My journey to the national championship game began with a 5 a.m. Sunday wake-up in frigid Minneapolis. I had been there since Thursday afternoon with Notre Dame hockey, broadcasting its series split against Minnesota — including an overtime win Saturday night.
If I had any second thoughts about returning to bed and sleeping through my 7:35 flight, stepping outside certainly vanquished them. The wind chill was 30 below. As if in a scene straight out of “Fargo,” I waited alone on the LightRail platform, which generated some heat, but certainly not enough. Eventually, after switching trains at U.S. Bank Stadium, I arrived at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
Despite waiting through a 35-minute security line at Terminal 2 (seriously, MSP?) I arrived at the game for Southwest sunrise flight down to Austin. Flying Southwest, my preferred airline, with a layover was the only way to keep the plane ticket south of $600. The route to Austin did take us right over my hometown of Omaha, adding some value to the southwestern detour.
I was in and out of Austin quickly, purchasing only a bottle of water and a slice of meaty pizza. Irish and Buckeye fans alike packed the next plane to Austin, leaving me with perhaps the worst seat onboard — back row, middle seat. Oh well.
After landing in cloudy Atlanta at 3:05 p.m., I made the long trek to MARTA and found a train into downtown waiting on the tracks. As the skyline grew larger, the massive Mercedes-Benz Stadium came into view on the west end of the high-rises, raising the hairs on the back of my neck. I exited at Peachtree Center, met a few friends in student media at the hotel and finally took a moment to breathe after 10 hours of travel.
The next few hours I spent continuing my preparation for broadcasting the game on WVFI Radio. I wisely chose to work in the media hospitality room downstairs, catching a thrilling end to the Rams-Eagles NFL game.
At 7:30, my roommates and I once again gathered and made our way to the other side of the block for the media party. Held at the Southern Exchange Ballrooms, the event had it all. Upon arrival, we heard an extremely talented violinist belting out hits like “Dancing Queen” and “Country Roads.” She was going at it for all three hours we were there!
On the other side of the room, staff members had set up a long ramp on which to slide down pulled pork sandwiches. Hungry media members waited at the bottom of the slide, hoping to catch their first meal of the night.
An adjacent, even larger room, contained the main portions of the meal, including shrimp and grits, fried chicken skins and whiskey-drizzled donuts. After cleaning off our plates, we found some seats near one of the four television screens displaying the Ravens-Bills game, gasping as Mark Andrews dropped the game-tying two-point conversion.
Just after 10, we returned to the hotel and began a marathon of pre-national championship entertainment. We started with the highs, as Ryan Murphy put on the 1988 national championship game and the 1993 Notre Dame-Florida State game. Then, J.J. Post and I took over to revisit the lowest lows, including the Marshall and Northern Illinois postgame press conferences.
The clock hit midnight, gameday arrived and to bed we went.
The next morning, I wrapped up my prep work and took a walk around downtown sunny, chilly Atlanta. Through Woodruff Park, past the Georgia State Capitol and to the dream destination: Waffle House. I savored one of my chocolate chip pecan waffles, boxed up the other and headed back to the hotel to make my final preparations for the game.
Walking over to the stadium certainly put us all in an excited and appreciative frame of mind. Between throngs of Ohio State scarlet and Notre Dame green, we traversed the heart of Centennial Olympic Park with the SkyView Atlanta ferris wheel spinning to our left, the World of Coca-Cola down the way to our right and the College Football Hall of Fame straight ahead. As we cut between the Atlanta Convention Center and State Farm Arena, the $1.6 billion national championship site came into view. Down an outdoor escalator and into the media gate we went.
Once inside, we made our way up to the press box and found our radio booth, which was positioned along the back line of Notre Dame’s end zone and on the Ohio State side of the stands. With about three hours separating us from kickoff, we made our way down to the field for the first time, getting a full view of the massive halo videoboard beneath the pinwheel-style retractable roof.
From there, I split off on my own to explore the stadium’s 300 level, searching for the most all-encompassing view of the site. While shuffling down a nosebleed row behind the Irish end zone, I ran into Michael Barker, the man behind the College Football Campus Tour account on X, formerly known as Twitter. For those unfamiliar with Barker’s lifestyle, he uses each college football season as an opportunity to attend as many games as possible, all while showcasing the intricacies of stadiums around the country — most notably their obstructed views.
I chatted with Barker and his two companions for just under 10 minutes, as he was in search of an obstructed view he had seen on social media. As it turns out, that location was actually in the press box. Anyway, the national championship marked Barker’s 104th college football game of the season. He had seen the Irish play four times — including thrice in the College Football Playoff — and Notre Dame held a 4-0 record with him in attendance.
Unfortunately, that zero would change to a one as I returned to the booth and watched Ohio State’s national championship victory play out. After sharing a tearful goodbye to Notre Dame football just after midnight on the WVFI airwaves, we headed back to the hotel disappointed, delirious and thankful, anticipating a short night of sleep ahead of our Tuesday flight back to South Bend.
