So I attended my first ever NCAA football game on the weekend in Sydney and it was a lot of fun. I now want to see a game in America to get the full college football experience.
The score was 51-31 for Cal so there was a lot of excitement and not much defence. I was impressed with Hawaii for keeping the game within reach and if it wasn't for a bad onside kick to start the game and three turnovers it would have been much closer. The most impressive part though was the Cal duo of Davis Webb and Chad Hansen who connected for a number of nice passing plays. Webb looked very calm and confident in the pocket and his decision making was top notch.
Unfortunately, the game was poorly organised by the Olympic Stadium. The prices could have been a little lower as there was only 61k fans in a 88k stadium. Also, even with the smaller crowd they ran out of merchandise an hour before the game, ran out of hot dogs at half time, and ran out of beer in the 3rd quarter. Their excuse was that they were not prepared for the crowd arriving at the same time all wanting lunch (the game started at noon, and they had advertised American style food at the stadium, of course everyone wanted lunch!)
To conclude I enjoyed the product on the field but I am not sure it made much of an impression with the Sydneysiders. The fans here are used to Rugby League which is fast paced an over in under two hours and I could sense some boredom with the slower paced gridiron which took almost four hours.
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