Posted: August 4, 2014
As the calendar turns to August, it is time to get primed for the upcoming college football season. It has been some time since I have posted, but that does not mean that things have been quiet here at the College Football Quest.
We have constructed a 2014 schedule that takes us to some destinations that have been prominent on our list since the inception of the quest. The schedule carefully factors the Florida Gator’s schedule as well as the prime consideration of avoiding northern destinations too late in the year.
We start with Jarrett’s family outing to Gainesville as the Florida Gators take on the Idaho Vandals. The kids will go to their first Gator game. This game was chosen for two reasons a) the kids do not start school until Wednesday after Labor Day allowing us to travel home late Sunday without impacting school and b) I can afford to take the kids to a game since Idaho does not command premium pricing. The kids are highly excited. They have been to Gainesville before, but this will be their first game. They do not know what they are in for. Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere Come the Gators!
The true quest schedule continues at the end of September with a trip to the Big House. The large Big Ten schools have always been at the forefront of desired venues and this year we will be taking in Minnesota at Michigan. It is not coincidental that Michigan is a September trip.
The quest continues at the end of October with a trip to LSU. Another venue that has been very high on our list, we will see the Ole Miss Rebels at LSU. We will be sneaking in an extra day to party in New Orleans before heading to Baton Rouge. That was an opportunity we could not pass up. One of the difficulties of quest planning is that game times are never known when we set the schedule. C’mon night game!
We conclude the 2014 schedule at the end of November in Houston. Again, it is not a coincidence we go north early in the year and then work our way south. This is a double header trip as Friday we see UTEP at Rice and then Saturday it is Tulsa at Houston. It is very nice when the schedules cooperate and we can do these easy double headers.
The 2014 schedule has us very excited. The summer has been spent making travel plans, researching our destinations, and many other preparations. No other year has proved as challenging and costly in terms of air travel and hotels. The airlines just do not have the inexpensive flights we have been able to find in previous years and for the entire summer there were no price drop to these locations, and I looked every day. A lot goes into making the travel arrangements and it is quite time consuming, but the time is worth it to try to get the best plan and travel that we can.
Now that we are in August, things will begin to ramp up. Look for the regular blog posts to begin shortly. I am working on my preseason predictions and I need to defend my streak of correctly predicting the National Champion as I had Florida State last year.
As always, feel free to contact us with any comments, questions, travel suggestions, or anything else. We love connecting with college football fans and if we are coming to you, let us know, we would love to meet you!