Bound for South Bend: Welcome home

Day 6**7:00 PM**

The game didn't turn out quite as we had hoped, but it was fun none the less.

All together we drove about 1,800 miles and did just about everything we could on the way. The RV may have had a funk that the General RV people are going to have a tough time getting out, we may have inadvertently dumped our 100 gallons of water before we made it to Wyoming and we may have all received a total of five hours of sleep over six days, but it was an experience none of us will ever forget.

The four of us may have been coworkers before, but now we are friends. Well, at least I hope they feel the same way, and I think they do.

#destinationpoll

After the game Dave caught a flight back to Salt Lake immediately so he could get back and get all of you sports fans a great Sports Beat Sunday show. We were sad to see him go.

Alex, Jason and I went and grabbed some dinner and then headed back to the hotel to watch the Utah Oregon State game. Much to our disappointment and shock the hotel did not have ESPN2. Or even ESPN for that matter, but they did have ESPNU. That still makes no sense to me, but I guess that's a first world problem and I shouldn't worry about it too much.

We woke up early this morning and turned in the rental car and checked into the airport. We grabbed a bite to eat and reminisced about the trip that was.

We flew into Salt Lake, grabbed our bags and headed out the doors. Alex waited for a cab, even though I told him I'd give him a ride. He was anxious to get home to his wife and three kids.

Jason was excited to get home because he and his wife are about to meet their fourth child when she is born this week.

I was excited to get home and see my wife and little two-year-old girl and give her her new Cubbies PJs. They're pink, her favorite color. She's in them now and she loves them.

We had an amazing experience and we'll remember it for the rest of our lives and we'd like to thank all of you for being a part of it. Thanks for reading my poorly written posts, watching our silly videos that we and probably no one else found funny. Thank you for commenting, retweeting us and taking part in our polls.

We had an amazing experience because we have amazing viewers, listeners and readers. None of this would be possible without all of you being a part of the KSL family and we're so happy you are. So, with that we wrap up this blog and now we want to know where you want us to road trip to next. We'll throw up some possibilities on the poll.

Thanks again and we'll be seeing you soon.

Day 5

10:00 AM

We are back up people! Thanks to Graydon Johns and Devin Bunker for resurrecting the story from the dead. We just now need to hope the story doesn't starting eating everything else ont he site. (Sorry about the lame zombie reference)

Here is the link to my story on the Notre Dame game day experience. Truly, it's like nothing I've ever experienced. So, if you've never been to a game at Notre Dame, start making plans because it needs to happen.

9:00 AM

Well, technology has burned me yet again. Somehow our system managed to wipe out about half of the blog. It's devastating. Well, devastating for me, probably not interesting to you. So, if you've been following the whole time you know what we've been doing. If you're reading this for the first time just assume that we hit the road on day three.

Anyway, we are in South Bend, Indiana and I am writing this from the press box at Notre Dame Stadium.

The Cougar Sports Saturday guys are gearing up for their show and I am getting this post up, but before we got a chance to check out the campus here at Notre Dame.

The weather may be rainy and dark, but the atmosphere is still amazing.

I'm about to post a separate story about the game day experience here at Notre Dame that I'll link as soon as it is up.

But until then, what questions do you have about being here at Notre Dame? Send me an email, tweet me @clydeKSL or write it on the comment boards and I'll answer as best I can.

Day 4

7:30 PM

We've finally made it. We are in South Bend and what did we do as soon as we got here? We drove to Michigan.

We made it to South Bend and then had to take the RV to a spot in Michigan about two hours away to drop it off. It was tough and kind of great to see it go.

Tough because it's been home the past few days, great because the hotel we are now in is a nice upgrade.

We headed towards campus and wandered Eddy Street. The street is filled with shops, restaurants and the Notre Dame Bookstore.

The bookstore is selling footballs and T-shirts commemorating the BYU game.

A lot of talk around campus is that Saturday's game could actually be a trap game for the Irish as they look forward to their big match up with Oklahoma next week. The guys were talking about this a little and then I literally just watched a story on the South Bend local news talking about just that.

While the "buzz" may be that BYU is a trap game, all of the Irish fans in the story weren't worried about it at all.

We're going to try and get to bed early tonight so we can get to campus early and get ready for the game.

12:00 PM

We just had some Chicago dogs at Portillo's in downtown Chicago.

Jason had ketchup on his dog and I thought they were going to kick us out. Dave and I went in while the others circled the block a few times because Alex was too scared to parelel park in the city, lame.

Anyway, we got our grub, and Dave bought an entire cake, sprinted to the RV and devoured it. I would have taken a picture but it was gone way too fast.

But with bellies full and our baseball hunger satisfied we are now in Indiana and headed to South Bend.

11:00 AM

We pulled into Chicago late last night and managed hit rush hour traffic and maneuver through downtown in a 37-foot 13-foot tall RV. Let's just say that Chicago was not happy to see us.

We finally parked at a Walmart and went to the legendary Giordano's Pizza for their famous deep dish pizza. It was amazing and not one of us could finish our personal pizzas.

Alex woke up early this morning and drive us to Wrigley Field. We were all asleep when we got there and all I saw was the Taco Bell we parked out. Then I peeked around the corner and saw Wrigley.

We managed to get in on a tour and we ran into several Cougar fans on their way to South Bend as well. Most of them actually told us they'd been following the trip. We'll get some of their interviews up later.

We're now headed downtown, again in the RV, with many angry Chicago residents.

We'll get up some pics and another post after we manage to get the RV back out of downtown Chicago. Until then enjoy the video of all of us singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" in the pressbox as ALex led us in his best Harry Carrey voice.

Day 3

1:00 p.m.

#lavellpoll

Alex was beyond ecstatic to check out the world's largest truck stop in Walcott, Iowa. The rest of us were a bit skeptical, but it turns out it was awesome and they had a Dairy Queen, so it was double awesome.

We've also attached some pictures in the photo gallery of all of us doing our best LaVell impression. Who pulled it off the best?

We're still on our way to Chicago, so keep the suggestions coming as to where we need to stop.

9:00 a.m

Over night we hit 1,000 miles on our road trip and we spent the night in Des Moines, Iowa. It it the first time in Iowa for all of us and you know what? This place isn't half bad. It may be raining and it may be way too cold for mid October, but I like Iowa.

On our way here we were attacked by 50-plus mph winds and the Cougar Sports Saturday Road Trip banner on the side of the RV witnessed some brutal conditions and experienced some war wounds. But the little guy is still together and staying strong.

We're about to hit the road again and we plan on spending the day in Chicago. None of us really know the area and are excited to check out the Windy City.

For those of you who are familiar with Chicago, where do we have to go? What do we have to see? And where do we have to eat?

We're excited to get there and need your input on what we should do while we're there. Hit us up on the comment boards and Twitter: @clydeKSL @KSLshep @AlexKirryKSL @DaveNoriega #CSSRVtoND

Day 2

5:00 p.m.

#stadiumpoll

Me and the guys kept pushing through Nebraska and realized we were going to go straight through Lincoln. Not only is it the great state's capitol, but it's the home of the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers.

The BYU Cougars are headed to Nebraska in 2015 and we thought we'd do some scouting of the stadium for the Cougs.

Our fine Cornhusker tour guide, Herb, let us onto the field in Memorial Stadium and literally let us have a ball for an hour or two.

We decided to have a bit of a competition to see who not only loved football, but could actually play it.

We had a punt, pass and kick competition and the loser had to sport an adult-footie-Hello-Kitty-pajama getup we found at Walmart in North Platte.

We'll have the video of the entire epic battle up later so you can see it go down, but to make a long story short Dave and Alex tied and Jason got to cuddle up in the jammies.

I was kind of cut out of the deal, when you're not on TV or radio you're just that guy who sits in the back and plays on his computer. For the record, I did take my passes and kicks and did pretty well. Even won an event.

Anyway, we are on our way to South Bend to see historic Notre Dame Stadium and today we had the chance to see another legendary college football locale, Memorial Stadium at the University of Nebraska.

With that, here's are next question, what are the most iconic college football stadiums in the country? Vote on the poll and hit us up on the comment boards and on Twitter. #CSSRVtoND

9:00 a.m.

It was a long night to say the least. Since our day got started late on Tuesday we decided to keep driving past Cheyenne, where we planned to spend the night and pushed through to Nebraska.

We thought we'd stop in Sidney, but Jason missed the exit, much to the chagrin of Alex, and we decided to keep on until North Platte which is about another 180 miles outside of Sidney. That means we pulled into our fancy final location to spend the night, Walmart, around 4:00 a.m.

I'm pretty sure we had all lost our minds around 2:00 a.m. and it just got progressively worse.

We did have our discussion about the future of BYU football and we all agreed that the landscape would be much different than it is today.

Bronco Mendenhall has mentioned on several occasions that he does not plan on coaching football for "a long time." We're not sure exactly what that means, but it could hint that within the next five to ten years Bronco may decide to move onto the next chapter of his life and open the door for a new head coach at BYU.

#cocahpoll

That leads us to a new question, who could best replace Bronco as the BYU head coach? We've thrown around some names we'll give to you later, but we want to hear your thoughts.

Following that discussion and a quick stop to buy blankets and pillows, yes we all forgot them and yes, Dave bought a brand new bedset, we hunkered down for bed close to 6:00 a.m.

Through a combination of high winds, loud generators and Alex's early morning radio hits we managed to sleep in until about 9:00 a.m. Sleep is not on our side.

We plan on hitting the road here soon and if Jason plans on paying attention and not missing any more exits we plan on stopping tonight in Iowa... somewhere.

We'll see where we finally end up.

Day 1

7:30 p.m.

We finally got dinner. I'm a moron and didn't eat before we left and thought we'd eat before 7:00 p.m. Silly me.

Anyway, we finally managed to get onto I-80 around 4:00 p.m., after we got on this killer wrap, picked up our friend from KSL promotions, Ike Yospe, to give him a lift and we finally hit the road.

Alex drove all the way to Rock Springs and may or may not have cursed under his breath as we were nearly blown off of the road on multiple occasions.

It was around this time we figured we needed to calm down Alex a bit and finally got into our smartest BYU QB conversation. Everyone except Jason unanimously agreed that it was hands down Ty Detmer. His football IQ was through the roof and he proved that at BYU and then for years in the NFL. He didn't play much, but he helped mold NFL starters like Brett Favre.

Jason said John Beck. While we all agreed Beck will always be one of the all-time greats at BYU, we just couldn't put him above Detmer.

We finally made it, barely, to Rock Springs, Wyo. and stopped at Cruel Jack's Restaurant. It's attached to a truck stop gas station and we were a bit hesitant. But Dave was insistent that we would walk away from there blown away by the "Authentic American Food."

If it's made by an American in America isn't that likely authentic?

Anyway, while Cruel Jack's didn't look like much it was pretty good and we're all stuffed. Now that Dave is driving and with the lack of his control we may all very soon be sick.

Our latest discussion has been revolving around the future of BYU football. We'll give you our opinions in a later post, but we want to hear what your thoughts are? What will BYU football look like in the next few years?

Hit us up on the comment boards and on Twitter with the hashtag #CSSRVtoND.

However, you should probably listen to the presidential debate right now and then talk to us about your thoughts on BYU's future after.

3:00 p.m.Things hit a snag. While it seems like we should be somewhere in Wyoming filling up with gas. Well, nope. We're heading out of Salt Lake because we spent entirely too long at Costco.

#qbpoll

We needed Jerky, water, soda, wet wipes (Thanks Alex) and a myriad of other things.

We didn't have time to talk about the smartest QB yet, but we did get to talking a little about the ND BYU match up. Alex Kirry thinks the Cougars match up better with the Notre Dame than they did with the Oregon State Beavers.

What do you think? Is he right on or is he dreaming?

1:00 p.m.

SALT LAKE CITY — Folks, we are on our way to South Bend. I am currently in an RV; maybe a small house would be a better term, with the Cougar Sports Saturday crew, Alex Kirry, Dave Noriega and Jason Shepherd.

The four of us are in a moving city on our way to the college football Mecca in South Bend, Indiana to watch the BYU Cougars take on the Notre Dame Fightin' Irish.

To say we're excited would be a bit of an understatement. When we arrived at Robert Jensen's General RV in Draper we had to revive Alex after he realized we'd be driving cross-country in a small moving condo.

After we got Alex back on his feet, learned about all the stuff in the RV that will likely kill us, like the propane, we were on the road. We had to make a stop at the KSL station because when we were picking up the RV we called Dave to see if he was on his way and this was the exact text I got back, "Freak. I just woke up. Scrambling now."

Bless his heart.

So, we've picked up Dave, loaded our gear, received the "Remember who you are and don't kill yourselves" speech from our bosses and we are on our way.

So, this is the first entry of the road trip, with many more to come. You can keep up with us here and also follow the hashtag #CSSRVtoND on Twitter. Also make sure to follow @DaveNoriega @KSLShep @AlexKirryKSL and @ClydeKSL.

Until we hit you with another entry on the post, chew this over as me and the guys discuss it as well, who is the smartest quarterback to ever play at BYU?

We'll throw up a poll and you can also hit us up on the comment boards and on Twitter. In the next post we'll put up the road trip crew's answers. Until then, pray for us and for Jason's driving.

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