Sports
Alabama 24 vs. Florida State 7: Atlanta's Mercedes-Benz Stadium Hosts 1st College Football Game
On Saturday, Alabama took on Florida State in the first college football game at Atlanta's new Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
On Saturday, Alabama took on Florida State in the first college football game at Atlanta's new Mercedes-Benz Stadium. If this is any indication of how the venue will hold up during its inaugural NFL season, Atlanta is going to have a ball. The place Saturday night was rockin' and rollin'.
The match-up featured Bama, the No. 1 team in the nation, against the No. 3 Seminoles.(SIGN UP: Get Patch's Daily Newsletter and Real Time News Alerts. Or, if you have an iPhone, download the free Patch app.)
Alabama's offense, led by second-year quarterback Jalen Hurts like last year, was adequate, capitalizing on the mistakes of FSU's kicking game and signal caller.
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FSU's quarterback, Deondre Francois, looked up for the challenge in the first half engineering three drives that could have put fear in the Tide, but the Seminoles' special teams self-destructed early and often.
FSU punter Logan Tyler averaged a paltry 23 yards per punt in the game, all of them longer than the 11-yard did by Bama's J.K. Scott in the second quarter.
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Tide kicker Andy Pappanastos had a big night, connecting on all but one of his four field goals.
Francois was sacked from behind and injured after rolling out to his right with about 5 minutes left in the fourth quarter. He did not return.
The number in attendance for Saturday's game was 76,330, a new Chick-fil-A Kickoff record.
Fans from both sides packed the stadium on a beautiful day for some football inside or even outdoors. Unlike the Georgia Dome, which had only four eateries, the new venue has 24 places to eat -- and that's outside of the stadium's own delectable fare.
Some stats about the Mercedes-Benz Stadium (MBS) compared with the Georgia Dome (GD):
Cost to build: GD -- $214 million, MBS -- $1.5 billion
Construction time: GD -- 29 months; MBS -- 39 months
Parking spaces: GD -- 19,211; MBS --21,000
Height:GD-- 275 feet; MBS -- 305 feet
Total seating capacity: GD --71,250 (no expandable seating); MBS -- 71,000 (75,000 with expandable seating)
Bars, restaurants-- GD -- 4; MBS -- 24
Scoreboard square footage: GD -- 4,800 square feet; MBS -- 63,800 square feet
The Atlanta Falcons play their first regular season game at the new stadium on Sept. 17 against the Green Bay Packers.
Image via Craig Johnson / Patch
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