The ever-changing landscape of college football as we know it is not about old rivalries & traditions but more about money & realignment. I have to be honest; when I first heard West Virginia was joining the Big 12, I had mixed feelings. I knew WVU had a rich tradition in football, but other than that, I knew very little about their fans or Morgantown. As one who likes to be informed, I did like any other blue-blooded Texan would do, I Googled all things West Virginia. My search returned some interesting information to say the least. The first picture I saw was a good ole’ Rent-a-Center couch engulfed in flames.  I thought, “Wow! We have let crazy Euro types in the Big 12;” this is not going to end well. Of course, now I was even more intrigued, so I ventured into several blogs and forums. I will not repeat what many of the posts said about the WVU fans for the sake there might be young children reading this. Let’s just say I was prepared to NEVER visit Morgantown unless I was armed with many loaded weapons. Fast forward to the 2012 season when a highly ranked WVU team invaded Austin & DKR stadium… We were setting up in our usual tailgate spot and of course the conversation centered around how many WVU fans would travel to Austin. As the day progressed, we met several WVU fans in town for the game; many hung around our tailgate for hours for good food, cold drinks, and of course, college football talk. The question I asked each of them was “How is Morgantown?†Most said it was a great town with an awesome game day atmosphere. However, I was also told the fans can be a little rough on visiting fans. I thought “yeah, I read thatâ€.  Well as we all know, WVU came into DKR last year and left with a big win in front of more than 100k college football fans. I applauded WVU for coming into a tough environment and getting the win, but I have to tell you I was perturbed at the cockiness of some of the WVU players and fans after the game. We all know Twitter can be rough after a loss, and it was for me. WVU fans blew my mentions up and it turned into some good smack talk. I knew then a new rivalry had been created and I didn’t care what I heard or read about Morgantown, I was going to the Texas – West Virginia game in 2013.
My adventure started when I landed in Pittsburgh on Thursday evening. I had heard about the Hofbrauhaus in Pittsburgh, so I had to visit. It was an outstanding venue! Nothing better than standing on top of your seat singing along with a German polka band playing cover songs by Journey, Foreigner, Boston, and Miley Cyrus to name a few. While there, I had some interesting conversations with Pittsburgh fans. Of course, their descriptions of Morgantown would make you think you were taking a visit to hell on earth. This heightened my interest even more.
https://www.hornsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/church_brew.jpg Church Brew Works. Photo Credit: Mike Barnes
After sleeping in on Friday morning and recovering from the half gallon beers we drank the night before, it was time to tour Pittsburgh. We started off eating at the world famous  Primanti Brothers. After I devoured the entire gargantuan sandwich, it was time to head out and visit some of the local breweries. I first went to Penn Brewery. It was very quaint and just what one would expect in Pittsburgh. The brewery had a pub feel to it. Not only was the beer good, but the food was awesome too. I recommend the pretzel with beer cheese. The next stop was Church Brew Works.  Now this was an interesting place. It’s an old Catholic church that has been converted into a brewery. I highly recommend the Bourbon Barrel Aged Stout. I had the wings to eat, which are your standard pub type of food. The most interesting thing I ate was while in Pittsburgh were the Untraditional Pierogies.  It’s basically a dumpling, but what made this one unique was it was stuffed with rattlesnake. That’s all I am going to say. I highly recommend visiting Pittsburgh if you have never had the opportunity.  Lots of neat bars and places to visit. To me, Pittsburgh has a lot of Austin in it. So of course, UT fans felt right at home, especially on Carsen Street which I will define as “6th Street “light.”
I arrived in Morgantown Friday night and after checking into the Bates Motel… I mean Travelodge, I was ready to experience everything the town had to offer. My first stop was the world famous Kegler’s Sport Bar. This was what you would expect in a sports bar – lots of games and and tons of both UT & WVU fans drinking & eating bar food. I tried the wings and the cheesesteak, both of which were very good. The staff was friendly and treated us Texas fans very well. A shout out to our server, Kayla, who told us we just missed meeting Jesse Jane. For those of you who don’t know who that is (which included me), she is a famous porn star and a huge Mountaineers fan. As many of you know I love Twitter, so as I normally do, I tweeted & mentioned Keglers ( I will finish the story later). Kegler’s was a lot of fun, and my traveling mates and I actually spent all of Friday night there thanks to the front desk guy at the Travelodge. I know you’re wondering why I mentioned the front desk guy.  Well he was either the nicest guy in the world or he played us like a fiddle.
Now to the good part… the group I was with decided to return to the hotel to drop off the car and catch a cab downtown. Getting a cab in Morgantown is like trying to find pulled pork in Pakistan – it ain’t happening. After waiting for more than an hour on a cab, we approached the front desk guy who said to us, “I can give you a ride to the PRT (Personal Rapid Transit).†For Texas fans, the PRT is essentially a monorail that goes around WVU and Morgantown. So we loaded up in front desk guy’s mini-van, and off we went to catch the PRT. Well after arriving at the station and walking up to the loading dock, I noticed the sign which read TRAIN CLOSED.  As I said,  “Well played front desk guy, well played.†There we stood out in the middle of WVU campus with no one in sight. Remembering the direction of Kegler’s, we set out on foot and headed back there for the second time (which we were cool with because it’s a great place).  Thank you to the staff and all the WVU fans we met at Kegler’s.  You all were awesome.
FINALLY IT’S GAME-DAY
https://www.hornsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/eers_tgguy.jpg Photo credit: Mike Barnes
The day started with a visit to Tudor’s Biscuit World for a little breakfast and of course, biscuits. Then we made our way into enemy territory – the Blue Lot (this is the main tailgate lot on the WVU campus). We started our trek and not five minutes into it we were asked, “Are you really from Texas?†My group found this question interesting because we were asked this at least 100 times. We finally found out that apparently there are a lot of “Texas” fans from the north, and let’s just say they don’t represent us well. Once the WVU fans realized we were indeed true Texans, they loved us. We had official street cred with them, which was cool because they now felt compelled to share their moonshine with us. I never knew moonshine could come in so many different colors. We tried apple pie and watermelon flavors to name a few. The ‘shine with the most intriguing name was called “panty snatcher.†I asked why it was called this, and I was told that after drinking a few shots, “panties just seem to start flying off.”  I said, “hey, I am from Texas and I can drink anything.†Well after a few shots, let’s just say the day was blurry. Yep it was good, but a lot like rocket fuel.  *Note to all WVU fans – the burnt orange underwear hanging on the flag pole in the Blue Lot belongs to me. As our journey around the Blue Lot continued, I must have heard “welcome to Morgantown†a thousand times. We were welcomed into every tailgate and offered food and drink by everyone. You folks definitely know how to tailgate & party.  Huge applause for you.
TO ALL WVU FANS:
I want to salute you for your passion in supporting your team. The season may not be going well, but you showed up and were extremely loud and into the game and throughout the entire evening. I no longer have mixed feelings about you being in the Big 12. I’m thoroughly glad you’re here. You bring an excitement and passion that our conference needs. The game-day atmosphere inside Mountaineer Field was amazing, and I cannot wait to come back and do it again in 2015. I want to also say that after visiting Morgantown, I love your city, respect your university, and admire all your fans. My group was treated to one of the best road trips we have ever experienced. Other than the normal pre-game smack talk, every WVU fan I encountered was extremely pleasant and incredibly nice. I can honestly not say enough about how well we were treated. You’re an amazing group of people and I feel honored that I got to experience it. I look forward to making many more trips to Morgantown in the coming years. I want to also thank Jeremy and all at Bluegoldsports.com for hosting us. I feel like I made lifetime football friends.
Now, back to the tweet story: here is my tweet from when I arrived at Kegler’s:
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Now fast forward to Sunday; I got this tweet:
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Yep! That’s right, Jesse Jane, the famous porn, start tweets at me. All I am going to say about this is my wife should be honored that a famous actress tweeted your’s truly. Between friends I did not tell my wife that she should be honored…. What can you say? Well, thanks again Morgantown until next time. Good luck the rest of the season and just for you, “EAT SHIT PITT.â€
–Big Mike (Sleeping on a couch somewhere in Texas. I just hope I don’t wake up with it on fire.)
https://www.hornsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/mike_jeremy.jpg HornSports.com’s Big Mike and BlueGoldSports.com’s Jeremy Simon