Oh to be young.
My first game as a freshman was the Pitt game.
Nothing will top that.
I’m with you on this one.
After suffering through years of mediocrity this game was the beginning of fresh air.
I've told this story a few times on this board, but I only saw probably 5 plays of this game that I can recount from memory and two of them were Dion Byrum's pick sixes.
I was interning with the AD that fall for the marketing team and my job that night was escorting the mascot around Peden. The old mouse looking Bobcat, not the new jacked up Rufus. The reason I missed most of the game was because the original person who was slated to be the mascot that evening showed up half wasted because they had been pregaming all day before that. Maybe that person underestimated how much alcohol they had consumed, or maybe they didn't realize how hot it was going to be; it was an especially humid evening IIRC.
By midway through the first half the person was throwing up their lunch/dinner in the back of the of Green Lot outside of Peden. It was so bad that at some point a group of fans had walked past us and said "looks like the Bobcat had too much to drink!" Thankfully there were no kids around to see the Bobcat with their head off puking its guts out.
Well the head marketing guy was PISSED about this, but still wanted the mascot in the stadium. The poor GA who was tasked with finding a replacement literally called every single person they had used for the mascot the year before. One of them shows up and he puts it to her pretty bluntly: "look, the person before you was drunk off their ass and I'm sure this costume smells terrible, but will you do this?" I wish I would have gotten this person's information because they put on that costume and did a fantastic job. To the point where I didn't even need to escort them around the stadium. As long as they weren't being kicked by little kids who they couldn't see, they were fine. They mostly got enjoyment out of hanging with the students on Victory Hill.
Anyway, my job pretty much completed, by this time the game was almost over. I was standing in the end zone when Dion took the OT interception back to the house and before he even reached pay dirt some students had already started making their way over the wall on the other end zone. The atmosophere was electric. I called my dad after I was so excited. Everyone knew Ohio football was going to be different after that night.