re: Just Back From Tuscaloosa--Impressions:

I'm not getting into the broader facilities debate. Back to the OP.

Things I liked:
Bryant-Denny is a pretty nice facility. It is well designed and well integrated so that it appears that the whole thing was built at one time. They also have resisted the post-911 trend to push the entry gates back away from the stadium. I sat in the lower bowl, and was underneath the upper deck supports before I had to show tickets. And since they don't have to dodge around dorms, they had a lot of gates that facilitated going through the lines quickly.

The fans I was around were pretty okay. Sometimes they would look at me funny when I was cheering or disagreeing with the refs, but otherwise they were cordial and even asked me if I had been treated well before the game.

What I didn't like:
The atmosphere was way too artificial. How many times do we have to see videos of Bear Bryant before the game? Everyone thinks Bama fans live in the past--well, their pregame videos make that mandatory.

Speaking of pregame, the band was completely irrelevant. They marched out to the music from their band hype video. WTH? Their lines were bad, they did scatter drills to get to the B A M A formations, and once they were in the tunnel, the piped in music started up again while they waited for the team to march out (filmed of course for the video boards).

Additionally, the band was irrelevant to the crowd. Even when you can't really hear Tiger Band, you can tell they are playing the "GO TIGERS" cheer because everyone is yelling it. Nothing the MDB did had that kind of reaction, because all of the crowd hype was coming from the videos of the maniac strength coach.

Reminded me of an NFL game, and not in a good way.

The strip did look nice, but after the game I really wasn't in the mood.

GEAUX TIGERS