From a friend…
I never spent a weekend in Norman for a game before. Came down from Ft Riley in 1981, and drove up to Norman in 1994 and 1996, and was going to go in 2000 before I broke my hip. In all those trips I never stayed the night before the game or after the game.
Surprisingly, Norman is a lot of fun. Campus Corner is a about 3 square blocks of nothing but bars, restaurants and memorabilia/OU clothing stores. Couple of really nice sports bars, good student hangouts, bars for the older crowd, rooftop bars, etc. Right next to campus and about 4 blocks from the stadium, which you can see from there.
Bars were all packed Friday night. We went to 4 of them. Lots of fun. I was shocked at the number of NU fans. We essentially took over campus corner.
Gameday:
The four block walk to the OU stadium, nicknamed the Palace on the Prairie, is along nice small drives and through grassy areas where people tailgate. Fox Crew was set up there in the north end zone area outside. Indeed extremely nice. Walk around to the east side and you get the heisman park area, where they have statutes of all the OU Heisman winners. They have beautiful photos and murals all throughout the main concourse.
They have huge and really nice tents set up for tailgating all throughout the area outside the north end zone and northeast of the stadium. tables, chairs, furniture, OU stuff, really sharp.
The 3 club areas--west stadium traditional area, east stadium club where we sat and the new south stadium club areas and concourse are extremely nice. Built about 5-6 years ago.
The east stadium club area puts Nebraska's club (both west and east) to shame. Just at a much different/higher level. I am told the new south stadium club is even nicer. A lot more chairback seats all around than NU. The stadium feels less cramped and just more comfortable.
Gameday Presentation:
OU uses what a lot of basketball teams use, sort of a on the field MC if you will. Young, hip, talks the talk of the 18-40 crowd, introduces a good rap song, or interviews a former athlete who showed up, or will talk through a few scores during timeouts. He's energetic and keeps the crowd engaged during timeouts, downtime, etc.
OU uses a LOT of rap, hard rock, etc... for a variety of purposes. It's clear that the younger crowd loves it, especially the students and players. they play LOUD RAP up until Adrian was set and calling signals. Several times it was still playing when Adrian was moving players around.
The player introductions are really nicely done. The "there is only one....(Billy Sims, Brian Bosworth, Barry Switzer, Baker Mayfield, Mrs Selmon, etc... and then it gets to Barry Switzer, live, who growls "HELL there's only ONE Lincoln Riley....BOOMER!" and the crowd goes nuts and the players take the field to Boomer Sooner.
Respectfully, Scott held his team back until the last sounds of Boomer Sooner ended before he let his players run out onto the field.
The presentation is just more modern, younger, more hip, more lively, more....FUN. That's really the best word to describe it. It makes Nebraska's game day presentation look tired by alot. I can only imagine what an 18 year old recruit thinks who's been to both. There is a nice moment to celebrate a veteran, but it's not every quarter like at a NU game, where, as a veteran, I get almost a cheesy feeling at home games with the bordering on exploitation of the military themes of some of the stuff we do. I know we don't mean it that way, but it can feel that way at times.
I was lucky in the east stadium clubs today in 90 degree weather, we sat in shade until just the last 4 - 5 minutes of the game. It was great. Others who weren't so lucky were pretty hot. The stadium was probably 5,000 seats empty at game time. About half those were taken by halftime. But there were a couple thousand empty seats throughout though the game was announced as a sellout.
OU fans know when to get loud but I must say, there was less energy among the fans for this game than I expected, at least until the 2nd half when they realized they were in for a game and everyone had bought a beer or two (you can buy beer there at the stadium). There were multiple times, especially in the first half, where NU fans created enough noise to bother OU's offense. It was kind of neat and OU fans were a little shocked.
After the game:
After the game a short walk back to Campus Corner, where on gameday, they close down all the streets, set up beer stations up and down the streets and basic burger, hot dog and chicken sandwich grills and people just party outdoors in the streets. Outdoor tv's are set up near most intersections. Bars are jammed, too.
Not a single bad word all weekend from anyone. Friday night they had a bit of a patronizing tone but it wasn't bad. Saturday after the game, they were respectful. They knew we almost beat them.
All in all a great time. Didn't see too many people I knew except Reddozer and his wife, Frosty on Friday night and a couple of people from Dallas who came up separately but who were in the same bar we were. But the OU people were so talkative it's like you had trouble not talking to people if you wanted just to watch games, because they were so nice.
Shame we can't make that trip every other year or every 4th year.
I never spent a weekend in Norman for a game before. Came down from Ft Riley in 1981, and drove up to Norman in 1994 and 1996, and was going to go in 2000 before I broke my hip. In all those trips I never stayed the night before the game or after the game.
Surprisingly, Norman is a lot of fun. Campus Corner is a about 3 square blocks of nothing but bars, restaurants and memorabilia/OU clothing stores. Couple of really nice sports bars, good student hangouts, bars for the older crowd, rooftop bars, etc. Right next to campus and about 4 blocks from the stadium, which you can see from there.
Bars were all packed Friday night. We went to 4 of them. Lots of fun. I was shocked at the number of NU fans. We essentially took over campus corner.
Gameday:
The four block walk to the OU stadium, nicknamed the Palace on the Prairie, is along nice small drives and through grassy areas where people tailgate. Fox Crew was set up there in the north end zone area outside. Indeed extremely nice. Walk around to the east side and you get the heisman park area, where they have statutes of all the OU Heisman winners. They have beautiful photos and murals all throughout the main concourse.
They have huge and really nice tents set up for tailgating all throughout the area outside the north end zone and northeast of the stadium. tables, chairs, furniture, OU stuff, really sharp.
The 3 club areas--west stadium traditional area, east stadium club where we sat and the new south stadium club areas and concourse are extremely nice. Built about 5-6 years ago.
The east stadium club area puts Nebraska's club (both west and east) to shame. Just at a much different/higher level. I am told the new south stadium club is even nicer. A lot more chairback seats all around than NU. The stadium feels less cramped and just more comfortable.
Gameday Presentation:
OU uses what a lot of basketball teams use, sort of a on the field MC if you will. Young, hip, talks the talk of the 18-40 crowd, introduces a good rap song, or interviews a former athlete who showed up, or will talk through a few scores during timeouts. He's energetic and keeps the crowd engaged during timeouts, downtime, etc.
OU uses a LOT of rap, hard rock, etc... for a variety of purposes. It's clear that the younger crowd loves it, especially the students and players. they play LOUD RAP up until Adrian was set and calling signals. Several times it was still playing when Adrian was moving players around.
The player introductions are really nicely done. The "there is only one....(Billy Sims, Brian Bosworth, Barry Switzer, Baker Mayfield, Mrs Selmon, etc... and then it gets to Barry Switzer, live, who growls "HELL there's only ONE Lincoln Riley....BOOMER!" and the crowd goes nuts and the players take the field to Boomer Sooner.
Respectfully, Scott held his team back until the last sounds of Boomer Sooner ended before he let his players run out onto the field.
The presentation is just more modern, younger, more hip, more lively, more....FUN. That's really the best word to describe it. It makes Nebraska's game day presentation look tired by alot. I can only imagine what an 18 year old recruit thinks who's been to both. There is a nice moment to celebrate a veteran, but it's not every quarter like at a NU game, where, as a veteran, I get almost a cheesy feeling at home games with the bordering on exploitation of the military themes of some of the stuff we do. I know we don't mean it that way, but it can feel that way at times.
I was lucky in the east stadium clubs today in 90 degree weather, we sat in shade until just the last 4 - 5 minutes of the game. It was great. Others who weren't so lucky were pretty hot. The stadium was probably 5,000 seats empty at game time. About half those were taken by halftime. But there were a couple thousand empty seats throughout though the game was announced as a sellout.
OU fans know when to get loud but I must say, there was less energy among the fans for this game than I expected, at least until the 2nd half when they realized they were in for a game and everyone had bought a beer or two (you can buy beer there at the stadium). There were multiple times, especially in the first half, where NU fans created enough noise to bother OU's offense. It was kind of neat and OU fans were a little shocked.
After the game:
After the game a short walk back to Campus Corner, where on gameday, they close down all the streets, set up beer stations up and down the streets and basic burger, hot dog and chicken sandwich grills and people just party outdoors in the streets. Outdoor tv's are set up near most intersections. Bars are jammed, too.
Not a single bad word all weekend from anyone. Friday night they had a bit of a patronizing tone but it wasn't bad. Saturday after the game, they were respectful. They knew we almost beat them.
All in all a great time. Didn't see too many people I knew except Reddozer and his wife, Frosty on Friday night and a couple of people from Dallas who came up separately but who were in the same bar we were. But the OU people were so talkative it's like you had trouble not talking to people if you wanted just to watch games, because they were so nice.
Shame we can't make that trip every other year or every 4th year.
