<p>I was just having a leisurely lunch at the UVa/Yale Club w/ my old college buddy Elise, when I happened to catch the end of the Music Bowl on ESPN as we were walking out. I totally forgot about the game. (I'm such a bad alumnus.) I know that Minnesota was favored to win, and we were suffering from a 11 point deficit coming out of half-time, but nonetheless, we won! Wahoowah!!! I'm so happy we caught Minnesota's throw during the last minute of the game. Muahahahaha...I love a come back. </p>
<p>It was a great game - I just got back from watching it at a restaurant, too. If only we could get a win like that at a better bowl than the "Gaylord Hotels Music City Bowl." :/</p>
<p>The disappointing thing was the turnout - very few people were in the stands. UVA must not have sold many tickets. I had strongly considered going to the game on a road trip with some of my suitemates, but no one could really commit to it. It probably woulda been pretty fun...Nashville's a cool city.</p>
<p>The side of the stadium that the cameras were facing was the Minnesota side. I wonder how the Virginia side looked. Was it pretty empty too? It appeared like there were a lot of Hoos in the stands.</p>
<p>UVA coulda really shut them down if they didn't completely blow a couple coverages in the first half (like playing man to man and one defender going to double team someone leaving his guy wide open for 50 yards).</p>
<p>The UVA side was pretty empty as well. Minnesota band got way more camera shots than the UVA band. They didn't announce attendence, but I'd say 1/2-3/4 of the lower bowl was full, and not much beyond that (they were playing where the Titans play though, so full size pro stadium). Lots of the bowl games have attendence like this, unfortunately. For this reason they try to schedule games locally for the lesser bowls, and this is why bowls like teams that "travel well" aka bring a lot of people with them.</p>
<p>Georgia Tech was not very happy about playing in San Diego, and they didn't really show up to play in their game.</p>
<p>I went to the bowl game today and it was a lot of fun. The Minnesota fans were all nice as well as the local Nashville people. There was a battle of the University bands on 2nd St. last night - UVA won. They announced that there were 40,000 fans in attendance. The stadium definitely felt empty. Nobody was in the upper deck. I thought we had pretty good representation. There definitely seemed to be more Hoos in the stadium. I am going to spend New Years in Nashville and then head back to VA on Sunday. It has definitely been a great trip so far...</p>
<p>There were an estimated 12,000 Hoos there. Not bad for a minor bowl after a poor season, our reputation shouldn't suffer from the bowl.</p>
<p>The reason you saw all the blown coverages is we were starting probably the two least experienced safeties in college football...a redshirt freshman and a sophomore, I believe. Glaspy, the guy who blew several of the coverages (especially on that last Minnesota TD pass where he just stopped covering his man) is a walk on who lived in the same hall as one of my friends last year...and this year he's the starting free safety for UVA for the last few games of the season. Thank you, injuries and marijuana!</p>