Road trip: first-quarter review -- awards time!

Text and photos by Joe Connor, our eco-friendly road trip correspondent.

Hard to believe but the Green-Machine-That-Ain't-Be-Running-On-No-Gasoline-And-Mostly-Gooey-Veggie-Cream is a quarter in the books. Here's a look at the best-of from the first quarter of the trip ...

Best tailgate and pregame fan atmosphere: Oregon State. It was a sea of orange people, and, as USC found out, Reser Stadium can get mighty loud with Beaver fans going nuts.

Prettiest campus and stadium backdrop: Cal and its Memorial Stadium, with the Berkeley Hills hovering above the east side of the stadium.

Best T-shirt: "Michael Vick should have used Huskies" (of course, discovered at WSU).

Best bumper sticker: "Directions to WSU: go east 'til you smell it, go south 'til your in it.'" And off Highway 26 near Royal City, en route to Pullman, Wash., it really does stink. I can attest. I nearly gagged.

Best cheerleaders and band combo: Oregon. The Duckies band took up the entire east end zone at Martin Stadium (because the stadium is so small there was no other place to put them), and the O cheerleaders never took a break. Plus, sexist pig writing now, the quack quack ladies are wicked hot. Hugh Hefner: send your photogs to Eugene, pronto.

World's worst drivers: Washington State (that would be the entire state!). And I thought driving in the Dominican Republic was bad. Washington drivers rarely ever go the speed limit, kind of like going in reverse — or like both of the state's Pac-10 football programs. (Note: Click here for more evidence of terrible driving from KING-TV [Channel 5] in Seattle.)

—Joe Connor

Road trip: When in Wazzu...

Text and photos by Joe Connor, our eco-friendly road trip correspondent.

Where can you find some of the best game-day sports bars in the Pac-10 to throw back a few before kickoff? How about Pullman, Wash. OK, OK, OK now. I know what you're thinking, "Joe, stinking Washington State, are you kidding? Has the exhaust from the veggie mobile caused you to lose your sensibilities, dude?"

Well, yes, of course, only a freak of nature would drive a car running on cooking oil across the fruited plain to football games all season long. But, no, there truly are a couple of cool (well, there's only two really) sports bars in Pullman. Yes, Pullman.

"This is Siberia, man," said Oregon Ducks fan Jeff Betts. "We drove six hours to get here. Six hours. But this is one of the best places in the Pac-10 to come in and get a beer before the game."

Betts and his Ducks buddy Dave Martin should know. They've been to practically every Oregon away game in the Pac-10. And they also know that in Pullman it's best to tailgate inside — as opposed to among Cougars fans. Two years ago, Betts and Martin were walking on campus in their ducky green and yellow when a female student drove up alongside them, rolled down the window of her car and proceeded to say three words to them…

"(Bleep) the Ducks," Betts said. "Then she just drove off."

Road trip: Not so ducky in Autzen as Oregon quacks

Text and photos by Joe Connor, our eco-friendly road trip correspondent.

What are the odds that one year you are cheering on your favorite team and the next year you find yourself as part of the image on the magnet schedule of your favorite team?

What are the odds that a “non-BCS” school would come into Oregon ’s big, bad football house, Autzen Stadium, and embarrass the Ducks so bad that many quack-quackers would leave at halftime and not return?

The odds are unlikely, but they both transpired, and so I was reminded once again Saturday why I have the greatest job on the face of planet Earth, driving a shiny, happy veg-oil rig throughout college football land.

The orange-and-blue clad Broncos from Boise State, who caused Sooner fans to weep all the way back to Oklahoma after the Fiesta Bowl a few years back, spoiled Kirk Blanchard's 27th birthday party, green hair and all.

"Sometimes I go with the yellow" hair, the long-time Eugene resident explained before the game. Fittingly, Blanchard is, you guessed it, a painter. He’s been painting his freak head since the mid-1990s, back when Oregon was, well ... "terrible," said Blanchard’s long-time buddy Joe Howard, also a painter (but not to his own noggin).

Road trip: Dancing to their own beat, the Beavers finally get a win

Text and photos by Joe Connor, our eco-friendly road trip correspondent.

If you ever want to know how much respect — or lack thereof — home fans have, just wear the opposition's dominate color to a game and see how you're treated. Well, I did Saturday at Oregon State when it played host to the green-laden Hawaii Rainbows, but it wasn't on purpose.

To be honest, I've been on the road since Aug. 22 and I was down to two clean shirts. Let's just say I enjoy doing laundry about as much as listening to the monotone of (soon to be ex-) Washington Coach Tyrone Willingham. Making my color choice worse, of course, was that the Beavers' chief rival 45 minutes south is the University of Oregon, those green-and-mustard colored Ducks.

Not to worry, no Beaver fans hurled me into the Willamette River in Corvallis as the current headed briskly south toward Eugene. Quite the contrary: Beaver fans were quite respectful, and it was one of the most pleasant tailgates I've been to.

Perhaps it all has something to with the unique Oregonian spirit. After all, it is the state that passed the country's first beverage container law, so during tailgates you don't throw your bottles in any bag; you throw them under a tree to be collected moments later. Did you know that Oregon also was the first state to use gas taxes to fund highway improvements? Well, now you do, junior.

Road trip: Winless Washington growing weary of Willingham

Text and photos by Joe Connor, our eco-friendly road trip correspondent.

1991. That was the year that Washington — yes, Washington — won the national college football championship. Hard to conjure, huh? The Tyrone Willingless Huskies were numero uno. In fact, it was so long ago that that also was the year I graduated from high school, which only goes to show you how little I've matured in nearly 20 years — considering I'm spending the next four months driving around the country in a car running on vegetable oil.

But back to the Huskies, where I took in their home opener Saturday against BYU. There are few givens in life, but here's one of them: Tyrone Willingham's chances of returning to Washington next year as head football coach appear about as likely as John McCain winning "American Idol." And to hear many Washington boosters and alumni tell it, the only question seems to be whether Willingham will be canned during this season. He certainly didn't help himself by losing to the Cougars, 28-27, which gets the Huskies off to another roaring start at 0-2.

Road trip: No better place to be on opening weekend than Berkeley

Text and photos by Joe Connor, our eco-friendly road trip correspondent

SoCal's got better-looking women and, of course, better football, but there was no better place to be than Berkeley — yes, Berkeley  — on college football season's opening weekend. It was one of those perfect Saturdays in which everything falls into place, from strolling one of the prettiest campuses in the Pac-10 hours before kickoff to gorgeous, cool and sunny weather ... to even finding the perfect parking spot.

Perfect parking spot at Cal? Say what? Finding a parking spot to tailgate at Cal football is traditionally about as enjoyable as a root canal, but I had a plan and Signa Nu would be my guinea pig. After failing to convince three other fraternities to let me park my Green Machine in their front lawn in exchange for cases of energy drink, the boys at Signa Nu (on probation, no less) agreed. Dean Faber would have been proud. And even better: I didn't have to climb a tree to beg for a parking spot.

Road trip: 'Mad as a Tree' leads to a Stanford victory

Text and photos by Joe Connor

What do you say about a school that has no mascot? What do you say to ESPN, the Pac-10 and Stanford for opening the college football season when school isn't even in session for the home team? Now, that's how you promote your university, conference and college football! Open the season ... when students aren't on campus yet!

So what do you do?

Apparently, you get mad as a tree. Yes, a tree. You see Stanford may be known as the Cardinal, but that's not its mascot — it's simply the team's nickname. There were no red birds flying around last Thursday in Palo Alto, but the mercury was an unheavenly 100 degrees as a heat wave struck Silicon Valley to welcome the visiting Oregon State Beavers to Stanford Stadium.

There were players, some fans, even band members, plus five women known as "dollies" — more on them later — and a (band-only) mascot known as, you got it, "The Tree." So I guess ESPN, the Pac-10 and Stanford said, "let's play some football."

Road trip: Meet Joe Connor

What do you get when you combine a lime green Mercedes-Benz running on biodiesel, passionate sports fans and writer who loves to travel? One entertaining and informative season-long college football trip!

Joe Connor, whose freelance writer credits include ESPN.com and FOXSports.com, is sharing his four-month odyssey with you as he visits schools throughout the Pac-10, Big 12, Big 10 and everywhere else in between.

Each week this season, you'll get reports from Joe on how the other fans live — especially division foes. This weekend, he visited Stanford and Cal. Look for his first article Wednesday.

Connor's no stranger to raising awareness of renewable energy via college football travel. Last season, he drove his lime-green renewable energy machine more than 35,000 miles, visiting more than 114 sporting venues in 116 days, including college stops at Nebraska, Clemson, Georgia, Auburn, Alabama, Texas, Tennessee, Michigan, Ohio State and LSU, among many others. ESPN.com dubbed his journey “Road trip of the year," adding "it’s a great trip and a great cause."