Hotdish and highways

Memorial Stadium, “Death Valley,” Clemson, SC

We arrived on campus about 2.5 hours ahead of game time and lucked into some roadside (aka: free) parking less than a mile from the stadium.

Clemson’s campus seemed nice from what we saw. Lots of color-coordinated tailgating was happening all up and down the road and leading up to the team busses, which would soon carry the home team around the stadium in classic Clemson tradition.

They have a small field area right outside the stadium gates, and kids young and old were out there playing various games of touch football.

At 11, we headed in, grabbing a couple of souvenir sodas, hot dogs, and a sausage. The prices were extremely reasonable, and the taste was solid for a stadium dog. Proceeding to our seats, we found ourselves deep in enemy territory, surrounded by a bunch of season ticket holders. The couple of people I spoke to were jovial and kind, even to a Wolfpack fan.

I did video the “greatest tradition in all of college sports” (insert a touch of sarcasm here), but I feel like it’s something you should experience firsthand, so I won’t be posting it here. Let’s just say that it was pretty cool.

The stadium seats over 81,000, and although it wasn’t quite a sellout, there were a ton of Clemson loyal in the house. I enjoy all of the stadium traditions, particularly when the crowd gets involved, although I quickly tired of cries of C-L-E-M-S-O-(wait for it) N, as NC State went down early and never had a chance.

It was almost 90 degrees and we were in the direct sunlight and getting crispy, so we left down 45-7, but the experience was fantastic.

Overall rating: 5/5 Legen-dairy