I flew down super early Friday morning, leaving our house about 5:40. I got a couple Rock Chalks from fellow KU folks on my flight. We must have arrived the same time as a flight from Kansas City, as there were a ton of Jayhawks walking around the Austin airport. <\/p>\n
E-bro picked me up and we headed directly to Franklin Barbecue<\/a> to get in line. Despite arriving about 90 minutes before opening, there were already tons of people lined up in their lounge chairs passing time. We spent about an hour sitting in the rapidly warming sun before the doors opened and we could shuffle into some shade. It was another two hours before we got to the front of the line and placed our order. The only good thing about that was that initial rush had cleared and the tables weren\u2019t completely packed. Even though E and I text every day, we hadn\u2019t seen each other in person in seven years, so there was plenty to catch up on as we waited. <\/p>\n I ordered a Tipsy Texan sandwich, which featured chopped brisket and sausage along with slaw. It was very good, although the slaw was not my favorite style, dry and vinegary instead of creamy. Weird to have barbecue without fries, which Texans apparently don\u2019t do. The food was definitely worth the wait, although I would not say it\u2019s the very best barbecue I\u2019ve ever had. I promise I was eating with an open mind, not reflexively knocking it below KC \u2018cue.<\/p>\n The lady who was taking and building orders chatted everyone up as she worked. When she saw our KU shirts she told us she was from Wichita and hoped to move back and open her own restaurant there some day. Our little five minute interaction must have gone well from her perspective, because she gave us a couple big-ass beef ribs for free.<\/p>\n E showed me around Austin a little before we headed to his home in the hills of Westlake. I got to see one of his kids I hadn\u2019t seen since he was a baby, meet another for the first time, and see his wife for the first time in over 20 years. We chilled out for a bit, I took a short nap, then we headed out to grab some appetizers and beer in a fancy suburban area.<\/p>\n Billy Sweets was driving down after work and didn\u2019t arrive until around 9:30. I hadn\u2019t seen him since my wedding, the last time the three of us were together. It was great fun both catching up and doing the obligatory telling 30-year-old stories that still make you laugh until you cry. We went to school with some wackos. <\/p>\n Saturday we kept it low key, just getting breakfast tacos before the game. I\u2019ve been hearing them complain about the Texas heat for four months so was not looking forward to a 2:30 PM game in the sun. We wanted to minimize any time away from AC before we were obligated to sit outside.<\/p>\n We sunscreened- and hatted-up before heading downtown to the stadium. I was trying to think of what the biggest sporting event I\u2019ve ever been to was, and I guess it\u2019s been Chiefs games where there are 80,000 people. So pretty crazy to go to a stadium where there are twenty thousand more people than that, almost all dressed in burnt orange. There were quite a few KU people, but the orange was so overwhelming and we were so scattered you couldn\u2019t really pick out the KU folks in the stands, only see them when you walked around the concourses. Random UT fans came over and greeted\/welcomed us, asking where we were from, and wishing us luck while insisting that we enjoy our time in Austin. That was kind of great. One very nice older woman also directed us to a tent where a hospital was giving out free towels that had been dunked in ice. These might literally have been life savers. <\/p>\n It was in the mid–90s all day, with the sun either directly above us or moving so it was in our faces. It really makes you appreciate what the players are going through when you are suffering just standing around.<\/p>\n We wandered about a bit before the game. The concourses were totally packed with people hanging out in the shade as long as possible. As we walked through the crowds E suddenly shouted \u201cDTae!\u201d 2018 Big 12 player of the year and first team All American Devont\u00e9 Graham was walking towards us. As he passed I shouted \u201cDEVONT\u00c9!\u201d and he came to a complete stop and looked at me. I reached out and yelled, \u201cWHAT\u2019S UP?\u201d He slapped my hand back, saying, \u201cHey man,\u201d and moved on to another group of KU people. Good of him to drive up from San Antonio for the game. <\/p>\n You all know I don\u2019t do well with celebrity encounters so I felt like this was a big moment for me. Now I\u2019ve accosted two former KU guards in public, Mario Chalmers being the other. <\/p>\n So we get to our seats – eighth row inside the 20 yard line behind the KU bench, pretty good! – and I get a text from one of my KU buddies in KC saying that Jalon Daniels was out for the game. <\/p>\n Fucking great. <\/p>\n Now we\u2019re going to sit in the brutal heat for four hours against maybe the best team in the country without our starting quarterback. <\/p>\n We had been counting \u201cwins\u201d all morning, from getting a good parking spot to the cold towel tip to running into DTae. So much for any good karma we had been trying to find in the day. It would be an understatement to say we lost most of our enthusiasm for the day.<\/p>\n We weren\u2019t feeling any better after KU got one first down then punted and Texas scored quickly after. <\/p>\n It was a weird game, though. KU couldn\u2019t do much on offense, running pretty basic sets to account for the absence of Daniels. But we kept hanging in there. The defense would give up a big play, then hold. Texas missed a field goal late in the first half, and another in the third quarter. KU scored a touchdown on a bizarre play and it was just 13–7 Texas at halftime. We dropped some balls, Jason Bean made some bad decisions, but we were still right in it. When Bean threw a 58-yard touchdown to Trevor Wilson to cut it to 20–14, we went nuts. <\/p>\n Then it all came apart when we had third and inches late in the third quarter and called consecutive bad plays, fumbling on the fourth down attempt. I was 100% fine with going for it. It was going to take a lot of crazy stuff for us to win, and I thought it was worth the risk. But Bean made awful reads each time and you should never run the shotgun when you need inches to get a first down. Liked the gamble but hated the play call and execution. Texas scored seconds later and the fourth quarter turned into a rout. E, Sweets, and I watched a lot of KU football losses together back in the Nineties, so it was like old times.[2]<\/a> <\/p>\n Even if Jalon had been healthy and played well, beating Texas in Austin was going to be very, very difficult. It was a big bummer to get the news early that JD wasn\u2019t playing, and the fourth quarter sucked, but in between KU showed how far the program has come. A couple drunk students\/recent students tried to talk some shit as we walked out, which we took as another sign of how far KU football has come. <\/p>\n One funny\/frustrating story from the stands. The guy standing behind us was some \u201cfootball expert\u201d and broke down each play to the people around him before the snap. \u201cOK, see how the safeties are up? This is going to be a run play.\u201d Or, \u201cThey\u2019re bringing pressure, we have to go outside here.\u201d We\u2019re not sure if the people sitting with him were listening or he was just talking to himself. The funny part was that he was wrong like 75% of the time when he predicted the play. I wanted to turn around and ask him what high school team he coaches, what their record is, and if he\u2019d ever sent his resum\u00e9 into UT. But it was too hot to turn around so I kept my sarcastic comments to myself.<\/p>\n It was, of course, a nightmare getting out of the stadium area. That\u2019s a lot of freaking people in a true, big city downtown. It was probably an hour all together from when we left the stadium until we got to where we could drive the speed limit. <\/p>\n We landed at a restaurant for pizza and beers, then back to E\u2019s for more beer, football, and BSing on the couch.<\/p>\n I was supposed to fly back early Sunday but changed my flight to the evening non-stop so that we could do a leisurely breakfast before Sweets headed back to Dallas. After he left, E and I did some more driving around, this time going through campus, his old neighborhood, some of the quirky and fun Austin areas, and the park where they were setting up for the Austin City Limits festival. We even drove by the restaurant one of my sisters-in-law helped open about 10 years ago. It was, again, like 96, so we did all our exploring by car. The Texas guys give me grief about Indiana winters all the time. Not sure how you live somewhere where it\u2019s been in the 90s and 100s and 110s just about every day since early May. <\/p>\n Travel was easy, no real stories from that other than the guy in front of me in the TSA line in Austin attempting to get through security without any form of government ID. He did have a prescription bottle. Not sure how that was going to work out for him. <\/p>\n It was great to get away and have a dudes weekend with two pretty good dudes. They both have kids at Baylor,[3]<\/a> so maybe the next KU trip to Waco should be our excuse to get together again before another 20 years pass.<\/p>\n I paid almost as much for parking as for my plane ticket. ↩<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Sweets and I even watched KU lose to SMU in Dallas in 2001 together. ↩<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dsnotebook.me\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/IMG_8343-scaled.jpeg\")
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