A Friday night tilt between 3-3 Cal and 2-4 Oregon was missing a few things. There was no tailgating. There was no defense. And it seems a decent portion of the fans missed the memo that the Bears game was on Friday this week.

But by the time Jordan Kunaszyk recorded his first career interception and snapped the Bears’ 7-game losing streak to the Ducks on the 203rd play of the night, those in attendance at California Memorial Stadium were headed home happy after being treated to a breakneck shootout featuring offensive fireworks in bunches and bunches.

And if there was anyone left unsatisfied, well, at least they could stop by Top Dog on their way home.

Top Dog

Every school’s got its place. Boulder has the Sink. ASU has ChuckBox. UCLA has Diddy Reese. Cal has Top Dog.

Top Dog is a Berkeley staple. It may only be the size of a Holiday Inn bathroom, but you can smell the sweet smoking links as soon as you turn off of Telegraph and start making your way up the hill towards campus. For 50 years, the small brick establishment has been delighting all who walk by it’s doors. And I do mean all. As the guy behind the counter tells me, “Even the vegetarians can’t resist us. Everyone thinks of Berkeley as this hippie-dippie liberal town, and that’s sort of true, I guess, but Berkeley might be the only place in America with vegetarians, vegetarians through and through, but still unable to resist the occasional Top Dog.”

I’ll admit it. When I pulled into Berkeley on Friday afternoon, I wasn’t a Top Dog believer. The only other times I’d been around Top Dog were following Bruin demolishings at the hands of the Bears (the Bruins were 0-for-the new millennium, before finally pulling one out in Berkeley two years ago), and no matter how many times friends regaled me with their tales of infatuation for the Frankfurter paradise, I was never willing to wait in the line. I mean come on, it’s a hot dog. I’ve consumed a hot dog on every Pac-12 stop so far as an official test of which West power does it best, but even I have to admit, a hot dog is a hot dog, there’s not a whole lot of variance on the spectrum.

After finally making the trip to Top Dog, I gotta say the spectrum looks a whole lot different. On one side you have hot dogs, and on the other side you have… Top Dogs. The Top Dog is absolutely tremendous. Thrown on the grill right as you order and served fresh off that grill on a soft toasty bun that just melts in your mouth - I’m a convert. Top Dog is the best $3.50 you can spend in the Bay Area (and not just because it’s the only thing in the Bay that costs $3.50, although that’s likely true too). Fueled with my Top Dog, I set out on the trek to the summit of Berkeley’s beautiful campus, where the classic California Memorial Stadium sits.

Something’s Missing

In preparation for my trip to Berkeley, I reached out to Cal friends to ask about the highlights of gameday. My friend Jeff was the first to respond and told me, “Well, we don’t really do tailgating.” I took this with a grain of salt, thought to myself, “Jeff really only cares about basketball anyway” and dismissed this as bad information while I eagerly reached out to more people for gameday recommendations. However, no matter how many proud, intense, fanatical Cal fans I talked to, I kept hearing the same answers, “I’ve actually never tailgated for a Cal game” or “There isn’t really a traditional tailgate scene at Cal.”

Apparently, Cal doesn’t really do parking lots, either. When I asked one of my friends - a rather intelligent fellow - where are the best tailgating lots? He responded, “What do you mean ‘lots’?”

Even armed with all this advanced research, I arrived on gameday determined to prove my friends wrong; confident that there must be a hidden lot they were unfamiliar with, a Cal gameday gem that only the most veteran diehards know of. So I began to scale the mountain to Memorial Stadium, with my head on a swivel for blue and gold tents or runaway ping pong balls, and my nose turned up in search of the satisfying scent of smoking gameday meats. I hiked past smiling students and eerily quiet fraternities, I sidestepped petition pushers and oblivious co-op kids, and eventually, I made it all the way to the top of campus where the stadium sits. Then I walked as far as I could around the stadium, where all I could find was one small field proclaiming itself “tailgate town,” but resembling something more akin to the setup of PricewaterhouseCoopers company picnic - a sterile turf field with professional tents and tables organized into perfect little rows. So I hiked back around to the other side of the stadium, down to the “family lot” where I was told I could find the players’ families and other longtime boosters having a rollicking good time. But 3 and a half hours to kickoff, there was nary a blue and gold tent to be found, nor a single waft of smoking meats (although Berkeley is still filled with plenty of pockets of smoke of the garden variety). Defeated, I turned back down the hill, to the downtown bars I was told serve as tailgate host stand-ins on Cal gamedays. It was only as I began my descent back down the hill, prepared for the “told you so” ridicule of my friends that I found any tailgates worth writing home about.

Section U to Save the Day

As any fan who has had season tickets for any significant amount of time can tell you, the section where you sit on gamedays is more than a location, but rather a piece of your identity. Through wins and losses, shrieks of joy and sorrow, and many a missed high-five, you forge your own community with the fans surrounding you week in and week out. For better or worse, you learn about and often inherit each other's’ quirks and superstitions, and in due time, the beginning of a new season marks not only renewed hope for the team on the field, but a reunion with your fan family.

One of these such communities was founded 25 years ago in Memorial Stadium’s Section U, Row 48. Sitting along Row 48 were Cal grads of all a different ages and backgrounds, united by a common love for their Golden Bears. The fans in Section U decided they wanted to do something special in honor of the Big Game, Cal’s annual battle with cross-bay rival Stanford. So the Section U tailgaters used some of that Berkeley ingenuity to stake out just the right spot on campus and set up a large tailgate that was such a hit, they decided they needed to start making it an every week tradition.

Today, thanks to one of Section U’s members serving as the advisor to a sorority house just a half block down from the stadium, Section U has some precious territory (in the form of the sorority driveway) to throw a tailgate. With several tents and a gameday spread that would make Martha Stewart jealous, the tailgate might be the only one in town today, but it compares favorably to nearly any other I’ve come across so far. Apparently, for Section U, this Friday affair is a scaled down tailgate, everyone I speak with mentions, “oh, you have to see this for the Big Game.” For the Big Game everyone from the Section needs to raise their game, some will need to “install” a chandelier in the tent, while others will be tasked with creating a variety of unique craft cocktails, and more chefs will be engaged to triple the gourmet gameday menu.

You see one of Section U’s loyal members was nothing more than a twinkle in his father’s eye when Section U truly began. He grew up savoring the Section U tailgate tradition, but with a yearning to find out what else was out there in that great big world of big-time college football higher education. So where did this Section U-ite sign his letter of intent and commit to four years of strenuous tailgating studying? None other that the University of Mississippi, the Princess Kate of all college tailgating experiences. Sure enough, after experiencing the sophistication and southern charm of tailgating at Ole Miss, this Section U-ite came home pleading his parents and Section U family to kick their tailgate up a notch, and after a trip out to see the glory of the Grove (Ole Miss’ legendary on-campus tailgating oasis) firsthand, apparently the rest of Section U had no problem hopping on board with that plan.

The Section U folks have tried to implement much of what they learned in Oxford, but still feel as though the ultimate judgment day for their tailgate remains. Next fall, most of Section U will gather together on a non-Cal gameday in a small town in the South to celebrate the wedding of the Section U-ite they watched grow and sent off to Ole Miss. However, possibly even more exciting, on the Saturday before this particular gentleman will be waiting at the end of the aisle for his Rebel bride, she will be bringing her entire family out to enjoy gameday at Memorial Stadium with Section U, a sort of unofficial kickoff to the wedding week festivities. The Bears’ opponent that day? You guessed it - Ole Miss.

One more quick story about this tailgate atop Strawberry Canyon - The Section U tailgate is located on the side of the stadium where the visiting players and band enter. On one particular Saturday, a few of the young GAs for a visiting team sprinted up to the tailgate with cash in their hand, begging for a hot dog for the head coach who had been so busy with preparation that he had forgotten to eat all day. Section U let them know they wouldn’t accept the money and they didn’t serve hot dogs, but would happily load the head coach up a tray of artisanal sausages and cheeses. Following Section U’s feeding of the head coach, his team went out and laid an egg, despite being major favorites over the Bears. I’m not here to name names, but I’d recommend that my friends on both sides of this weekend’s battle in Salt Lake City keep an extra plate of fuel around just in case any GAs come calling.

Mike the Mad Genius

As I continued on my journey down the hill to the downtown bars, I stumbled upon a second legitimate tailgate. This one on the lawn of a fraternity house. But to my great surprise, this tailgate had absolutely nothing to do with the fraternity. Apparently, the fraternity had a practice of using their 400 square feet of lawn beside their house to sell gameday parking spots for fans in need (and when it comes to parking in Berkeley there is indeed a need). At the start of last season, Mike, a longtime Cal fan who had been otherwise relegated to having a small tailgate along the sidewalk after finding some Berkeley street parking, walked up the fraternity brothers, handed them a blank check, shook their hand, and told him he’d take the lawn on gamedays for the rest of the season.

When you meet Mike, it’s easy to believe this conversation went exactly as he described. You see Mike loves tailgating. In the 15 minutes I stopped by his tailgate on this premier piece of real estate, Mike stopped everyone at the tailgate 3 different times for toasts. Toasts with a beer, toasts with “Uncle” Jack Daniels, and toasts with blue and gold Jell-O shots. Between each of the toasts, Mike also reenacted The Play for me, both from the perspective of the players on the field and his quick reaction himself, as he claims to be one of the very first fans to hop onto the field to celebrate Cal’s reclaiming of the axe.

While I was a little concerned for Mike’s ability to be standing at kickoff, nevertheless, when this game was destined to end at 2am (both teams decided to abstain from tackling this season), I have to admit I admired Mike. Nobody else is out here before the Friday night contest between two mediocre teams, but here Mike is tailgating like it’s the game of the year.

Henry's didn't appear to Bear Territory on Friday

Quick Hits:

Henry’s - While my friends all warned me that there isn’t a traditional tailgate scene at Cal (aka there is essentially no tailgating at Cal), everyone recommended Henry’s, the indoor/outdoor bar at the base of Hotel Durant. Henry’s certainly capitalizes on the lack of options Bears fans have for pregame activities and lines the exterior of it’s large backyard lot with full pop-up bars and tailgate games. On this particular day, Ducks’ fans outnumber the Cal faithful about 3-to-1, but the only issue that arises during our time there is the DJ’s repeated reminders to the Ducks fans that even when he is playing Bob Marley, smoking is still not prohibited at the bar (which appears to be the only place in Berkeley that such a rule applies).

On Campus Delights - One of the strengths of gameday at Cal is that the stadium is indeed on-campus, and with the lack of parking on campus, there’s no other way to get to the stadium than a stroll through campus, and there are some cool happenings on campus prior to kick-off.

Cal hosts a pretty awesome pre-game “Pep Rally” with the band, cheerleaders, and dance team right in the heart of campus. I know it’s not the most unique of traditions, but given the layout of a Berkeley gameday, the pep rally appears to be one of the few places where you begin to feel the communal gameday atmosphere and having the rally in the center of campus creates the ideal backdrop and reminder of the greatness of college football.

The on-campus Faculty Club is a lively place Bears fans of all ages congregate before and after games. With a bar and grill, the Faculty club, makes meeting up with a large group an easy task, and allows fans to delight in some of the communal joys of tailgating without having to do any of the setup or cleanup. (It was particularly a great place for Mrs. Saturday and I to meet up with our 13 family members joining us for the game. I guaranteed everyone this matchup would provide quality, high-scoring entertainment - at least the high-scoring part was correct. Thanks for the tickets, Aunt Saturday!)

Tedford to Fresno State - If the wealth of rumors are true that Jeff Tedford (Cal’s former coach) is the next head coach at Fresno State, that’s quite the coup for the Bulldogs. Tedford went 82-57 in 11 years as the head man at Cal, but what Tedford’s legacy has to be is the incredible football facilities he got built at Berkeley. Keep in mind, this is UC-Berkeley. Merely installing a trash can on campus is likely to incite a protest about how offensive trash cans are to the saintly students who refuse to use any non-compostable item. Yet, Tedford got one of the nicest facilities in the entire Pac-12 built just steps from Memorial Stadium.

Berkeley Stadium Renovation - From 2010 to 2012, California Memorial Stadium underwent a $320 million dollar renovation. I still remember the first time I walked through the gates, up the stairs, and to my seat for my first glimpse of the newly renovated masterpiece. All I could think was “What the hell did they do with all that money?” I know, I know, the stadium is literally right on top of a fault line and they had to care for that and they updated all the concessions and bathrooms on one side of the stadium. But even the most ardent Bear fan has got to admit, it looks pretty much exactly the same. And was “earthquake proofing” really the right decision here? Personally, I think it would be a genius move to leave the stadium as it was and have the PA announcer issue a loud warning right as the visiting team runs onto the field, “Reminder, you are playing directly atop the Hayward Fault and there is the potential that the very ground beneath you may split apart at any moment. Best of luck and thanks for visiting Berkeley.” Let’s see how comfortable the opposing quarterback is hanging back in the pocket after hearing that PSA.

The Hill People - I do have to tip my cap to Cal in regards to at least one aspect of the stadium renovation. Cal has embraced the Hill people as part of the Cal football tradition and rightfully so. The gaggle of onlookers peering into Memorial Stadium from the hill that rises steeply above it is a genuine Berkeley image. I was lucky enough to make my way up to the Hill and discover it to be quite like you’d expect with the exception of the fans being surprisingly attentive up on the Hill, maybe even more so than in the stadium and definitely more so than in the defensive coordinator’s box. While attentive, the Hill people were enjoying the game between swigs of Mickey’s malt liquor and more-than-occasional clouds of smoke that would rise from the Hill crowd. Even on an overcast night, you could still sense the incredible lookout point the Hill provides of the entire Bay area. Just don't look away too long when these two teams are playing - you'll probably miss a couple scores.