Speaker 1: Last season college football Saturday, at least as we've come
Speaker 1: to know, it was completely upended. As fans. It was
Speaker 1: a challenge to channel the same fervor for game day
Speaker 1: with altered schedules and viewing experiences. Now, as we look
Speaker 1: to move forward, we take one final look back at
Speaker 1: the awkward season that was and how we as fans
Speaker 1: made it through from the solid verbal of this is
Speaker 1: a special production, So now What. Welcome back to the
Speaker 1: final installment of So now What. This time we're talking
Speaker 1: about the fan experience. I am joined as always, I'm
Speaker 1: a good friend, Dan Rubenstein, Dan, how you doing?
Speaker 2: I'm great? And I could not be a bigger fan
Speaker 2: of yours or the panel of reverballers that come on
Speaker 2: the show or that came on the show to way
Speaker 2: in on the fan experience. So I'm especially good today, Ty,
Speaker 2: thanks for asking.
Speaker 1: We had a panel of verballers helping us with this
Speaker 1: final topic, the fan experience. Thus far, we've discussed things
Speaker 1: like what it meant to make decisions from the conference level,
Speaker 1: or as a coach to run a team, or as
Speaker 1: a player to be on a team, or as a
Speaker 1: broadcaster to try and broadcast the game. There's no doubt
Speaker 1: though that perhaps the biggest impact was felt by the fans,
Speaker 1: the fans trying to watch the product at home, trying
Speaker 1: to root for the product in the same way and
Speaker 1: the same fervor that they would otherwise. Dan, the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty season was far from usual, and I think it's
Speaker 1: a topic you and I grappled with quite a great
Speaker 1: bit on the show, trying to figure out how exactly
Speaker 1: do we feel about this twenty twenty season. For a
Speaker 1: long time, as you recall, throughout the course of the summer,
Speaker 1: we didn't think we were going to have a season.
Speaker 1: And then, certainly as news broke from the Big Ten
Speaker 1: and the Packed twelve, as caseloads went up, the deeper
Speaker 1: we got into the fall, there was a great deal
Speaker 1: of uncertainty. Eventually, though, they pulled the thing off, They
Speaker 1: pull it together, and there we are as fans, certainly
Speaker 1: as podcasters, trying to place it all. What were your
Speaker 1: thoughts in the moment.
Speaker 2: Well, which should be noted also fans grappling with going
Speaker 2: to games, traveling to games with increased security measures and
Speaker 2: masks and allowances of people in or lack thereof. So
Speaker 2: it's not just odd for those of us who didn't
Speaker 2: go to games in twenty twenty, but I'm sure on
Speaker 2: some level it was both very nice to be able
Speaker 2: to go to games and forget all of the weirdness
Speaker 2: and tragedy going on in the world at the time.
Speaker 2: So it must have been nice to be in a
Speaker 2: stadium if everything was sort of done properly, but also
Speaker 2: strange to be in a stadium with people separated out
Speaker 2: and relatively empty or somewhat empty, or super duper empty.
Speaker 2: So it was strange no matter where your vantage point was.
Speaker 2: For the twenty twenty season, I think, how.
Speaker 1: Did you feel about it?
Speaker 2: Though?
Speaker 1: As a home viewer.
Speaker 2: It was odd? It was odd. I've talked about it,
Speaker 2: you know before that there's so much of the TV experience,
Speaker 2: and we talked about this with a Niche Schrofsu where
Speaker 2: you know, seeing the wide swaths of empty stadium when
Speaker 2: a touchdown was scored and usually those sweeping camera shots
Speaker 2: or fans going nuts, or fans with the surrender cobra
Speaker 2: and super sad and bummed and deflated. And I think
Speaker 2: that kind of thing helps to define how we react
Speaker 2: to a situation, especially if we're not personally invested in
Speaker 2: a team playing in that game. But it adds so much.
Speaker 2: The TV experience of a full stadium and the emotions
Speaker 2: contained therein really helps to tell the full story of
Speaker 2: what we're watching. And so that affected me. The fact
Speaker 2: that you know, I moved and I was watching these
Speaker 2: games for the most part alone when I'm used to,
Speaker 2: you know, watch parties and friends coming over that are
Speaker 2: into college football. I mean, you know, crimea River. That's
Speaker 2: I had the best of basically anybody in twenty twenty
Speaker 2: if that's my worst situation, but it was different. It
Speaker 2: definitely lost something the culture of college football was. Aside
Speaker 2: from the actual serious losses in the world, that was
Speaker 2: the biggest hit that our sport felt that cultural element.
Speaker 2: So it is the least serious victim of the twenty
Speaker 2: twenty football season.
Speaker 1: I was incredibly torn on how to feel about the season,
Speaker 1: because on one hand, there was a pandemic raging. It
Speaker 1: was the elephant in every room right. On the other hand,
Speaker 1: they were going to play the season, and we are
Speaker 1: a college football podcast, so we had to figure out
Speaker 1: how we're going to do.
Speaker 2: Our best with it.
Speaker 1: In truth, I never thought they'd be able to pull
Speaker 1: it off. I thought the whole year through, that something
Speaker 1: was going to happen, that caseloads would spike, whatever, that
Speaker 1: the whole thing was going to be called off in
Speaker 1: the beginning, then in the middle, and then towards the
Speaker 1: very end. We talked about it on the show. The
Speaker 1: fact that they made it true relatively unscathed. It should
Speaker 1: be its own topic that somebody covers at some point
Speaker 1: in the future, because I think that does represent an accomplishment.
Speaker 1: But there was this source of conflict among fans. We
Speaker 1: asked our panelists, like, how did you feel about things?
Speaker 3: We didn't know if we were supposed to be happy. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: there's a pandemic.
Speaker 1: Rage that conflict. Right.
Speaker 2: It was weird.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was just like it was like a weird feeling.
Speaker 4: It was like, you didn't think you should be doing this,
Speaker 4: but of course, you know, we're all like addicted to
Speaker 4: college football, so we're obviously going to watch it, so
Speaker 4: but it was, Yeah, it was strange. It was like
Speaker 4: a weird feeling to get excited. But also this is
Speaker 4: a part of your mind that you're just kind of like, yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't I don't know if this is I don't
Speaker 4: know if I should be enjoying it.
Speaker 5: This much.
Speaker 1: So, given this sense of conflict that I know you
Speaker 1: and I both felt, I'm curious to get your level
Speaker 1: of excitement going into the season. I thought about it
Speaker 1: a great deal before hitting the record button. For me,
Speaker 1: it's probably on the same level as the third place
Speaker 1: game for the World Cup. I'm gonna watch it. I
Speaker 1: enjoy watching it. But there was a sense that this
Speaker 1: was a consolation prize and any football we got amid
Speaker 1: a pandemic was going to be bonus football, And so
Speaker 1: it was fine.
Speaker 2: You're saying my excitement level for last fall, for the
Speaker 2: fall of twenty twenty, not for the upcoming year.
Speaker 1: For the upcoming year, I suspect it'll be much much
Speaker 1: more intense. But for the twenty twenty season, for me, yeah,
Speaker 1: on the same level as the third place game for
Speaker 1: the World Cup.
Speaker 2: So I'll stick with your World Cup analogy. I will say,
Speaker 2: a relatively interesting World Cup matchup not involving my country,
Speaker 2: the United States of America, so like Netherlands Spain, with
Speaker 2: more stakes than third place on the line. But at
Speaker 2: the same time, whatever happens in that match does not
Speaker 2: necessarily going to It's not going to affect my sleep.
Speaker 2: It's not going to affect how I read about the sport.
Speaker 2: It's just it's it's good to watch, but I don't
Speaker 2: have the personal stakes like I normally would in a
Speaker 2: normal year or for my country if I'm watching that matchup,
Speaker 2: so that's where I'll go there. It was, you know,
Speaker 2: it was it was more difficult than usual. I started
Speaker 2: baking pizza for that specific reason often where I just like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna watch football, but I want to figure out
Speaker 2: something to invest in at the same time and to
Speaker 2: get better at If I'm stuck home, I'm going to
Speaker 2: be because otherwise, if I had people over, I would
Speaker 2: be cooking, I would be doing new stuff, and so
Speaker 2: I needed that outlet as well. But yeah, that's where
Speaker 2: my excitement was. It was it was nice to have
Speaker 2: the sport as that distraction, but at the same time,
Speaker 2: I can't claim my heart wasn't fully in it like
Speaker 2: it would be otherwise.
Speaker 1: One of the things that we saw, one of the
Speaker 1: things that I know many other sports podcasts also saw
Speaker 1: downloads are down. In the entire sports vertical downloads were down.
Speaker 1: I think enthusiasm was down. That sense of conflict was
Speaker 1: pervasive all throughout the sports world. As was this impulse
Speaker 1: to sort of find a way to take up the
Speaker 1: time you took up baking pizza. Our panelists talked a
Speaker 1: great deal about getting into things like smoking meat, or
Speaker 1: reading more, or taking up other activities that could fill
Speaker 1: up the time. It was interesting to get that perspective
Speaker 1: and know that it wasn't just us that that we're
Speaker 1: feeling it. One other thing that I guess predictably came
Speaker 1: up in our panel discussion was this topic of the
Speaker 1: TV product. We've talked about a time and again. We
Speaker 1: did a whole series of episodes about it last week.
Speaker 1: What it was like on the back end to try
Speaker 1: and put that together, What was it like on the
Speaker 1: front end.
Speaker 4: What I noticed watching at home was that the lack
Speaker 4: of fans in the stands was actually more apparent on
Speaker 4: TV than I was initially anticipating. And that was actually
Speaker 4: a little bit of a bummer for me. College games
Speaker 4: like the fans and everything, So something that I underestimated
Speaker 4: going into it was the lack of fans of the
Speaker 4: game how that came across on TV.
Speaker 1: So I didn't mind the TV product as much as
Speaker 1: some I am not in the majority on that opinion,
Speaker 1: and that could be because of how you and I
Speaker 1: have to watch a million games every weekend. Paying too
Speaker 1: much attention to any one game is generally something that's
Speaker 1: very hard for you and I to do because we
Speaker 1: cover this on the national level, but specifically, if you
Speaker 1: are tuned into just that one game, trying to soak
Speaker 1: up the experience as much as you can from your
Speaker 1: living room, I totally understand how you'd come away from
Speaker 1: that experience feeling very underwhelmed, feeling like there is something
Speaker 1: missing because there are no fans, because the ambient noise
Speaker 1: isn't there. Maybe even because the quality of play, at
Speaker 1: least in the early going, was something to be desired.
Speaker 5: I get it.
Speaker 1: One of Cole's points was that he made peace with
Speaker 1: this because he felt it was more or less a
Speaker 1: made for TV product, and that was it.
Speaker 4: Y biggest ticula for me was just I was excited saying, Okay,
Speaker 4: it's going to be a TV product. That's okay, But
Speaker 4: the TV product was really not great. The fans, yeah, you,
Speaker 4: I think tend to agree with Cole. You weren't as
Speaker 4: gung ho on it or at peace with it, let's say,
Speaker 4: as I was.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mentioned this when we talked with the panelists
Speaker 2: that there was an element of the entirety of two
Speaker 2: football programs sneaking into a stadium to play a game
Speaker 2: both the most and least important people on campus. I
Speaker 2: guess it's the most important in terms of revenue, but
Speaker 2: the least important is like, well, it's not the most
Speaker 2: academic pursuit. And we understand why college football is played,
Speaker 2: and we love why college football is played, but you know,
Speaker 2: it's one of those things where you're making a deal
Speaker 2: with yourself about why college football players are playing in
Speaker 2: empty stadiums or half empty stadiums or quarter empty stadiums
Speaker 2: when it's such a different world, it's such a different universe.
Speaker 2: So there is definitely that strange element that makes it
Speaker 2: feel like the newspaper stabs of the Michigan and Michigan
Speaker 2: State papers are playing each other the Friday night before
Speaker 2: the game in front of an empty stadium. There was
Speaker 2: that feel to at least a lot of Big ten
Speaker 2: and Pac twelve football. Obviously the SEC had a good
Speaker 2: deal more energy. Acc a good deal more energy Big
Speaker 2: twelve to a certain extent more energy. It was weird
Speaker 2: that some games would look a certain way and some
Speaker 2: games huge games would look a totally different way and
Speaker 2: you'd have a huge matchup in the SEC and Michigan
Speaker 2: O'll has taken canceled. It was just this very strange
Speaker 2: day of television every week.
Speaker 1: One of the other topics that was very popular in
Speaker 1: our discussion DAN was setups. How did people set up
Speaker 1: to watch these games, either just by themselves with a
Speaker 1: group as best they could. We talked about it. I
Speaker 1: remember in the moment a great deal about putting together
Speaker 1: some sort of outdoor setup. We asked our panel, did
Speaker 1: you do anything outside?
Speaker 2: How was that?
Speaker 5: For the BC notre ame game this year? We did
Speaker 5: a whole backyard setup. One of my buddies came out
Speaker 5: and you know, we it was just you know, something
Speaker 5: to get excited for amid a drab year otherwise, and
Speaker 5: so we moved like a fire pit that we bought
Speaker 5: a fire pit. We you know, moved a TV outside.
Speaker 5: I want to say it was fun, but you know,
Speaker 5: the cold and just being outside and all that combined
Speaker 5: and in the game it ended up being you know,
Speaker 5: a little bit underwhelming.
Speaker 1: Were you able to do any kind of watch parties
Speaker 1: this year?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 2: I mean the only people that were this past fall
Speaker 2: in my house on Saturdays. It was basically limited to
Speaker 2: me and my wife and my toddler and my I
Speaker 2: guess slightly extended family who was not They were not
Speaker 2: really going anywhere. So no, there was I remember for
Speaker 2: the Super Bowl, the Super Bowl, I had the extended
Speaker 2: family over and that when I say that, I mean
Speaker 2: like three people. So that felt like the most social
Speaker 2: event of the calendar year related to football and just
Speaker 2: social gatherings. But otherwise, no, it was a lot of
Speaker 2: solo time. It was I we did lose ty. You
Speaker 2: know what we lost. We lost the always exciting phone
Speaker 2: under the table at a wedding during a big game
Speaker 2: of ability I've watched. I mean, I remember when Boston
Speaker 2: College ups at USC in twenty fourteen. Does that sound
Speaker 2: right to you? I lost that ability. I watched that
Speaker 2: underneath during speeches set a wedding. The speeches weren't that good.
Speaker 2: And I think there was a Michigan State Wisconsin game
Speaker 2: in twenty ten, two thousand and nine somewhere on there
Speaker 2: that were just like, there is that element of like
Speaker 2: being a little sneaky and watching college football when you're
Speaker 2: not supposed to, and it was largely lost this past fall,
Speaker 2: So that was the sort of the weird stuff going
Speaker 2: through my mind during my solo watch parties.
Speaker 1: Most of the games for me were at home, and
Speaker 1: interestingly enough, in many ways for me was an easier season,
Speaker 1: just as the host of this show, because we typically
Speaker 1: have a lot of family gatherings in the fall for
Speaker 1: birthdays and holidays for nieces and nephews and all sorts
Speaker 1: of things like that.
Speaker 2: Oh, we can look through our text records of you
Speaker 2: asking me for updates because you're at a christening and
Speaker 2: you're like, wait, who's hurt? Sam Alliant is hurt? Just
Speaker 2: that's how you would take in college football news for
Speaker 2: forty five minutes when you were unavailable otherwise.
Speaker 1: It's true everything was off this year, at least for
Speaker 1: bigger groups it was off. So getting in front of
Speaker 1: a TV, at least for me, was much much easier,
Speaker 1: and so I at least appreciated that aspect of it.
Speaker 1: Virtually nothing else but to get in front of a TV,
Speaker 1: at least for me, felt like it was a much
Speaker 1: lighter lift this past season. A lot of folks found themselves, though,
Speaker 1: in the situation of having to watch games alone that
Speaker 1: they might otherwise watch with a group, and this gets
Speaker 1: back to something Dave Jones said. It certainly gets back
Speaker 1: to points that we discussed for the last.
Speaker 2: Couple of weeks.
Speaker 1: College football as a social sport is something that should
Speaker 1: not be under sold.
Speaker 3: And I was actually on my honeymoon in Rhode Island
Speaker 3: of all places, because of COVID during the Michael Pennox
Speaker 3: reach and me and my wife are basically by ourselves
Speaker 3: in a setting where it would have been a very
Speaker 3: different feeling, like imagine being in a sports bar.
Speaker 1: With that moment, I was outside of my patio watching
Speaker 1: on an iPad next to my fire pit, and that's
Speaker 1: when I saw the play where Michael Penick supposedly.
Speaker 2: Hit the pilon.
Speaker 1: We know he didn't, but that's fine.
Speaker 2: I was reading pizza message boards on my laptop while
Speaker 2: out of one corner of an eye watching the game. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So for me, that definitely did not represent the norm
Speaker 1: watching a game out by the fire pit on an iPad.
Speaker 1: It was just not something that I had done a
Speaker 1: whole lot of. And I remember thinking at the time,
Speaker 1: I need to fine tune this, because if I can
Speaker 1: find tune this, then I could watch games with people.
Speaker 1: It was all about trying to figure out a way
Speaker 1: to invite folks over, invite friends over to watch the
Speaker 1: games with me, because I agree with Andrew, it's a
Speaker 1: much better experience when you can watch with other people.
Speaker 1: I know, gosh, how many times over the years you've
Speaker 1: done watch parties as well. It's just the thing that
Speaker 1: we do as college football fans. And so while I
Speaker 1: wasn't able to find tune that fire pit football viewing
Speaker 1: the way I would have liked, because it got cold
Speaker 1: up here in the Northeast, it got cold, and it
Speaker 1: wasn't as enjoyable an experience as I would have liked.
Speaker 1: It is something I think that I'm going to work
Speaker 1: on fine tuning and tweaking and getting ready for twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one because if I can get that where it
Speaker 1: needs to be, and presumably because the season will start
Speaker 1: earlier and it will be a little bit warmer in
Speaker 1: the September time frame, even the early October timeframe than
Speaker 1: it was when the Big Ten was starting its season,
Speaker 1: I think I can get a couple good weeks out
Speaker 1: of that, and that could be potentially a positive that
Speaker 1: came out of twenty twenty for me as just a
Speaker 1: home fan.
Speaker 2: It should also be noted, and this is going to
Speaker 2: sound a little bit silly, but going to college football
Speaker 2: games with your friends, with your family, with whomever is
Speaker 2: good for your health, right going places, traveling places, and
Speaker 2: sharing experiences and experiencing new things and new emotions. If
Speaker 2: your team has a huge upset out of nowhere because
Speaker 2: you went to Columbus or you went to Gainesville, or
Speaker 2: you went to Tuscaloose or whatever, and you got to
Speaker 2: see your team do something fun or do something that
Speaker 2: made you and your group incredibly sad, but you all
Speaker 2: shared that emotion, and you ate new food, and you
Speaker 2: drove down a new highway. These things are all good
Speaker 2: for your brain. And so many fewer people, if that's
Speaker 2: acceptable grammar, much far fewer people were able to build
Speaker 2: experiences this past fall, and I think that legitimately, not
Speaker 2: going to as many games, or to any game, I
Speaker 2: think is not great for somebody's social growth and the
Speaker 2: social part of their brain. And I'm craving getting that back,
Speaker 2: because again, going to college football games, be it in
Speaker 2: your town, be it in a town an hour away,
Speaker 2: be it a four hour flight away, it is good
Speaker 2: for all of our brains to share experiences. And we
Speaker 2: had to take. We had to take a by year
Speaker 2: a lot of us, and that sucks.
Speaker 1: The gap year of college football fandom. As it were.
Speaker 1: We did talk, as you would expect, a great deal
Speaker 1: about not being able to travel the games. So many
Speaker 1: of our over ball or so many college football fans
Speaker 1: drop the marker on the calendar, drop the marker on
Speaker 1: the calendar.
Speaker 2: Whether it's a.
Speaker 1: Couple games a year, one game a year, one game
Speaker 1: every five years, it's something to get excited about. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't something that really was easy to do or
Speaker 1: could be done.
Speaker 3: Our group of people, we've been to every bowl game
Speaker 3: for the past ten years, and we didn't do that
Speaker 3: this year. It was I think that detraction really stood
Speaker 3: out and we were still friends, but we didn't have
Speaker 3: that marker on the calendar.
Speaker 2: How many emails do we get every year? Every week,
Speaker 2: every month, Hey, me and my friends, you know, are
Speaker 2: able to get away from our wives, husbands, kids, whatever,
Speaker 2: and we choose a new place every year. You know,
Speaker 2: last year we went to Clemson. The year before that,
Speaker 2: we went to Oregon, the year before that we went
Speaker 2: to A and M. And that's that thing that connects
Speaker 2: people and so people love the college football experience, and
Speaker 2: so when he says put down a marker, that's real.
Speaker 2: You know, people look forward to going to that new
Speaker 2: college town, that new campus, that brewery, whatever. And it's
Speaker 2: always good in life to have something to look forward to.
Speaker 2: And I'll, you know, stop my feet one more time.
Speaker 2: It's a lost a lost element that is obviously not
Speaker 2: the most serious or important thing in this but you know,
Speaker 2: you notice it when it's gone, at least for a year.
Speaker 1: I think one of the main takeaways for me after
Speaker 1: talking to folks about their experience in the past year,
Speaker 1: is really just to re emphasize that college football as
Speaker 1: a social entity is really what makes it special. And
Speaker 1: without that flavor, without being able to watch with other people,
Speaker 1: either in person or at home on the TV, or
Speaker 1: even just tailgating outside of a stadium with friends and family,
Speaker 1: that was a real loss, and it was through no
Speaker 1: fault of our own. We really had no choice. I
Speaker 1: think in Part two we'll talk a lot more about
Speaker 1: where we feel things are headed and why we're excited
Speaker 1: to close the book on this really quirky chapter of
Speaker 1: college football and of American and worldlife as it were,
Speaker 1: and move forward to twenty twenty one. Hopefully to achieve
Speaker 1: a new sense of normalcy. In conclusion, I think we
Speaker 1: had a couple of lines here that really hit it
Speaker 1: best in looking back over the past season.
Speaker 5: Last year, I was in on the football and out
Speaker 5: on the storylines, you know, like so many of the
Speaker 5: storylines for so Dower and I just really didn't want
Speaker 5: to follow.
Speaker 1: Along followed football because it was football, not necessarily in
Speaker 1: on the pageantry, in on the narrative, in on the
Speaker 1: stuff that we like to talk about to get folks
Speaker 1: jazz for a season, it just wasn't something that people
Speaker 1: were swallowing whole the way they might otherwise. Cole was
Speaker 1: a little bit more direct.
Speaker 4: I just sort of mailed in my fandom. Last year.
Speaker 4: There were nights where we didn't watch, you know, the
Speaker 4: ABC main game or whatever. We took a much more
Speaker 4: casual approach to it last season, for sure.
Speaker 1: Much more casual approach to it. Dan not all in
Speaker 1: on the narratives, couldn't gather in groups to watch the games.
Speaker 1: A made for TV product. Did the best we could
Speaker 1: with it. I think that sums it.
Speaker 2: Up, which is a huge shame, by the way, because
Speaker 2: the narratives add so much to the sport. Now, obviously
Speaker 2: people can get lost in them. But the fact is,
Speaker 2: when you have players emerging, when you have coordinators or
Speaker 2: head coaches or assistants whatever emerging, when you have a
Speaker 2: crazy upset that all of a sudden vaults a team
Speaker 2: into a conversation of some kind. Like those storylines, those
Speaker 2: narratives color everything in with the sport, and so I
Speaker 2: can understand why everything felt sort of hollow for a
Speaker 2: lot of people, even if they were watching. It's totally understandable,
Speaker 2: and I relate. I definitely relate, and I'm sure you
Speaker 2: do too, right, Like, how excited were you about a
Speaker 2: largely successful Notre Dame season where they didn't have very
Speaker 2: many close calls? Obviously the Clemson win and during the
Speaker 2: regular season was an overtime win, and I guess the
Speaker 2: Louisville game was kind of ugly, but by and large,
Speaker 2: this was a Notre Dame team that laid waste comfortably
Speaker 2: beat all of its regular season opponents until the a
Speaker 2: SEC championship game and playoff. Were you able to enjoy
Speaker 2: that anywhere near how you would enjoy it in I
Speaker 2: don't know any other really successful Notre Dame here.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a huge drop off for me. But I
Speaker 1: will tell you that watching the Clemson victory up at
Speaker 1: Mama H's house, sitting twelve feet apart in wearing a
Speaker 1: mask was not was not something that added to the experience. Sure,
Speaker 1: and it was a bummer, and we did it because
Speaker 1: we had to, because I didn't want to make my
Speaker 1: mother sick, right, But this is just sort of where
Speaker 1: we were at with it, and it was a great
Speaker 1: season for Notre Dame. It was a bit of an unexpected.
Speaker 2: Serve as a distraction at all to you? Was it
Speaker 2: like a cool thing you looked forward to because it
Speaker 2: had nothing to do with social media or politics or
Speaker 2: commissioners or you know, anybody barking at each other. Was
Speaker 2: it at all a nice distraction.
Speaker 1: I think it was a welcome distraction, good on the weekends.
Speaker 1: But when taking in totality of everything else going on
Speaker 1: in the world at that time, it was really hard
Speaker 1: to focus on one thing. It was hard to focus
Speaker 1: on that and take the same level of joy from
Speaker 1: it that I would otherwise.
Speaker 2: I can tell you, as an Orgon fan who had
Speaker 2: a very uh or an up and down year, you know,
Speaker 2: losing the way they did to Oregon State and calb
Speaker 2: but at the same time, beating USC, getting into the
Speaker 2: PAC twelve championship game under unusual circumstances, and ending up
Speaker 2: in the festival that festival loss was As I was
Speaker 2: watching it, it shifted from me being disappointed in the
Speaker 2: inconsistencies of Organs offense and the defense's inability to get
Speaker 2: off the field to you know what. I know, it's
Speaker 2: a weird year, but good for the Clones, good for
Speaker 2: Iowa State. There shouldn't be an asterisk on this. This
Speaker 2: is a major, major deal, and the sting of the
Speaker 2: loss wasn't nearly as pronounced just because of my lack
Speaker 2: of usual investment. But at the same time, I'm sure
Speaker 2: Iowa State fans were especially happy to have that sort
Speaker 2: of distraction, that level of success, so it kind of
Speaker 2: made me happy for them. It was that silver lining
Speaker 2: for me.
Speaker 1: I was thrilled that Notre Dame made the playoff. I
Speaker 1: was thrilled that they got a crack at Alabama. I
Speaker 1: wasn't as thrilled by the end result. But as distractions
Speaker 1: go amid a pandemic and social unrest for a multitude
Speaker 1: of reasons, I'll take it. Thanks for listening to the
Speaker 1: fan Experience Part one. Join us on Thursday for Part two,
Speaker 1: as we close the book on twenty twenty and get
Speaker 1: ready for twenty twenty one special Thanks to our esteemed
Speaker 1: panel overballers Andrew Andrew, Dan Cole, Taylor, Nathan Mark, and Squishy,
Speaker 1: don't forget to visit our Patreon at burbowlers dot com