This weekend, Camp Randall played host to a great college football upset. Yes, the Northwestern Wildcats, the then No. 19 team in the country traveled to Wisconsin and lost. But here’s the weird part: It didn’t feel like an upset. It didn’t feel like a big deal. It felt like just another home win for the Badgers.
An interesting phenomenon happens when I’m in Camp Randall Stadium. The blinders go on and the rest of the college football landscape disappears. 123 other teams are seemingly insignificant; the only two that matter are the Badgers and their opponent.
Why does this happen?
Gameday culture at Madison goes something like this: wake up, pre-game, game, fifth quarter, party. Everything else is obsolete, especially in the student section. Wisconsin also has this tendency to win just about every game at home.
On Saturday, seven teams in the AP Top 25 lost. Seven. Not to mention that Texas A&M needed a last-second field goal to avoid becoming the eighth Top-25 team to take a loss. That’s crazy, and for some reason it just felt like another gameday.
By being absorbed into the fabric of Badger gameday, it’s so easy to lose track of the national outlook. The atmosphere leaves you almost no time to keep tabs on other games, especially considering the God-awful cell reception inside the stadium.
To die-hard college football fans, this is sometimes too much to handle. It is very difficult to watch the world of college football whiz by while watching the Badgers run around while up 20 points. College football gains its magic because there is so much going on at once. The game is best enjoyed at a sports bar watching five games at the same time. When this goes away, it’s hard. The Badger game was exciting, but I didn’t feel right knowing Penn State and Michigan were plunging into their third overtime period at the same time the No. 5 team in the country was get overthrown by Utah. I really hate having to pick between enjoying Badger gameday or watching the full slate of college games.
To others, this solidifies Camp Randall as one of the magical places in college football landscape.
Where else can you go to make it seem like the whole world stops for four hours? All the worries about life, school and work dissipate and what’s left is a football game between your alma mater and some other team who’s probably going to get drummed. The ability to lose yourself in a Badger game is great quality that not many other schools can boast.
Have you found a way to help Grey keep up to speed with college football on gamedays? Email sports@dailycardinal.com and let him know.
