There’s always been an inherent charm to the Bad Boy Mower’s Pinstripe Bowl. As a big fan of college football and the Yankees, I always try to tune into the Pinstripe Bowl whenever I can, even if the teams competing are usually entering with six or seven wins.
As a Penn State student, a secret hope I’ve always had is seeing the Nittany Lions live at Yankee Stadium. They last went back in 2014, beating Boston College in an overtime thriller. Since then, the program has raised expectations to the point
where the bare minimum has been warm-weather bowl games after barely missing the College Football Playoff (CFP).
Well, after a crazy season, my wish is fulfilled. Penn State played Clemson at Yankee Stadium on Saturday to conclude both of their disappointing seasons on a chilly day in the Bronx, and the good guys (to me, at least) won the game, 22-10. Here’s a review of the experience of watching football at the stadium, for those who’ve never done it.
Background
For those not dialed into college football, this was an extremely attractive matchup for fans of the sport. The two teams entered the season fresh off CFP appearances and were top-five in the AP Poll in the preseason. They fielded stacked rosters with several projected first-round picks and five-star quarterbacks who were going to fight each other to be Heisman finalists.
So why on earth are they playing a low-stakes bowl game in the Bronx? Well, in baseball terms, both teams endured a season similar to the 2023 Yankees.
Clemson inexplicably started its season 1-3, only barely defeating a Sun Belt team in the midst of a shockingly bad start. They rebounded to win six of their last eight, but the season was dead and buried in September.
For Penn State, they started 3-0, but collapsed following a defeat to Oregon in the White Out and ultimately lost their starting quarterback, Drew Allar, to a season-ending ankle injury and fired their coach a day later. As we know with the 2023 Yankees, the team started strong before a midseason collapse, partially spearheaded by an injury to the team’s heart and soul (Aaron Judge).
Two preseason national title contenders reduced to playing in The Bronx made this an appealing matchup, even despite the conditions and countless opt-outs.
The Experience
Pregame
It’s generally not a good idea to drive into the city for a Yankees game. If you choose to do so, you should probably plan for significant traffic. As someone who lives in South Jersey, the traffic up north and onto the George Washington Bridge leads to it taking two hours to even get into The Bronx when the Yankees are playing.
I’d imagine it’d be the same for Saturday’s game if not for the snowstorm that came on Friday night. While New York only got four inches of snow after being projected for almost a foot at times, it was still the most snow the city has seen since February 2022, and as such, the roads were quiet. Getting into the stadium was easy, as there was minimal traffic on a quiet Saturday morning.
Parking was relatively easy, and the lots weren’t nearly as jam-packed. One thing you’ll see in a Pinstripe Bowl parking deck that you won’t typically see for a Yankee game is the tailgate. Penn State fans love to tailgate, and it doesn’t matter if it’s an urban parking deck or a several-acre parking lot in central Pennsylvania; they’ll tailgate.
Here’s where things get weird. My student ticket was randomly placed in the Legends seats right next to the Yankees’ dugout. I brushed it off initially because I didn’t expect them to have allowed a random student ticket to go in those expensive seats, but when I entered, I was directed to the suite entrance for a wristband. You’d think that means they’d have at least some of the Legends perks, but all of the indoor suites were closed. Boo. Here’s the view from those seats, which are mediocre for a football game (especially with the camera dude).
Ultimately, I left those seats relatively quickly to sit with my family in Section 123. The “student section” was scattered around the stadium and my seats were closer to the Clemson side than the Penn State side so I switched, plus there was a lot of uncleaned snow that made sitting in the section more frigid than usual. The view in 123 also was slightly better:
If the game was less crowded, I would’ve gone hunting for the best view, but ultimately I couldn’t. If you sat at 232 or 206, I’d imagine that’d be the best view for a football game. The seats I got were perfect for baseball, less so for football.
The Game
It was a cold day. The sun never came out, and the temperature held around 30 degrees. Despite that, there was really no wind, so as long as you dressed for the weather, you were relatively comfortable. It even snowed in the first half, so both teams got to live out Jameis Winston’s wildest dream.
A surprising number of fans filed into Yankee Stadium, as the official attendance was announced as 41,101, the most since 2014 (there’s a common denominator). In better weather, it’d be more believable because of the sheer size of these two brands, but it’s even more impressive given the weather.
Do I think it really was 41,000? Not really, but it was pretty full. The 100s and 200s were jam-packed, the 300s were generally full, and even the grandstands had a healthy amount of people. Only a total of three sections (405, 406, 434) in the entire stadium looked empty, and I assume no tickets were sold because not a soul dared to sit there.
With a whole lot of people in the stadium, the lack of a slow-paced, free-flowing game caused the concourses to be absolute hell. I used the bathroom at halftime, and it took a solid 20 minutes, partially due to the line but also due to the sheer crush of hundreds of people trying to move through the concourse. Baseball and football both have plenty of breaks in the action, but there’s a lot more free-flowing movement to the concessions in baseball because of the number of innings and general slow pace. In football, most fans are in their seats until the end of quarters or even halves.
Add on the fact that not all concessions were open, and the only thing I got in the stadium was a pretzel from a place with the shortest line. I wanted to get a chicken bucket for a real Yankee feel, but the line would’ve taken over an hour.
Penn State won 22-10 in what was a slog of a game for almost three quarters before both offenses turned it up. Penn State quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer was stellar, as was Bronx native and Pinstripe Bowl MVP wide receiver Trebor Pena. The most fun we had? Chanting the name of the interim head coach, Terry Smith, as time ran out.
The Yankee aspect
You didn’t get much of a feel of it being at Yankee Stadium aside from a few key aspects. In fact, the sponsor, Bad Boy Mowers, was significantly more prevalent than the baseball team who plays in the stadium.
There was Robert Merrill’s rendition of God Bless America after the third quarter and Justin Shackil on the pregame coverage talking about the key players on both teams. Paul Olden was also there as the public address announcer.
That said, Olden didn’t seem nearly as enthused as when he’s announcing Aaron Judge or Derek Jeter and if you didn’t know the players’ numbers, it was hard to keep up with what was going on. Add on the substandard scoreboard for a football game, you would often find yourself staring at the big scoreboard which featured a live feed of the game to keep up if you couldn’t see the action very well.
Monument Park was open, as was the team museum. I’m not sure how crowded they were, but I’d imagine a lot of fans stopped by before the game to take in the history of the 27-time world champions.
Overall Rating: 6/10
I’ve been to a few bowl games in my life, but all of them were down in Florida. Watching football in a place like Yankee Stadium was a great experience, but it’s definitely not that equipped for football. Let’s stick to baseball in the Boogie Down Bronx.
