Game 68: Eastern Michigan Eagles @ Ohio Bobcats

Travel
A midweek MACtion trip to Athens, Ohio had me leaving on a Tuesday afternoon flight from Fort Lauderdale to Columbus, Ohio. There were no direct flights from West Palm, hence the trip down to FLL. But before we get to that, I should mention that a quick look at the weather forecast for Athens on a Wednesday night in November led to the packing of cold weather gear. This was to be expected. But what was not expected was that this was the third Quest trip of the year that required cold weather gear. This is very poor planning by the folks at Quest HQ and Jarrett is not very happy about this. We are going to have to make sure next year that this does not happen. Jimmy, I mean Jarrett, can handle one cold game a year, MAX. And that is typically reserved for these MACtion games in November. The Quest intern is going to get fired if this happens again.

The trip to Fort Lauderdale was uneventful and there was no line at TSA Precheck at the airport. See Sergio, no Clear needed for $200 a year. A quick Auntie Anne’s pretzel later and I was on my way to Columbus.

Columbus to Athens was about 75 minutes on a non interstate road. We arrived in Athens and checked into the hotel. We stayed at the Ohio Inn and Conference Center which was selected because of its location being just off the campus. When I booked it, it appeared as if part of the hotel had rooms that were inside but that part of the hotel had motel style rooms with doors leading to the parking lot. This would violate a cardinal rule of Quest hotels, which is that doors must open to a hallway and not outside. But I opted for location and decided to take a chance. What I did not expect was that my reading on this hotel was wrong. Our room had BOTH a door that opened to a hallway AND a door that opened to the outside. This was a first time I have ever seen that before. And quite frankly, I do not know what to do with that. First, does this violate the rule? Second, I do not know what to feel about that. I have stayed in much worse hotels than this, much worse. It was certainly nicer than your typical “motel” room. Maybe not quite as nice as where we typically stay, but not really too big a step below. But the location was great and the hotel had great amenities, namely a bar and very good restaurant. So all that being said, it was a good place to stay and if I was in Athens again for a game, I would definitely stay there again. So that means something. And nothing could be worse than booking a bed and breakfast, Brett.

Dinner
Since it was on the later side, the front desk recommended that we not venture out to try to find someplace open for dinner, but rather eat at the restaurant at the hotel. He said it was pretty good and he knew it would still be open. It was not self-serving at all. But Al checked it out and it looked good. So the place was called Cutler’s and we ate in the bar area so we could see the games on tv. We both went with the onion soup and a steak. They also served a pretty good cider. The onion soup was excellent. I think Al’s filet steak was much better than my ribeye as I was not impressed by the steak. The vibe in the place was nice as there was a lot of activity, as it seemed there were a lot of people in the hotel for the game the next day.

• The Ohio University campus had many people on it. Unlike some other schools we visit where we do not see any students, at Ohio we saw lots of students.  And not because it was a Wednesday.  This campus was alive.
• The Ohio University campus is very nice.  It will probably not make the rankings of Top 5 nicest campuses, but it is still an incredibly nice campus.  And downtown Athens is a nice walkable area with nice shops and restaurants.  But there are a lot of hills.
• We entered an off campus Starbucks so that Al could do his usual thing.  After about 5 minutes, Al asked me if I noticed anything unusual about this Starbucks.  I looked around and said holy shit.  There were about 50 women and other than us, one other guy was in the store.  This led to a discussion about what we had seen during the day and what the male/female ratio at the school was.  We looked it up and Ohio is 62% female.  That is staggering.  At other schools when ratios seem off, it is in the neighborhood of 55%.  To be at 62%, this has to be one of the most skewed ratios in the country.  Men take note. The following addition is Al’s and Al’s alone.  I take no responsibility and all letters and threats should be sent directly to Al. Here goes…The street had lots of women owned businesses, including a pizzeria with two women working in it. I know this is an iffy subject to discuss, but seriously, I have never walked into a pizza parlor in New York that was all women. Interesting. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
• I could not make my usual purchase of a shot glass because Ohio University has forbidden local vendors from selling shot glasses with the school logo on it.  That will certainly stop kids from drinking and using shot glasses.  Because as we all know, banning something will stop college kids from using it.  And those Athens, Ohio shot glasses are just no substitute.  Thanks to the internet, I had an Ohio logo shot glass less than a week after arriving home.  Good policy.
• We entered a campus building because we wanted a snack and Al saw a sign for a cafe.  Immediately I said that I have been here before.  It was not a weird out of body experience.  I have been to this campus before when my daughter was looking at colleges.  I then saw the athletic training department signs and then realized that I had meetings with administrators with my daughter in this building.  The things you remember. Granted it was only like 6 years ago, but still, I can’t remember yesterday.
• The Ohio Bobcat athletic administration was unable to accommodate our request for credentials and a tour because we provided too late notice of our arrival.  Given that we announced our schedule back in the spring and we have a pretty good routine for how we do this by now, that just does not sound right.  Sounds more like an excuse.  But ok.  We found the ticket window while walking around and purchased a club level seat that had an indoor section where we could go to escape any cold if needed.  More on this later.  
• The football stadium was not locked up tight.  So long as you were willing to ignore a sign that said do not enter, we were able to walk right in and onto the field.  This was quite the contrast to the military style barricades they were erecting to keep vehicles out of the parking lots close to the stadium.  
• We grabbed a bit of lunch in the school cafeteria.  It was quite good, unlike a lot of schools.  They had a food bazaar with stations serving different types of foods that all actually looked quite good.  And they also had a bakery serving desserts.  Kudos.
• Sometime during the day I spotted an Ohio Equestrian shirt.  Which means…Ohio has equestrian.  Ever since our trip to Baylor, equestrian has been somewhat of a niche sport for us on the Quest.  So we google mapped it to the Ohio University equestrian facility which was about 10 minutes away.  Alas, it was on a two lane, almost dirt road and had a locked gate that would not allow us to pass and it was too far up the road to walk.  But on our way, we passed a vineyard.  We did not realize that Ohio was known for its vineyards, but on the way back we stopped.  The vineyard did not open for another 30 minutes but Al did get a full briefing from the owner.  It was soup night and they were busy prepping so we could not get in before they opened and time would have been too tight to stay. Oh well.  I will have to put Ohio on my vineyard tour list.

Pre Game Meal

After the walkabout and all the in town activities, we returned to the hotel to change and get ready for the game.  

First, we headed to the hotel bar for some dinner before the game.  The bar was very crowded with fans all headed to the game, and it was mostly Ohio fans. I think there was only one table of Eastern Michigan fans.

I opted for the onion soup again, since it was so good the night before. And we both had burgers.  The burgers were very good.  Much better than the steak the night before.  Excellent onion soup and excellent burgers.  Based on that, I recommend eating at this bar.  Plus, the place was full of rowdy fans headed to the game having a great time.  A perfect environment to get ready for a football game.

Pre Game

After dinner, we headed to the room to layer up.  After that was done we headed out to walk to the stadium.  This was one of the primary advantages of this hotel…walking distance to the stadium.  It was a short 10-15 minutes (as opposed to a long 10-15 minutes which would actually take the same amount of time) and we arrived at Peden Stadium.  Unless you crossed timezones, to which you’d have to walk an hour and 15 minutes.

After our usual walk around and tour of the stadium, we found our seats in the Tower Club.  As I mentioned earlier, when we purchased these seats, we were told that there was an indoor area, with concessions.  Now the truth of the matter is that the seats in the Tower Club are nice seats. They are comfortable and my only issue with the actual seats is that the incline is very shallow making it hard to see over the row in front of you.  However, the big issue is that the inside area is literally three people deep and not climate controlled.  It is literally a concession stand where you can buy the same lousy food as down below and offers no respite from any weather, not even rain because the Tower Club is actually under an overhang so you would not get wet at your actual seat if it were raining.  C’mon Ohio, you have to do better with this.

The Game

Onto the game where both of us pick Ohio.

The game started slowly for both teams as neither team could find its offensive rhythm and both teams struggled to convert third downs.  Ohio had the best opportunity to score, having a 31 yard field goal blocked in the middle of the quarter.

EMU got on the board first, opening the 2Q finishing off an 85 yard TD drive with an 18 yard TD pass.  Two drives later, Ohio started on its 5 yard line and after completions of 21,34 and 31 yards, Ohio was able to run the ball in for the tying TD.  After the teams traded punts, EMU had something going before EMU was picked off deep in Ohio territory.  Ohio was able to cash the ensuing drive in for a 75 yard TD drive and a 14-7 halftime lead.

Neither team could get anything going offensively after the break, but on EMU’s second drive of the half, Cole Snyder was picked off giving Ohio a short field.  Parker Navarro needed one play to scramble 25 yards to extend the Ohio lead to 21-7.  EMU then went on a 16 play drive consuming just under 8 minutes but stalled at the Ohio 11 yard line and had to settle for a field goal to cut the Ohio lead to 21-10.

Ohio took the ensuing kickoff and drove the length of the field and extended the lead to 28-10.  Any hope of an EMU comeback ended when Cole Snyder fumbled the first snap of the next drive which was recovered by Ohio at the EMU 19.  Six plays later, Ohio led 35-10, which was where the game would end.  

Parker Navarro, QB for Ohio, finished the game with 277 passing yards and 109 rushing yards and 4 rushing touchdowns.

It should be noted that during the game the fire alarm in the Tower Club seating area went off and it took about 20 minutes for the audible alarm to be silenced while it took about an hour for the flashing light to be turned off.  Fire trucks did respond.  Nobody flinched.  If there was a real fire or emergency, we would all be dead.

Travel Back

We arose on Thursday and drove back to Columbus from Athens.  Surprisingly, there were no issues returning the car and with travel of any kind.  I returned home without incident and the Sunpass even worked at the quick exit at Fort Lauderdale airport.

One side note, the woman that Al and I spoke to on the car rental shuttle bus at the Columbus airport going to get our car, was on my flight going back to Fort Lauderdale.  I realized this when I asked if the aisle seat in the emergency row was taken (it was Southwest) and she was in the seat next to it and we both looked at each other and realized we had spoken in Columbus.  We had a brief conversation and concluded we were right behind each other on the flight to Columbus because she was directly in front of Brady Quinn and I told her I was next to him. She remarked that all her friends told her “That must not have sucked”.

Postscript

EMU finished the season 5-7, 2-6 in the MAC.

Ohio finished the regular season 9-3, 7-1 in the MAC which tied Miami (Oh) for first place. Ohio lost to Miami 30-20 in the regular season, but the teams matched up again in the MAC Championship game with the Bobcats dominating to win the MAC title 38-3.  The Bobcats reward was a game against Jacksonville State in the Cure Bowl, which the Bobcats won 30-27. 

Photo Gallery

For our Ohio photo album, Please click here. You can view as a collage or run as a slideshow. There are comments to explain what is in the photo but most are self explanatory. Thanks to Google, I can no longer embed the slide show with comments.