1:42 to kickoff
Utah chose tails on the toss. Utah wins the toss and has chosen to defer until the second half.
9:40 to kickoff
Alabama’s kicker just missed a warm-up kick from about 40 yards. Utah fans went crazy and then started chanting, “Louie, Louie.” He tried another 40 yarder and did the same
thing. Utah fans jumped out of the tunnel and are now on the field.
12:45 to kickoff
The National Anthem has been sung, and the predictions have all been made.
We have three past and present Chronicle sports editors here tonight.
Joe Beatty: Alabama 38, Utah 13
Chris Bellamy: Utah 20, Alabama 16
Tony Pizza: Utah 24, Alabama 21
Chris Kamrani: Alabama 27, Utah 20
18:08 to kickoff
President Michael K. Young is at the game and being honored at midfield. It makes me so damn proud.
25:54 to kickoff
Alabama has enough band memors to stretch the field from goal to goal with about 20 band members on each 5-yard hash. I said that Alabama was four-times Utah’s band, it’s probably more like eight times bigger. It’s massive. They keep switching the BAMA they spelled out around to each side of the field. Not bad logistics. “Roll Tide’ is officially old though. Some of the flag twirlers were not built for those skimpy outfits either. I guess that’s where the elephant comes from?
37:10 to kickoff
Alabama is booing Utah off the field. It seems like the teams warmed up for just a short period of time. Shorter than normal actually. There is still more than a half of an hour to game time, which means that there’s going to be a lot of pageantry and parade stuff prior to game time. I for one just want them to get the game started. I wonder if the players hearts are beating as hard as mine is.
56:25 to kickoff
Alabama enters the stadium. Utah fans were probably louder. Alabama’s cheerleaders have skimpier clothes though. They seriously are almost in swimsuits. Basically like a Super Hero without the spandex. I thought that as an interesting note.
The entire Utah team just came onto the field and is gathered in their end zone. “Utah Man’ blared, but the Alabama band promptly played their own song trying to drown out the Utes. Still, Utah has so many fans in the stand that the finale “Go UTES’ could still be heard over the band. Nearly the entire bottom right corner of the stadium is filled with Utah fans and nearly the second tier as well. It’s arguably the earliest this many Utah fans have been to a football game.
Alabama just entered the field to a huge ovation. There’s no doubt that Ute fans are going to be outnumbered in this 72,968-seat stadium. I can already tell that the “Roll Tide” song will get old.
I haven’t had a chance to go down to the field today, but from practice I remember how distracting the lights can be. Especially with the trouble Utah has had on punt returns this year. So that will be an interesting thing to watch for.
The MUSS already has a strong contingency in the Utah end zone. Cheers of “Let’s go UT-AH” have already graced the few players warming up.
A few notes about the Superdome. You likely won’t see this on TV, but the seats are multicolored, with seemingly no rhyme or reason. The seats are also stacked on top of each other almost like the Roman Coliseum. The configuration leaves a huge cylindrical mass of space on the turf that makes everything feel wide open, even though the game is being played indoors.
Early weather reports called for rain today, but the weather would have been beautiful, roof or no roof.
It’s more than 99 minutes to game time, or at least that’s what the scoreboard clocks say. Many Utah players are already on the field as the public address announces, “The doors to the 75th annual Sugar Bowl are now open.”
Cue the Superdome house music. This year’s battle at the Bayou is in its final preparatory moments.
Justin Taplin Ross is booming 50-yard punts across the field and several Utah players are tossing the football in their traditional Under Armor shirts and white game pants. It appears the Utes will being white-on-white tonight8212;the only other time they have worn that configuration was against Michigan.