TCU vs. BYU: best college town?
Mark J. Rebilas/US PresswireThe Wasatch Mountains will be a witness to the game. But which team has the better hometown?Buy tickets for the TCU-BYU game | Passport: Log your game
ESPN's "College GameDay" descends on Provo, Utah, on Saturday as BYU hosts BCS hopeful TCU. The teams represent very different universities, but there's more in common with their college towns than one might guess.
More for the road
If you're planning a trip to the Fort Worth or Provo area, download Lonely Planet's Utah chapter from its Southwest USA guidebook or free online planner, or its Texas chapter or free online planner to Texas.
Fort Worth and Provo celebrated their 160th birthdays this year, both started as forts and set up their universities within two years of each other in the 1870s, both are a few dozen miles from more famous neighbors (Dallas and Salt Lake City), and both are fidgety conservative communities on the rise -- Fort Worth with its arts and dining scene, Provo for its new businesses and families. (Plus, both have very good city flags: See Provo's and Fort Worth's.) The similarities end, however, when you consider alcohol.
Oddsmakers put the hometown Cougars as 1-point favorites over the undefeated Horned Frogs at LaVell Edwards Stadium. But what about off it? We'll have to decide here, on our own, which wins as the better college town. My ranking of five key attributes (on a scale of 1 to 8) follows:
Breakfast
The best diner breakfast in North Texas, some say (and I can't argue), is a couple of miles east of TCU at the Paris Coffee Shop, a classic diner that's been around since 1927. On Saturday mornings, staff wear purple TCU shirts and lines build.
"If you want a cross-section of Fort Worth, come to Paris. Anyone and everyone comes," owner Mike Smith said. Once here, they thumb through a huge menu and sit at old-style counter seats or booths along walls lined with city photos. Particularly popular is the French toast ($3.70). "It's so good because we use real French toast, not the gummy Texas toast you see elsewhere," Smith said.
Provo can't quite compete in old-time atmosphere. But Magleby's Fresh, a 10-year-old spin-off of a local oyster bar, is best at breakfast, when locals come for all-you-can-eat pancakes for $4.95. (Does anyone really want more than three?) Score: Fort Worth 6, Provo 3
Drinking scenes
Let's see, one was called "Hell's Half Acre," the other served as a setting in the no-dance-allowed film "Footloose" and just this summer permitted non-members to drink at bars ("social clubs").
The original TCU campus, then called AddRan College, opened in 1873 in nearby Thorp Spring, because the tawdry drinking and ballyhooing scene of cowboys frightened off the college's Christian-minded founders. (TCU finally settled into Fort Worth in 1910.) The Stockyards District remains a great scene of hoots and hollers. A survivor from the real-deal "Gunsmoke" era, the White Elephant Saloon, is a staple here, where beers and bourbon come with an on-stage twang most nights. (The cover for live country bands ranges from free to $8.) Family-friendly Billy Bob's Texas is the state's largest honky-tonk, with riding bulls, free Thursday night line-dancing lessons and real stars on stage (Tanya Tucker this Saturday).
Provo, on the other hand, is the country's most sober city (per a U.S. News & World Report poll poll a year ago). It's not completely sober though. Provo has three bars, two clustered on Center Street downtown (called "Old Provo"), including the Cajun-inspired nightclub Atchafalaya. "Most BYU students can't risk drinking here and getting caught; they go to Salt Lake for that," co-manager Wayne Buehler said. Tailgating? Buehler, who originally hails from Wisconsin, said, "Not in this town." Fort Worth 6, Provo 2
Attractions
Backed by the towering Wasatch Mountains, Provo's main attractions are out of town. Most like the 32-mile Provo Canyon Scenic Drive (near Robert Redford's grounds at Sundance; a "different world," per one Provo local), which takes you by the towering Bridal Veil Falls, where you can hike to a swimming hole and stand in the misty spray. In town, Provo is home to the world's largest collection of Jurassic-era fossils. For years the collection of regional fossils were stored under the Cougars' football stadium, but now it can be viewed across the street at the BYU Earth Science Museum. A favorite is the recreation of a T. rex skull, in which visitors can stick their head between a set of massive jaws. Perhaps locals' favorite pastime is getting a cone at the BYU Creamery.
Speaking of large creatures, Texas' real longhorn capital is Fort Worth (not Austin). Every day longhorn parades wander down Exchange Avenue in the Stockyards District for visitors to see. But Fort Worth's main attractions are less denim-and-leather-minded. Across town, the Cultural District is home to several excellent museums (several of which are free), highlighted by the free Kimbell Art Museum, the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth and the recently expanded Amon Carter Museum, which focuses on, yep, cowboy art. Outside the city limits, there's Dallas … and not much else 'til you reach Austin. Fort Worth 5, Provo 3
Football legacies
You know programs are BCS-buster quality when they have Heismans (Ty Detmer in 1990, Davey O'Brien in 1938), national championships (TCU back in 1935 and 1938, BYU in the controversial 1984 season -- it capped its undefeated season beating a 6-5 Michigan, the sixth-place Big 10 team, in a pre-Christmas bowl) and huge NFL stars (LaDainian Tomlinson, Steve Young, Jim McMahon). Plus, both are named for animals actually found in the area -- not the overused (and historically absent) Tigers or Bulldogs, or something fictional like Jayhawks. Fort Worth 4, Provo 4
Game predictions
Wayne Buehler, Provo: TCU 34, BYU 28
Mike Smith, Fort Worth: TCU 21, BYU 14
Fort Worth 6, Provo 2
Final score: As a town destination, Fort Worth tops Provo, 4-0-1, with a shake of the spur.
Lonely Planet creates travel guidebooks and digital content for every destination in the world, including the university towns ESPN's "College GameDay" will visit this football season.
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