With Fall Break already upon us at Oklahoma State, my roommate and I decided to travel down to Austin for the game. We flew from Stillwater to Dallas, which I highly recommend, and met up with my roommate’s parents for the drive to Austin.

I’ve been to Austin before, and I went to the OSU-UT game last year. However, I wasn’t writing for Cowboys Ride For Free at the time. So this time, I decided I would write about this particular experience.

The Stadium

Photo by Tim Warner/Getty Images

Darrell K. Royal Memorial Stadium is amazing. It’s big and quite impressive. The last time I was there I wasn’t 21 yet, but let me tell you, being able to get a beer at a college football game without leaving the stadium is fantastic. Were there people around me that might have had one too many? Oh yeah ... but for me it added to rowdiness and fun of it all. The Longhorn band is great, too. They kept the crowd energized throughout the game. The fans are really into all of the chants that they do, and it’s cool to witness from an opposing point of view.

My roommate’s parents have season tickets way up at the top of the stadium, which subsequently made me realize how out of shape I was. Once I finally caught my breath from our stair master run, we found our seats. While we were quite a ways up there, it didn’t feel like we were up super high. I felt like I could see the action well, and on top of that, the view of the city of Austin is beautiful.

While I didn’t end up eating at the stadium because of a late breakfast and dinner plans, the food options at the stadium looked tasty and plentiful. There was everything from Torchy’s Tacos to Plucker’s wings. They also had your typical concession stands that had pretzels and hot dogs and all of that standard fan-fare.

It was a beautiful stadium that I would love to go back to.

The fans

Photo by Tim Warner/Getty Images

Well, for one, they didn’t show up until about halfway through the first quarter. The student section was pretty empty until then as well. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt, though, because that had a lot to do with the 11 a.m. kick. A late arriving crowd, yes, but once they got there they were rowdy and loud and cheered on their team. I didn’t have any bad experiences where anyone was rude or anything like that, but they had a propensity to boo every somewhat questionable call for five minutes after the fact.

As we were leaving the stadium, I had someone turn to my roommate and I and say, “okay now please go and beat OU,” which I thought was pretty great.

They have some really great traditions there, too. Ole’ Smokey is cool, even though it scared me every time it went off. And when any player is injured, whether Longhorn or not, everyone in the stadium throws up the horns. I really liked that display of sportsmanship.

I also was impressed at how many people stayed. I know it was a tight game and everything, but still. I kind of expected the stadium to thin out a bit at halftime. I was happy to be wrong.

Tailgating

The tailgating scene at UT was awesome. There were a ton of people out cooking and having a great time with family and friends. The spots are great. I thought it was really unique to tailgate in the middle of downtown of a major city. People were even tailgating in parking garages.

I had a fantastic time in Austin. Everyone I met was great. I will definitely make every attempt to make it back to Austin when Oklahoma State plays them there.