Meineke Car Care Bowl Experience
My brother and I left from outside Pittsburgh just after 6am. Drove 442 miles straight through to Charlotte and arrived around 1:15pm. Pretty uneventful drive except for stop and go traffic about 30 miles outside of Charlotte, put that only delayed us maybe 5 minutes total.
We got off the interstate and Bank of America Stadium is right there just a few blocks away. Parking was plentiful as it seemed like anyone with a sign and a empty space would sell you a spot. Prices ranged from $25-$10 and what was amazing was the $10 was the only one in a paved lot that was in front of a business that wasn't shuttered. It was actually a brand new office building with cameras around so it was an easy choice.
Since we got to Charlotte so early, we found a radio broadcast of the Little Caesars Bowl and listened to that until Marshall took the 21-0 lead. At this point we decided to walk around and find some tickets. Since we are on a budget, we were looking for the $35 upper deck seats. The Bowl only sold about 1/3 of the upper deck seats, limiting the sections they were available in to the 4 sections on each side between the 30 yard lines and the lower 1/2 of the sections from the endzones to the 30 yard lines. These tickets were actually the hardest to find on the street. Club seats ($100 face) could be had for around $75 each and the $65 face value seats were around $45 each. We got our $35 tickets for $30 each and I am sure we could have got them for $25 but the guy was nice so I didn't even try to bargin.
The tickets were for the UNC side of the field, which led to a few interesting situations, right on the 40 yard line. Not bad at all since they were aisle seats and the rows started at row 5 due to the portal.
The Meineke Car Care Bowl had a nice area set up about a block from the stadium with a band and the usual assortment of fun activites, mainly geared toward kids. The Geico Gecko was there which seemed to have a large crowd of people. I was surprised to see that drinking was allowed in this area, but there was plently of security around so there was no threat of anything getting out of hand in that area.
Bank of America Stadium was very nice. It is your standard modern stadium with plenty of ramps, bathrooms and consessions. They offered Domino's Pizza, Bojangles Chicken and JJR's Pork along with your standard stadium fares like Hot Dogs, Popcorn and Nachos. 16oz beers ranged from $6.25 - $7.50 depending on brand and they had 13 to choose from I think. The Pizza was $7 for a individual size and the popcorn was $4 for a small bag. 20oz bottles of soda and water were $4. My favorite part of the stadium was in the upper deck where Schutt helmets has a display of helmets for every Collegiate and High School team in North Carolina.
Lots of Meineke advertisement including George Foreman himself at mid-field to do the coin toss. They also gave out Meineke Gift Baskets during TV timeouts to people in the stands if you could answer trivia questions related to their pre-game video.
The game itself is where things got interesting being seated with the UNC fans. First, they thought since we were wearing Penn State stuff that we were rooting for Pitt since both teams are in PA. Hello, UNC fans, that would be like assuming you are going to cheer for Duke basketball because they are from the same state. The Penn State/Pitt rivalry is still in the top 10 rivalry display at the College Football Hall of Fame! We don't like them, trust me. Second, not every pass play where your QB fails to get it to your receiver is pass interference. While I agree that refs miss calls every so often, I promise they don't miss that many. Finally, the "punt" by Little into the stands after his TD catch to open the game was classless. Hand the ball to the ref, celebrate with your team and get off the field.
This pic is from the 4th quarter when Pitt made the winning drive. I must have moved, it is a little burry.
So once we were able to convice the people around us that we weren't Pitt fans, we were able to enjoy the game. Lots of momentum shifts and big plays for both teams. For instance lets look at the 4th quarter. UNC is driving to go up by 4-8 (pending FG or TD). They got into FG range and Pitt suddenly gets 2 straight sacks to force a punt. Then Pitt drives down the field while chewing up the clock. UNC gets Pitt stopped for 4th and 3 so they need a 48 yard field goal, which is the edge of their kickers range, to take the lead with less than 3 min left. For some unknown reason, UNC then jumps offside giving Pitt a free first down. Pitt runs down the clock to 52 seconds and kicks and easy FG for the 19-17 win. It was a good game between 2 evenly matched, top 20-25 teams.
Lastly, attendance was a little weak (announced as 50,389) and that includes the tickets Pitt had to buy that didn't get sold. Pitt gave free tickets to any student who made the trip, but it didn't seem to make much of a difference. The section they had designated for this was mostly empty. Tickets for the endzone sections in the upper deck were not sold and you actually could not walk the whole way around the upper concourse. When WVU played UNC in this Bowl last year it was a sellout. It is only 30 minutes further for Pitt fans so I just don't understand. It was their best season since Dan Marino was QB and they can't get 20,000 fans to a bowl game.
Added: The halftime show:
The halftime show featured both schools bands. UNC came out and did a Blue Man Group performance. All members of the band drummed on things such as empty tin cans and garbage cans. It was maybe the most impressive show I have seen by a band. Sure, there was no marching involved but it was well put together and truely entertaining. Pitt on the other hand just did a quick song from the stands. Yes, that's right, they didn't even get out of their seats! However they did manage to perform Sweet Caroline (my most hated non-Michael Jackson stadium song) at the end of the third quarter as they traditionally do.
Posted By: JGuiher
