Bowl Trip

Hello everyone. I apologize for not posting anything while in Tempe, but to be honest with you I wanted to spend all of my time enjoying the city and all it has to offer instead of being on the Internet. I'm sure you understand.

Tempe was awesome. I couldn't have asked for a better experience besides the game. I had such a great time. The weather was perfect every day and there was always something to do. My favorite attraction of the trip turned out to be Fashion Square Mall. I had never been in a place like that. all of the high priced stores like Gucci, Prada, Bureberry, LaCoste, etc. Even the Macy's had lots of clothing lines that I hadn't seen in Indiana or anywhere around the midwest for that matter.

Our bowl events included a trip to Don & Charlie's Steakhouse and boy was that great! The restaurant was pretty big and it contained more sports memorabilia than any other restaurant I'd ever seen. We were served steak, ribs, baked potato's, green beans, drinks, and ice cream. I was stuffed when we left.

We stayed at the Doubletree Hotel in Scottsdale,AZ. That is, by far, the nicest hotel I have ever stayed in. There were so many rooms it was ridiculous. Each room had it's own balcony and the sight of the hotel was just amazing.

The way all of the houses and buildings were built out there were much different than buildings here in the midwest due to the extreme heat they receive in the summer months out there. There were so many households without grass in their front yards. It appeared to be covered with dirt or gravel, or something like that. I saw cacti out in the open for the first time on this trip! It was amusing because I kept getting so excited about the simplest things. You can't blame me because I had never been west of Iowa before this trip.

In the hotel there was a hospitality room for all of the players to hang out and watch big screen TV's, play one of the many video games, arcades, ping pong, pool, chess, Connect 4. My favorite game turned out to be an arcade game, Golden Tee. I actually wasn't very good at it but it was still fun. I got whooped pretty bad by Nick Polk. Also, in the hospitality room were refreshments and limitless food for us to eat at our convenience.

I also had a good time going out with my teammates during our free time. We all took care of each other and had a safe, fun, good time. There were basically vans provided to take us pretty much wherever we wanted to go. I was very impressed with how the Insight Bowl representatives prepared every aspect of the trip to make us comfortable and help us have a great time. Our football staff also played a part in that as well and I thank them for that.

THE GAME
Well,obviously we didn't achieve our goal of winning the 13th game but I can tell you that we never laid down, we never quit. We fought down to the very last second, literally. With it being a bowl game things did seem to be moving a a bit faster, but to be honest with you it wasn't so much faster that we couldn't handle it. I don't think that we necessarily came out sluggish either. I simply think that they were the better team that night. If we played Oklahoma State on a different day the outcome could be different. But they got us on that night.

THE FANS
I was so impressed with our fan turnout! It created an amazing atmosphere and it made for an unforgettable moment. Especially THE WALK! I mean, WOW. That was amazing! I speak for my teammates when I say that we truly felt loved! I've appreciated the fans all season and I say lets make it an even better year for fan turnout next year. As a matter of fact I'm going to go down to the ticket office as soon as they start selling season tickets for next season and call some of you fans myself to make sure you renew them or buy them if you didn't this season! And I'm not accepting too many excuses either. Haha.

Well it's been a great, amazing season. I promise to write more often during the offseason and give you guys more of an inside look at what goes on behind the scenes. I'll talk to you soon.