This weekend I planned on going to the Michigan-Michigan State football game in East Lansing. Some things came up and I ended up not going.

So I missed Michigan’s last- second game-tying touchdown catch, the overtime goal line stand and game-winning touchdown run for the home team. And of course, the tailgates.

Man, do I wish we had a football team.

That sentence is probably uttered thousands of times every fall at Marquette. But that doesn’t make it untrue.

Having a competitive football team would obviously be great.

But — as the Marquette Tribune sports columnist Eric Grover noted a couple weeks ago — we’re not getting one anytime soon.

So what I present to you here is a guide of alternative ways you can spend your football-less fall Saturdays, in lieu of tailgating, throwing the pigskin around and pretending you actually plan on entering the stadium.

Watch the games on TV

This is for all the die-hards out there. Real college football fans live for these Saturdays.

Some would argue there’s no better way to spend a Saturday afternoon than planting yourself on the couch all day for a 12-hour marathon of watching football and stuffing your face with barbecue, beer and chips and dip.

It’s easy: Grab yourself the tailgating essentials mentioned above and root for your favorite team.

Or you can go with the always popular choice of whoever is playing Notre Dame.

Go to a soccer game

Give the other football a shot.

The men’s team is having a bit of a turnaround season (I imagine it’s hard not to turn around from a one-win Big East campaign, but that’s beside the point).

And the women’s team is coming on strong down the stretch, with its eyes on the postseason. You can catch both squads in action down at Valley Fields.
Go to a rugby game

These meatheads play at King Field, 15th and Highland Streets, on Saturdays in the fall and spring.

The atmosphere is much like a college football game, in that drinking is allowed encouraged required.

And if you give it a chance, rugby is actually a pretty awesome sport once you learn what’s going on.

It incorporates the best parts of soccer, football and binge drinking.

If you’re lucky, you might even get invited to the socials afterward, where there’s always the possibility of a player stripping off his clothes to play a little driveway basketball (this actually happened).
Go to a club football game

Just kidding.

Wait for basketball season to start

As most discussions of Marquette athletics eventually turn, let’s talk basketball.

There is plenty to occupy your time with MU hoops.

You can scour the message boards for inside information, opinions and predictions.

You can check out how our Big East rivals fared in the off-season and find out what to expect from the Golden Eagles, post-Big Three.

You can do something productive, like commit yourself to medical research to spur the recovery of Junior Cadougan and Darius Johnson-Odom (or if you’re more of a legal mind, study Texas law to try and help recruit Monterale Clark with his, uh, predicament).

Marquette isn’t a football school. We’re all about basketball around these parts.

But there is something we miss out on by not having a football team.

There are other ways to spend our Saturdays, but there’s no substitute for the real thing.

Which is why I’m going to Notre Dame over fall break, to cheer on whoever they’re playing.