#33 San Jose State

San Jose, CA

CEFCU Stadium August 29, 2019 San Jose St 35 – Northern Colorado 18 (ESPN Recap)

On the Thursday night season opener, I could not find the stadium until I was 100 yards from it on a scooter. Notably, there were zero scalpers and I had to pay $14 for a face value $14 ticket from the box office which is exactly $14 more than I was expecting to have to pay (students swiped in for free with their IDs so there were not a lot of freebies floating around).

"Why see a FCS team?" you might ask Why not? SJSU went 1-11 last year and who knows if they will ever be competitive before the pursuit is over. I had work the next morning at Fetch Robotics in San Jose so this game fit into my work schedule perfectly.

For my $14, I sat third row at the 45 yard line, one row behind a dad and uncle of a N Colorado linebacker, and next to a group of devout SJSU season ticket holders. Quite the experience in terms of the lens by which they watched the game.

The N Col guys were morally opposed to their offense running the ball despite a fair amount of success. Violent chants of “Throw the ball! Throw the ball! Throw the ball!” following any offensive play where a run was stopped for no gain or a loss (again, despite 4 or 5 consecutive gashes in the run game).

The SJSU guys seemed to not be familiar with many college football rules despite 15 years of every home game. It was sort of endearing. It wasn’t about the football for them, but rather a way for the guys to get together regularly and hang out inexpensively. Best player on the field was the Northern Colorado FG kicker by FAR. Didn’t miss and drilled a 56 yarder. Favorite play was when the 2-9 (2018 record) FCS team recorded a safety on SJSU. As long it’s not the super bowl, safeties are a fun part of CFB. It felt amazing to have college football back.

The stadium had surprisingly good and surprisingly expensive ($9.50) craft beer options. SJSU is also renovating the seating on the visitor sideline so it looked very high school-esque.

Speaking of high school-esque. Everything about tonight screamed high school: the majority of the fans appeared to be freshman that were 17 or 18 years old, the game was on a week night, the stadium was half enclosed with grass and signs of the mascot name, and the level of play was atrocious.

Night before kickoff line was SJSU -10.5 and I waited to Thursday morning to take No Colorado +13…a fairly large line move in 12 hours. Four hours later, the line had rocketed to -17.5 and I took the dogs again for the weird split. I loved this game despite it being the lowest quality live game I have ever been to.

(Krazy George is an institution here...not school sanctioned though. Did you know he allegedly invented "The Wave"?!)