How to get the absolute most out of your football Saturday, with technology.

There are few things that can match a day at the football stadium, complete with the tailgating, the grilling, the enjoyment of spending time with 50,000 like minded Illini fans, and of course getting to hear the band. But with all of the advantages of course come the disadvantages, like pricey stadium food, hellish traffic jams, and worst of all, the inability to see any other games that might be going on at the same time. So while I will always be an advocate of the game day football experience, let us for a moment indulge the prospect of staying home and watching Illini football, as many of must do, from time to time.

On away games, I like to have a system, a system that involves my TV being set to the Illini game, preferably the largest most highly defined TV available, my laptop being open to my open thread, my twitter and ESPN3 for all of the out of area games. The idea is to immerse one's self into as much football as possible, at every possible moment, and to enhance that football experience with peripheral devices. Thus, to my left, my mini-fridge, stocked with cheap American light beer, to my right, a fresh from the microwave plate of pizza rolls, possibly the greatest technological achievement known to man.

The televised game is only one level in which you can enjoy the entire football experience, on my open thread, I will often engage my fans with hard hitting journalism that gets to the heart of all of the pressing issues of strategy, and then discard that comment for a gif and a touch down celebration filled with several exclamation points.*

On twitter, myself along with dozens of other devoted Illini fans and media members keep the rest of the twitterverse up to date on the score of the game, as well as participate in an ongoing conversation that anyone is welcome to join in on. Seriously, we journalists are a narcissistic folk, if you @shout us on twitter, it will probably be immediately responded to, if you retweet us, we will probably end up sending you a Christmas card, we just like to know we are appreciated.

This is all stuff you can only really get at home, at home you get the benefit of actually seeing the replay, usually at a higher resolution than you could get at the stadium, at home you wont get hassled for cracking open a beer at noon, at home you don't need to worry about someone else's kid dumping his soda all over your jeans. At home you have a climate controlled environment, a DVR to replay any moment of the game you may want to watch over again, a drastically shorter line for the bathroom, and a much cheaper concessions stand. Frankly when you think about it, there is a lot to love about just settling in on your couch and watching the game from home. Although, getting up and clapping to the war chant on third down just really isn't the same without a crowd of people, and good luck dancing to Bill Tell all by yourself in your living room. In my opinion, watching the game at home is always second choice to being there live, but with the right amount of technological immersion it can be a very enjoyable experience.