EagleBank Bowl Experience
The EagleBank Bowl was the big question mark of the trip. We had to drive 1,186 miles from Shreveport to Washington, DC in less than 18 hours to make the game on time. Luckily everything worked in our favor and the trip went very smooth until we were about 15 miles outside of DC when we hit stop and go traffic due to construction. Since parking was $20 at RFK, which is located in a somewhat limited parking area of downtown DC, we decided to park in Springfield, VA and ride the metro. This is the end stop on the blue line, and trains come every 11 minutes. It is approximately a 45 minute ride to RFK from there. We took too long finding the right ticket machine and missed the train we wanted by 1 minute. Luckily we did beat the rush hour clock by about 10 seconds, so the ride was only $2.35 vs $4.50.
We did stop real quick in some Armory building next to RFK on the way to the stadium to use the bathroom. I appeared to be hosting a pre-game tailgate. You had to go through metal detectors to get inside. I am not sure if this was the all-you-can-eat tailgate that fans complained about running out of food over 2 hours before kickoff or not, but there were a lot of fans in there from both teams. Considering how cold it was outside, I don't blame them.
Once we got to the stadium, I tried to use twitpic to post this picture of RFK but for some reason it froze my phone. By the time I got my phone to restart, I missed the pictures of the members of the Wounded Warrior Project parachuting into the stadium. I did get it started in time to take this picture of the huge American Flag they rolled out for the Anthem.
We had grabbed tickets from a scalper when we got off of the metro. They cost us $20 each. As you can see, they were free comp tickets given out to some group but they were going to cost us $30 at the gate and we didn't have a whole lot of time to waste as we got off the metro just 35 minutes before kickoff and it is .44 miles from the stadium.
Concessions were well, lacking. Look at these pictures, they are from 2 different stands and show the entire menu offered at the stadium. Only 1 in every 3 stands was set to be open (had menus posted) and then only about half of those were actually open. There was a Sodexho commercial at one point, so I don't know if they were in charge of the concession stands or not, but it was awful. The local high school here doesn't even have a concession stand, they have to bring in trailers every game, and it has a much better selection.
The stadium itself is probably close to being condemned. The only stadium I have been to that was in similar condition was the old Orange Bowl during its last season. The EagleBank Bowl was originally suppose to be called the Congressional Bowl and played at Nationals Park but the Nationals told them no. However, couldn't they pony up a little more money and pay Daniel Snyder to use FedEx Field? This Bowl is honestly likely to fold quickly if they can't upgrade the experience with better concessions and a maintained stadium.
The game itself was the tale of two halves. The first half (before Bernard Pierce got hurt) was dominated by Temple. They were all over UCLA and I could already see the headlines flowing about how it was the classic case of team who wants to be there vs team who could care less. Well, I disagree. It was the fact that Pierce was just plain the best skilled player on the field for either team and was making UCLA look silly. After he got hurt, Temple didn't have anyone else to go to for the big play, allowing UCLA to shut them down completely and finally win 30-21.
Attendance was pretty good (23,078)considering you wouldn't expect many UCLA fans to follow a 6-6 team to 15 degree weather. Temple fans travelled well, bringing almost 20,000 fans for a school with a history littered with failure. I was very impressed with both the Temple turnout and the level of enthusiasm. The fans stayed till inside the final 5 minutes and stood for the entire game.
Temple Fans
UCLA side
The overall presentation of the bowl was strange. They had tons of corporate banners in the stadium, and even sent a tweet the day before about how they had over 30 sponsors. However, there was very little mention of them. A reading of the list while displaying them on the replay board was about it. There was probably more focus on the Wounded Warrior Project than all the other sponsors combined. Halftime featured the Temple band with a standard performance.
After the game was over, we rode the metro back to Springfield, grabbed a bite to eat and drove the 204 miles back to our parents house outside of Pittsburgh.
Posted By: JGuiher
