PSR Showdown
Where is the best college football roadtrip?

Unanimous Decision: South Bend
By Rob Cochran
#1 Cochran

Road trip. The words bring me back to Animal House as Belushi and gang responded to having their fraternity charter revoked. When combined with sport and, specifically, college football, there may be no better guys' weekend.

One trip that sticks in my mind is the 1991 Notre Dame-Southern California game. I had never been to South Bend. I never really understood the passion that Notre Dame fans shared. I was invited to the game by a van conversion company in neighboring Elkhart, Indiana. So I grabbed a conversion van and, with three friends, headed north on a Friday afternoon.

We arrived in time for dinner. The first thing I noticed in this pub where we were dining was the same song kept playing every 10 minutes - an old warped record stating, "Ladies and gentlemen, the 1939 fighting Irish band." Then the Notre Dame Fight Song - over and over and over. The more people drank, the louder they sang. By 11:00, everybody in the pub was standing on the tables singing that fight song.

Later that evening, after a walk around campus and a stop at The Linebacker Club, we waited to find a taxi to Elkhart. A driver who spoke very broken English - and was watching an episode of "Married With Children" on a make-shift TV - picked us up. Ten minutes later, after a particularly funny Al Bundy scene, we ended up spinning out in the taxicab in the middle of a cornfield. After an hour of pushing we got back to the hotel and, of course, there were still people up singing that fight song.

We awoke early the next morning to a very cold day. The stadium, the atmosphere, and the game didn't disappoint, as Notre Dame won 24-20 in the end. Saturday night was more of the same, listening to that fight song another 50 times or so.

I returned home with no more allegiance to Notre Dame than I had before. But I had the memory of a college football road trip that will last a lifetime.

Rob Cochran is the chairman, president and CEO of #1 Cochran, Inc.

Notre Dame
By Mike Prisuta
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review

As popular as college football remains, there's only one ultimate destination.

Notre Dame.

That's not to discredit what happens between the hedges, or deep in the heart of Texas. That's not to discount the majesty of Husky Stadium or the sun-splashed grandeur that is the L.A. Coliseum.

And that isn't meant to take anything away from the tuba player dotting the "i" in Script Ohio, or what takes place annually during an Army-Navy game, all of which can only be described as "breathtaking."

It's just that Notre Dame is a cut above.

Notre Dame Stadium isn't quite what it used to be; a recent expansion robbed the place of a little intimacy as well as partially obstructing the view for some of "Touchdown Jesus."

But even in the wake of the Irish making such an economic concession and becoming just a little bit more like everyone else, Notre Dame stands apart from the rest of college football.

It's about the litany of All-America selections.

It's about the legend of The Rock.

It's about the smell of grills and the sound of bagpipes.

It's about a tradition that's impossible not to embrace while strolling across Notre Dame's impeccably manicured campus.

You don't have to be a Notre Dame fan to recognize and respect what Notre Dame stands for; a glimpse of the Golden Dome ought to be enough to win over even the hardest of hearts.

Witnessing that, one realizes Notre Dame isn't just another opponent, that playing at Notre Dame is an unforgettable and unparalleled experience, win, lose or draw (well, perhaps not for Michigan State faithful still holding a grudge over that 10-10 tie in '66, but you get the idea).

There's simply no other place like it this side of Yankee Stadium.

The Notre Dame experience is as overwhelming as it is unforgettable.

Whether you're of Irish decent or otherwise.

Mike Prisuta is a columnist for the Pittsburgh Tribune Review.