By Marty Dubecky and Peter Melahn, Staff Writers

Xavier students gathered outside Cintas Center this past Saturday to await the showdown between the Xavier Musketeers and UConn Huskies in an afternoon filled with sweet tunes, wieners and college fun.

This weekend’s pre-game lineup stood in place of the typical Crosstown Campout since the University of Cincinnati hosted the shootout this past December. Cold winter weather prompted the switch from the overnight campout to a game day lineup. Even though it didn’t snow, the cold kept students bundled up throughout the day.

“It’s a little cold, but we keep it moving, we keep it warm,” senior marketing major Sam Andrews said.

The day began with students checking in at noon, and each group was randomly assigned a particular spot in line. The atmosphere was bumping early on, with music first provided by student Sam Chavez, also known as DJ Nomad. At 4 p.m. the Dugan Brothers took the stage, hyping up the crowd with a set of oldies-but-goodies. All the while, students chowed down on some scrumptious meats provided by XUPD.

This led many students to express their favorite hot dog toppings.

“I like sauerkraut and mustard on my wiener,” senior biomedical sciences major Devin Terry said.

“I’m more of a plain guy,” first-year business analytics major Brian Weavil said. “Raw- dog it,” he continued. 

In addition to live music and complementary burgers and dogs, X-treme Fans, a group of 15 students in charge of organizing and planning events to hype up the student section on game days, provided additional entertainment in the form of cornhole, connect-four and cheeky remarks over a megaphone.

Students brought an array of seating options to the lineup. Whether it was white Adirondacks from the Xavier yard, decades-old folding chairs from another generation of Xavier fans, a matching set of beanbags or a chapel pew of unknown origin, students found creative ways to keep their behinds off the icy ground.

Overall, students seemed excited about the lineup, particularly those who were not too keen to get out there early in the morning. Senior environmental science major and Economics, Sustainability and Society double major as well as chess legend Matthew Bak expressed his favorite part of this year’s lineup: “I didn’t have to wake up at 6 a.m.”

Students munched on their favorite cookout grub and enjoyed the plethora of activities while getting more excited as gametime grew closer.

When asked how to describe the energy, senior computer science major Evan Gunnulfson simply described it as “absolutely electric.”

Junior business marketing and entrepreneurship major and X-treme Fans team member Adam Fowler considered the lineup a big success.

“We would love to have more events similar to this one, and we know that the students would be just as excited as us,” Fowler said. “We have some pretty cool ideas planned for next year.”

As the doors opened and students filed into what they would soon find to be an absolute spectacle of a game, students shared a few predictions of what the final score might be. Senior management major Alex Sexton summed it all up: “Xavier by one million!”