Looks like the rubberized tunnel will be around for a while.
The celebrating was premature over its non-appearance at the opening football game between the University of Louisville and Kentucky.
The primary reason the tunnel was not around was reportedly because of the after effects of Hurricane Isaac. The stadium management was concerned about high winds and rain that weekend.
If memory serves me correctly, the tunnel first made its appearance the season after UofL played Wake Forest in the BCS Orange Bowl when the players first entered the field from a similar tunnel. The thinking maybe going that if one was good enough for the Orange Bowl, it was fine for Papa John’s.
The players apparently enjoy making a big entrance and if Charlie Strong wants a tunnel, the current version will have to do. There are plans, however, for a $7 million renovation of the Schnellenberger Complex.
A new non-rubberized tunnel would be a nice addition to those plans.
PNC paying significant money to sponsor “Charlie’s Folly”. Can’t keep those coffers filled enough when you’re the best college sports town in America.
I get a kick out of your dislike of this thing, Charlie! It is kind of a strange contrivance, I must admit! How about we ditch it and use some of that $7 mil to work with the stage genies at Actors Theatre and create something totally unique? Put a hollow space below the Unitas plaza area. When it’s time for the team to appear, the whole plaza is enveloped in a cloud of stage smoke. Unseen, due to the smoke, the plaza splits in two like a hatch and opens outward, except for the statue. The whole team is then elevated up out of the ground on a giant lifting floor. Bathed in brilliant ET-space-ship-ramp white light from behind, the players gradually become visible as the smoke clears, surrounding Johnie U. and accompanied by a massive fireworks barrage and/or “Also Sprach Zarathustra” on the PA system! [Don’t leak word of this to Pitino, or he’ll steal it.]
What a concept, Tom. Imagine all the people who would show up at PJCS just to see the pre-game show. It would also create another major tourist attraction for the city if they could create a daily event that would involve other students helping them pay their board and tuition while paying off the stadium and future expansion.
I love this concept, Tom, and I feel it would be just the trick, no pun intended, to get everyone into their seats BEFORE kickoff. After the smoke clears, and after our first possession, then there will be time to go get that next beer…..Go Cards!!!
I think it looks cool yet kinda cheap at the same time. Maybe they can move it elsewhere and have the players come out of it at Card March under the bridge or something.