A football power brewing?

Somewhere in the middle of Kentucky lies a city called Lexington. Lexington is a proud city whose passion for collegiate athletics runs deep. Having already been to the University of Kentucky to see the IU-Duke basketball game a few years ago, I thought I knew what to expect upon arrival in Lexington. Also considering the fact that Lexington, similarly to Bloomington, is first and foremost, a basketball town, I did not expect to see much enthusiasm for the Wildcat football team. I was dead wrong.\nDriving down North Broadway, in bumper-to-bumper traffic, everybody you see is wearing Wildcat blue, and the greater majority of these people were not obeying any open container laws the state of Kentucky might have. My esteemed IDS colleagues and I began to wonder why we were getting so many weird looks when we were stuck in traffic until somebody pointed out the fact that the license plate of our University-owned vehicle had the words "Indiana University" and "Trustees" written on it.\nWhen we thought we finally reached the entrance to the stadium parking lots, little did we know that we still had to wait through another 30 minutes of traffic, all the time passing by many heavily inebriated Wildcat tailgaters. I would estimate that a good 99 percent of people we passed by gave us a look that screamed, "Go home before I drink the rest of this beer and do something to make you regret driving through here." \nHowever, as awkward as our trip through traffic in Lexington might've been, we were treated with nothing but respect by everybody. I realized that maybe not all Kentucky students and fans exist for the sole purpose of hating the Hoosiers. They just like to enjoy a few brews and a good game, whether it's basketball or football.\nOnce the game was about to begin, you could see and feel how much the Wildcats matter to these people. Despite a 4-8 mark last season, the stadium was about 500 people short of its 65,000-plus capacity. And the team didn't just sprint out of the tunnel to the tune of their fight song, no, that's just not enough. The Wildcats had a full smoke screen and a pyrotechnics show to emphasize the fact that they were taking the field. I wondered if we had somehow got lost and accidentally ended up at the Miami Hurricanes game. I mean seriously, all this show for a team that was 0-1 up to this point? All this for a team that hasn't been good since the departure of Tim Couch? It just didn't seem right.\nBut that's when I realized the love and the passion the city of Lexington has for the Wildcats. It goes beyond football or basketball. It goes beyond the rivalry between them and us. It's just the simple fact these people love to get drunk in public and use the football game as an excuse to do so. Can you blame them?