The Purdue Boilermakers, kick off their 2024 gridiron campaign today, starting a new era of Big Ten football with new member Oregon coming to town in October, for just their third visit to Ross-Ade Stadium. Now that Danny has graduated, my game attendance is likely to trickle back down to the once every couple of years pace I was on before he matriculated after attending an all-time high five games last fall. That said, it’s time to take a look at the results of the now 32 college football games I have attended since the 1993 season, covering six different stadiums in a whopping three states, including one bowl game.
All-Time Team Records
| University | Won | Loss | Winning Pctg |
|---|---|---|---|
| Syracuse Orange | 1 | 0 | 1.000 |
| Penn State Nittany Lions | 2 | 0 | 1.000 |
| Ohio State Buckeyes | 1 | 0 | 1.000 |
| Wisconsin Badgers | 1 | 0 | 1.000 |
| Louisiana State Tigers | 1 | 0 | 1.000 |
| Notre Dame Fighting Irish | 4 | 1 | 0.800 |
| Purdue Boilermakers | 19 | 11 | 0.633 |
| Northern Illinois Huskies | 1 | 1 | 0.500 |
| Illinois Fighting Illini Continue reading → |
My selections here are mostly chalk, with a couple early upsets but with the top four seeds heading to the Sweet Sixteen. Iowa State is my pick to advance to the Final Four.
Following a tournament filled with upsets, more history was made last weekend when the last two number one seeds fell, leaving the Elite Eight without a single number one seed for the first time ever. My Final Four predictions are all completely toast, so there’s nothing left for me this weekend. If anything, wrapping up the tournament will be a detriment to my fan experience, since it means Gene Honda will be in Houston Monday rather than at Guaranteed Rate Field for the home opener.
This region is a wreck, with only one team remaining in the Sweet Sixteen, and that team I had losing in this round, so this one was a dud.
Things look much better on this side of the bracket, as the only Sweet Sixteen team I had that didn’t make it is IU and, honestly, I’m ok with that.
Alabama enters the tournament under a cloud of scandal, as their star player was recently involved in the murder of a young woman. Because of that, I have second seed Arizona going to the Final Four.
After two years of limited travel due to COVID, things opened up once again in 2022 and I actually found myself on an airplane or two throughout the year. I thought it would be nice to look back at the trips I took this year. Things started in late January, when I went to Hawaii for two weeks. Things were still pretty locked down on the islands at the time, so I didn’t do a lot of activities, but a week relaxation at the beach and the pool followed by a second week of working remotely followed by afternoons at the beach did the body (and the mind) good.
At the end of July, I headed out to Denver for a quick trip to add a new stadium to my collection. I arrived on Tuesday and high-tailed it out to Coors Field for that evening’s game, which the White Sox won against the hometown Rockies. The follow-up the next afternoon was not as pleasant, after which I headed back to the airport for the flight home.
