Watching College Football

Rex and I are all about free stuff.  Seriously.  This is the way we see it: the less money we spend on other stuff, the more money we have to spend on dogs and Olive Garden.

We have always been this way.  For a recap on some of our free-stuff-searching experiences, you can check out my blog post from a year and a half ago: http://webbnewlyweds.blogspot.com/2011/02/things-we-do-for-free-pizza.html

In order to save money, Rex and I have never bought TV service (cable or otherwise).  We have a television set in order to watch DVDs, but it gets zero channels.  This is great for us during the majority of the year, but it becomes a real problem during college football season.

College football season is the one time a year when we really want to watch TV.  As I sit here watching the Michigan State game and typing this blog in the deserted student lounge of Rex's school, I can't help but run a mental recap of all of the stuff we've done to be able to watch our beloved Spartans play:

1.  One of the best Saturdays of my college career was when we got to volunteer to do parking duty for MSU.  Rex and I spent four hours telling people where to park, and in exchange we each got a free ticket to the game!  Whoooo hooooo!  We were super pumped.

2.  During other home games, Rex and I would walk in circles around Spartan Stadium.  We could hear the announcer and the cheers from the 70,000+ screaming fans, so it was almost like we were at the game.  Almost.

3. There was a big screen TV in the cafeteria, so sometimes we would watch games in there.  I always felt a little bit sheepish, though, as if I was joining some "We're too poor to get tickets to the game" club.  I felt like I was less of a fan than the ones in the stadium, but that's not true!  I was just poor!

4. Once we got married, things got a bit more complicated since we no longer lived on campus.  Luckily, we made friends with our new neighbors.  Even more luckily, they loved college football and had a party every Saturday for people to come watch the games on their really nice TV.  To this day, every time I watch football I get kind of hungry for Karl's homemade nachos.

5. In 2011, Rex and I moved to Las Vegas, 2000 miles away from our beloved Spartans.  This became really complicated, as we did not have a social group of Spartan fans to invite us to warm their couches.  During the football season last year, we spent a considerable amount of time at our local Buffalo Wild Wings.  We originally tried to watch games at the casino close to our apartment, but they play the game with no sound!  What's a football game with no sound?!  So anyway, we went to Buffalo Wild Wings.  The problem with this is that you can't just go sit there.  You have to buy something.  Rex and I would stay there for hours and only buy six chicken wings total....that always made me feel a bit guilty.

6.  This year, we found a new TV to claim - the TV in Rex's school's student lounge.  We can spread out on the couches and turn up the game.  Rex yells at the TV and annoys all of the other people in the lounge, so they go study somewhere else.  It makes me feel bad, but Rex just says, "There are a million study rooms in this building, and this is the only one with a TV.  I'm claiming it."  Silly Rex...but I guess he takes football pretty seriously.

We have always found a way to watch the games.  I wonder what we'll do next year, when we are back in Michigan?  Will we just go to one of our parents' houses every Saturday?  Sounds good to me....Rex's mom makes some really good nachos.  Mmmmmm....now I'm hungry.  Oh well, this year we're still TV nomads, so we get no snacks.  I don't care (that much).  GO GREEN!