[81alum]

As the stands emptied out in the second half, there were people moving around, trying to find cooler locations.  I saw one father shouting to his son to follow him down to the lower deck where it was "much cooler down here."  Was it?  I wonder if the portion of stands built over earth and concrete is cooler than the portion built over air--at least when the air is hot.

I did get up and move upwards and North in the 4th quarter and picked up some merciful breeze.  By the time I left section 238 I was one of a handful of people sitting in that section which must normally seat a few hundred.  Maybe we were just the "sweet spot" for misery, neither low enough for earth-cooling nor high enough for breeze.  I was one of the last to give up on the section.

I can say that I much preferred my experience in the rain at the Pac 12 championship game in 2012.  Like yesterday, thousands gathered in the concourse to avoid the weather, but I do not remember many of them leaving and most of them were back in the stands for the fourth quarter.  Of course, that one was a real game to the end.

By the way, yesterday's official attendance was 49,500 or so which is near capacity.  I have no idea how they compute such things, but even when the stands were at their fullest there were entire rows in the upper deck that were empty.  I guessed at the time that the stadium was about 2/3 full.  If there really were 49k people there, 15k of them never came out of the concourse.

Probably much of the exodus in the upper decks and general admission areas was caused by the free tickets for kids--there were thousands of kids who don't often go to games and who may not be as hardy about football.  They were less willing to put up with discomfort than fanatics like us.

[81alum]

As the stands emptied out in the second half, there were people moving around, trying to find cooler locations.  I saw one father shouting to his son to follow him down to the lower deck where it was "much cooler down here."  Was it?  I wonder if the portion of stands built over earth and concrete is cooler than the portion built over air--at least when the air is hot.

I did get up and move upwards and North in the 4th quarter and picked up some merciful breeze.  By the time I left section 238 I was one of a handful of people sitting in that section which must normally seat a few hundred.  Maybe we were just the "sweet spot" for misery, neither low enough for earth-cooling nor high enough for breeze.  I was one of the last to give up on the section.

I can say that I much preferred my experience in the rain at the Pac 12 championship game in 2012.  Like yesterday, thousands gathered in the concourse to avoid the weather, but I do not remember many of them leaving and most of them were back in the stands for the fourth quarter.  Of course, that one was a real game to the end.

By the way, yesterday's official attendance was 49,500 or so which is near capacity.  I have no idea how they compute such things, but even when the stands were at their fullest there were entire rows in the upper deck that were empty.  I guessed at the time that the stadium was about 2/3 full.  If there really were 49k people there, 15k of them never came out of the concourse.

Probably much of the exodus in the upper decks and general admission areas was caused by the free tickets for kids--there were thousands of kids who don't often go to games and who may not be as hardy about football.  They were less willing to put up with discomfort than fanatics like us.