I rolled a little different this past Saturday.

At this point in my CFB attending life I’m as much interested in going to new places and getting on with my CFB locale bucket list. I had this opportunity to go with some clients from Nebraska. So this isn’t an OU post but a venue review from another place.

Virginia Tech–Lane Stadium, Blacksburg, VA.

Anyone who travels to road games knows that the trip to elsewhere is the whole weekend, not just the gameday. Not everyplace is Austin, Texas, or Miami, or LA, so for the smaller college town experience you have to widen the loop a little on the whole experience. Widen it is what we did.

I strongly recommend The Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. It’s one of the most famous resorts in the US, with over 200 years of history. The golf is fantastic, 3 courses, one of which is a PGA Tour venue starting next year, and a casino is under construction. Good enough for a destination, but The Greenbrier has a piece of history that no other resort (that we know of) can. Built 720 feet into a hill beside the property, “the Bunker” was constructed in the 1950s to be the safe site for the entire US House and Senate in the event of nuclear war. The place was built to house 535 legislators and an equal number of staff for up to 60 days. The tour was pretty damn cool. What’s most amazing is that the place stayed a complete secret until 1993 when it was “outed” in the Washington Post. Only the president, the House speaker and the Senate leaders knew of it until then.

The Bunker

I’m into old school luxury and The Greenbrier is definitely old school luxury. The casino will certainly liven it up, but it was perfect for me. Flat loved it.

Greenbrier

It’s about 80 miles to Blacksburg. Notwithstanding the mental images of Deliverance and listening for those banjo’s around every corner its beautiful country. But about Blacksburg and VaTech….

Gameday-The People

Congrats, Hokie fans, we could not have been more welcomed or treated more friendly that we were outside the stadium. My group of 12 wasn’t in the Northwest parking lot of Lane for 30 seconds when we were invited into a group’s tailgate. They fed us, chatted us up, opened their coolers (no freeloaders we. We brought a cooler full too) and treated us like guests in their kitchens for the entire day. Upon time to walk into the stadium the hosts in multitude gave our group “have a good game,” “enjoy Lane” and “thanks for coming” greetings.

Lane Stadium-The Venue
Again, compliments, Hokies. Lane is a terrific place to watch a game. Looks like about 65,000-70,000 capacity, all on one deck on the sidelines, a double decker south end zone (like A&M’s Zone but smaller) and a north end bleacher that largely houses one of their two bands and some students.

LANE IS LOOOUUUDDD. Really loud. Really, really loud. Sightlines are very good, even when high. My group was on about the 5-10 yard line on the southeast side and two-thirds or higher the way up. No worries. Saw everything. Again the fans were really cool to us, especially for a tense game. It’s of note for you Orangebloods on here that Tech fans think of their OC the way you guys love to spoon Greg Davis. They don’t think a heck of a lot more of their QB either…until he uncorks an 81-yarder with a minute left. The place was pandemonium.

The rituals

Similar to A&M, Va Tech was a military school originally. I don’t know the timing of demilitarization but there is still a “corps of cadets,” much smaller than A&M’s and in blue uni’s and criss cross white straps. There’s a Corps band and it’s the smallish band that takes the field before the game. The entire Corps is on the field, with the band playing between the lines and the remainder of the Corps on the sidelines. I’d guess-timate 500 in all with 100 in the band. The “regular” band plays halftime. I was in line for the can so I missed them.

All in all, the rituals were, from a neutral’s point of view, a little vanilla. And, yes, they DO THE HOKIE POKIE at the start of the fourth quarter. That’s baaaaddddd.

Overall experience

Very positive, and if the Sooners ever played there I’d definitely go. The people were a real revelation. I can’t imagine being more welcomed. Hokie, Hokie, Hokie, HIGH, they’re the gang from VPI……..