Michigan tailgates harder than Indiana. End of discussion

For fall break, I ventured to Bloomington to visit my friend at Indiana University for the Michigan football game. I was super excited to experience Gameday at another Big 10 school, especially since it was IU's homecoming weekend too.

My UMich friends and I had high hopes for IU's tailgate experience, especially given that they're ranked higher than UMich in the Niche's 2018 Party Schools in America. Well, let's just say the weekend didn't live up to Niche's standards. Here's why:

Saturday school

Since it was a morning game, my friend and I anticipated waking up at the crack of dawn to start tailgating, as our Michigan ways had taught us. Instead, we ended up sleeping in because everyone who was in Calculus or Finite Math had a midterm at 9am or 11am ON A SATURDAY. Not just a Saturday, but a GAMEDAY. A HOMECOMING GAMEDAY. So, we ended up sleeping in on a homecoming weekend, which proved to foreshadow the rest of the day.

The tailgating fields

Since freshman girls rush second semester, they aren't allowed into frats all of first semester. Also, if you're a freshman boy who isn't pledging, you may as well give up on thinking about going to frat parties. Unless you're close with someone in the house, game over. Even on Gameday.

So where do the exiled freshman pregame? The tailgating fields. Think e-z ups, club sandwiches, corn hole, no one under the age of 40, and no one over the age of 12. As soon as my only friend who didn't have the midterm Saturday morning led us to these fields, we made her turn around. There was no way we were about to tailgate with alumni parents and their families. So at 11:30 am, 30 minutes before kickoff, we set out to the frats

FBI: Frat Boy Investigation

Once we finally made the trek to the fraternity on "the extension" as Hoosiers call it, we were greeted outside the door by five frat boys accompanied by two MacBook Pros. They demanded that we give them our names so that they could blacklist us from sororities if we were freshman.

My IU friend was so excited and exclaimed: "This is my first tailgate of the year!" Not too relatable.

Dry campus

In the off chance that the makeshift bar at the frat was open, once we finally pushed our way to the front, we received an offering of a lukewarm, shitty beer.

Later that night when we got back in line, they had run out by the time we had gotten to the front. This was not exactly the unlimited flow of Kamchatka, Fanta, and wine bags that we were used to.

Don't get me wrong, once we were inside the frat, it was a good time. The backyard was huge and the DJ played a perfect hybrid of throwbacks and rap —everything from "I Will Always Love You" to "Bodak Yellow."

With that said, getting in was a bit of a different journey than just cutting the line to any frat party, the norm at Michigan. Nevertheless, I do recognize that once you're in Greek life, the social scene must significantly improve. But at least, until then, Niche should update their ranking.