The 18th Birmingham Bowl lived up to expectations. Diego Pavia put on a performance for the ages and the rain held off long enough for Vanderbilt to break their losing streak to Georgia Tech and win the Vulcan and Cowbell trophy.
We had two photographers on the field and I covered from the stands. Below is a recap of our gameday posts on X.com. (7am to 9:53pm):
7:00 AM: Gameday tweet asking the question on America’s mind. Will Diego Pavia break the 0-12-1 losing streak to Georgia Tech? The first of many great graphics from @iv_edits.
8:32 AM: Had to remind people of our Birmingham Bowl article. So many great storylines unreported by big media. Go back and check it out if you haven't already.
9:15 AM: Tuned into Mac and Cube in the morning on Jox. Conrad and Damian covered the Birmingham Bowl and mentioned the Matt Corral Birmingham Stallions re-signing news. They took a good amount of texts/calls from listeners which was a nice change. Only thing missing was Cole Cubelic who was prepping for a performance of a lifetime in the Pop-Tarts Bowl. Great show.
12:19 PM: Meg Robinson (@megrobinson_creative) arrives at Protective Stadium for a full day of shooting the 18th Birmingham Bowl. Fans showed up to Uptown for pregame festivities despite the early on-and-off rain.
1:10 PM: Pregame shots from inside Protective Stadium. (@megrobinson_creative)
1:26 PM: Close up of Buzz, the 2023 NCA College Mascot National Champion. (@megrobinson_creative)
1:40 PM: One last bump of our Birmingham Bowl preview article with a picture of the field. (@megrobinson_creative)
2:32 PM: In line with the people to witness a great rivalry game. Line moved quickly given the crowd. Took around 15 minutes from the Northwest Gate. Not bad at all.
2:40 PM: I was late getting the last pregame photos out. Pavia bottom right corner was foreshadowing of his MVP performance. (@megrobinson_creative)
2:47 PM: One of the greatest writers we’ve seen in recent history at Al.com takes a great picture of Protective. We can only hope for more UAB Basketball articles from Mr. Gray this season.
2:30 PM: Last minute touchdown prediction before the 2:30 kickoff. I was wrong. Ended up being a pass to Cole Spence from Pavia.
3:06 PM: We were the first to report on the fan friendly pricing at Protective Stadium for the Birmingham Bowl. Was also nice to have Chick-Fil-A, Conecuh Sausage and Pizza as options as well. Lines could have moved a little faster but were not terrible. Plenty of beer stands open as well.
3:27 PM: Santa on vacation in Birmingham. “The Day After the Day After Christmas is the Birmingham Bowl.” A great tagline used by the Birmingham Bowl. Only makes sense to have Vacation Santa watching quality football in the Magic City.
3:35 PM: We gave a weather update to friend of the program, meteorologist, Dave Nussbaum.
3:53 PM: Video of Diego Pavia with his first rushing touchdown of the day. Spoiler alert, he ended up with 2 rushing and 3 passing touchdowns.
3:58 PM: We get Nussbaumed at 3:55 PM alerting that rain is on the way to the stadium in 45 minutes. We always #TrustTheNuss but first hand accounts report rain started 72 minutes after Nussbaum's prediction. Glad the weather held off for as long as it did.
4:09 PM: First half graphic and photo from @iv_edits.
4:32 PM: More first half pictures. (@megrobinson_creative).
4:54 PM: Lines for merchandise stayed busy all game. Appeared to be two separate locations for merchandise in the stadium.
4:59 PM: "Ref you suck" chants break out in the stadium. Vanderbilt and Georgia Tech fans have finally had enough of the inconsistent refereeing.
5:06 PM: Little did we know Pavia would account for two more Vandy touchdowns. (@iv_edits)
5:09 PM: An impressive crowd at Protective Stadium going into the 4th quarter. Vandy led 21-13 going into the 4th.
5:17 PM: It finally starts to lightly mist at Protective Stadium.
5:22 PM: The Georgia Tech fans make their way to the exits after two more Vanderbilt touchdowns.
5:42 PM: Weather delay. Perfect time to plug Alabama’s only professional basketball team, the Birmingham Squadron. 13 NBA call-ups in the past 3 seasons. Home games at Legacy Arena are a fun time.
5:46 PM: Another graphic/photo from @iv_edits made at the game.
5:52 PM: Protective Stadium. It’s either too hot or raining. A dome is expensive but it would have been nice if instead of an upper deck, we had some type of shade/covering.
6:03 PM: Delay continues. More pictures from the game. (@megrobinson_creative).
6:56 PM: It brought me no pleasure in posting this graphic. Is it fair to say Diego Pavia owns the state of Alabama? Probably not. Vanderbilt needs to schedule UAB and Samford if they want to be taken seriously. For now, Pavia owns Alabama and Auburn. X.com user @rlnave said it best: "you leave railroad park out of this."
7:08 PM: Pavia's final stats. (@megrobinson_creative)
7:18 PM: More angles of Protective Stadium.
7:27 PM: Photos from celebration. (@iv_edits).
7:39 PM: Another Pavia graphic. (@iv_edits)
7:40 PM: Crowd figure released. The 9th biggest crowd in Birmingham Bowl history but the 2nd most attended game since its relocation to Protective Stadium.
9:08 PM: Vanderbilt vs. Georgia Tech in Birmingham every year is a no brainer.
9:53 PM: One last photo from the celebration. (@megrobinson_creative).
In total, 36 posts on gameday receiving 200,030 as of the publishing of this article. We can only hope next years matchup is half as exciting as this past one. Birmingham should be proud.