay of game. This all happens within the 40-second play clock. If we are lucky, the team snaps the ball with under 10 seconds on the play clock, meaning we had 30 seconds to get all this accomplished. If we are unlucky, a team is running hurry-up and we may only have 10 seconds to get all this done, then the ball is snapped. I have to watch my key and make sure he's not being held, make sure there is no false start, make sure there is no contact after five yards. Then I have to cover my zone, the general area 10 yards from the ball all the way to the end zone, looking for holds against anybody, blocks in the back, pass interference, anything imaginable. Then, when the ball gets in my area, I’m responsible for the ball carrier until the end zone. Then I have to observe the tackle, make sure everything is legal. Then the whistle is blown and the 40-second play clock is started and we restart the entire process. We do this more than 100 times a game. Mistakes will be made.
Sorry for the long diatribe…
On college football
No team is unbeatable.
The SEC is wide open; Alabama is not going to run away with it this year. Georgia, Florida, Texas A&M, and Mississippi all have a shot at winning the conference.
The Big XIII is not strong.
The ACC is just Clemson, and Clemson isn’t very good. Their offensive line is holding back their offense, and without an offense it’s hard to go very far.
The PAC-12 is just Oregon, and Oregon doesn’t play anybody else this year. They have a real shot.
The Big 10 is wide open. Iowa may be the leader because of their defense. Ohio State is never out of it, but their offense needs to make massive improvements. Penn State may be really good.
Cincinnati may finally be a Group of 5 team to make the playoffs. If they go undefeated, they will have enough of a resume to make the Final 4.
On the NFL
I didn’t watch much this week; I was traveling most of Sunday.
Lamar Jackson is good. I don’t know why people think the NFL had him figured out. Well, I have an idea… but people need to stop sleeping on him.
Patty Mahomes is just unbeleavable. They need to fix their running game issues if they want to make it back to the Super Bowl.
The Packers are not in trouble. One bad game doesn’t define a season. They have a Top 5 RB, a Top 5 WR, and Aaron Rodgers. And they play in a terrible division. Unless there is just a complete and utter failure, they will win the division. And I’ll take Aaron Rodgers in the playoffs over almost anybody. They just have to get lucky with Tom Brady.
GO PACK GO!!!
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