Saturday Night Lights sabrosos: Your guide to UTRGV tailgating and stadium refreshments

3 weeks ago 263

EDINBURG — University of Texas Rio Grande Valley football is finally here for the Valley, and a big part of the whole college football experience is the food and the drinks that come along with it.

If you’re one of the lucky few that manages to get into a UTRGV football game, you might want something to drink or munch on. For this week’s South Texas Flavor I am your unofficial stadium food and drink guide.

Being a proud UTRGV alumnus, I would have loved to have this experience when I was a bit younger and still in school — but I’m reaching “Unc” status, as the kids may say. Just kidding, I’m 26, full of life and ready for a day of drinking and eating. As I write this, I feel like Steve Buscemi in that one gif, “How do you do, fellow kids?”

Like a proper college football experience, it all begins with the tailgate.

I started my Vaquero football journey with my buddy by hopping on a bus that takes you from the Edinburg campus to Robert and Janet Vackar Stadium. The bus had people of all age groups dripped out in UTRGV swag, and many with cowboy hats like myself.

The bus drops you off at the front of the stadium. I noticed people walked right into the stadium for the corporate and student tailgate, but that’s a mistake. Take advantage, and start walking around the dirt tailgating area.

There are many tents where people are giving out free drinks and food — the go-to area for a broke college student or anyone looking for food or drinks.

Of course, drink responsibly, but be social. Another important aspect of college football is having the camaraderie of cheering for your school and sharing with your fellow community.

Knowing that my column’s main objective was the food and drinks inside the stadium, I had to exhibit a great amount of willpower to not get too many free things — that did not work out and I ended up with about four drinks, a taco and some wings in my system before kickoff.

This was mostly because we ended meeting more friends. I was having such a good time tailgating, I kept going with the flow.

After letting the lines into the stadium die out, we headed in right as the Vaqueros scored the first touchdown of many.

To no surprise, all the stadium drinks and food are a bit overpriced — but what stadium or arena doesn’t have that, right?

I decided to buy one 5×5 Los Vaqueros draft beer before finding a seat. It was about $13. The other beer options were all about $13-14, and a 25-oz. Pepsi bottle beverages is about $4.50. Even a bottle of water was about $4.50, like c’mon now.

Just about any seat in the stadium comes with a good angle of the game. Also no surprise is that we started blowing them out in the 2nd quarter.

After getting over the price, I joyfully finished my blood orange flavored beer with the team close to scoring near the end zone. Feeling the drinks a bit, I started screaming to run the Tush Push. Our starting quarterback is a big boy, I bet he can do it. Let’s name it the Vaquero push or something more creative like the Vaquero cumbia.

At halftime, with Vaqueros up about 40 points, many people started leaving. I get it, we’d basically won already and they’ll beat the traffic, but I hope that isn’t the case when we have more competitive games. The football team will need two full halves of energy from the crowd to win against tougher opponents.

As I headed to get something to eat, through the crowds of people leaving, a spiropapa stand caught my eyes. As I got closer, that fried potato aroma drew me in.

It can’t be a Valley event without a spiropapa stand and even though it wasn’t pulga price, that $10 heavenly creation was perfect to balance out the Vaquero beer.

I’m a simple man and just spread mayo all over it.

Still with the munchies, I went to go check out both sides of the stadium to see what food is offered.

Like I said, things are a bit pricey — an all beef hot dog is about $7 and nachos are the same price. It isn’t bad for an individual, but think about the person bringing their family with kids and they all want a drink, a snack or food. That easily can add up real quick.

I ended up getting a six piece boneless wing combo from Wing Barn to share with my buddy. It was about $14-15, which is reasonable since you get good size chicken nuggets, fries and a side of ranch. I tried the buffalo-lemon pepper flavor and that also hit the spot during halftime.

We ended the night with one more drink from their signature frozen drinks. I got to try La Vaquera and La Fresa but ended up getting La Fresa since it had a strawberry mix with Malibu rum.

I planned to get one more thing to eat and share, but everything was closed by the start of the 4th quarter, since the crowd had really thinned out.

With almost no traffic to speak of at the end of the game, it was easy to get back home.

Overall, the tailgating and football game experience is something I recommend for anyone that enjoys football or a festival-like atmosphere. I know it’s a struggle to get a ticket, but if you’re willing to stalk the ticket website at 8 a.m. Friday, it is worth it for your Saturdays.

The next game is in about two weeks, so get your UTRGV gear ready to watch some football.

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