Big 10 Championship | Indianapolis, Indiana

In honor of the Cotton Bowl game approaching on New Years Eve, this post seems well timed. For me, 2016 will of course be rung in drinking bubbly champagne and laughing with good friends, but also cheering on my Spartans to a victory over Bama (fingers crossed). As much as I wish I could be in Arlington, Texas cheering them on, I'm quite content to spend the evening in East Lansing where green and white runs in our veins.  

But Michigan State had to do work to get to this point in the playoffs, and I was one lucky girl to be in Lucas Oil Stadium watching it happen. December 5 held a crazy road trip adventure, a boring, yet miraculous fourth quarter, and a Big 10 title, which is nothing to complain about! 

I drove Greta (the name I bestowed on the awful green "Baker Bus") to EL, picked up these fools, and we headed to Indianapolis for the day.  

Pumped up and ready for some football, we made our way to the stadium. 

Carson, Gigi, Brittany, and I had bought our tickets online immediately after we knew we were the Big 10 West champions and going to play. Nato and Tyler tried but the website always gets messed up. MSU "accidentally" opened the sales early, and when they tried to click buy just minutes after we did, they were sold out. Ridiculous! People were pretty mad. It ended up working out in their favor, though, since we had to wait two hours in the will call line as they assigned all the students a seat in the stadium. It was a hot mess, but we made the best of it by sending Gigi and Carson for drinks so we could simply tailgate in line :) 

We finally made our way over to the conference center (and where there was finally a bathroom) for the pep rally! Izzo even drove down right after the basketball game ended that afternoon to give a speech. What a man. 

All that, and we still had time to go to the bar! We spent a while in "Dicks Last Resort" where, as the name may hint, their gimmick is that they're rude to customers. It was entertaining, especially as we fought for our waitress to cheer for MSU, giving her face stickers and all. Nato and Tyler also started a "stand up" cheer in the restaurant, of which they were very proud of themselves. 

Wandering through the streets was crazy -- packed with fans, music and dancing, drinks flowing, and cheers coming from everywhere. 

And finally we got into the stadium! It was a somewhat boring first three quarters, but ended up being a stressful, emotional, eventually exciting last few minutes! An MSU victory of 16-13 ranked us #3 and put us in the playoffs. December 31 is the big day against Alabama (#2). My fingers and toes are all crossed that we end up in the National Championship. It is played in Glendale, Arizona -- right near Phoenix where I can stay with my sister! And even more exciting, I was chosen out of a lottery for a free student ticket! I am one lucky girl, and hopefully my Spartans have lots of luck tomorrow. Go green!

Oh, and we look so awake here, right?! That was definitely not the case when we arrived back in EL at 6am. Thanks Carson for powering through that drive, and G for keeping us going in the right direction. I have some pretty cool friends.