While it can be fun to travel, it’s nice to come home.

Home is where Mom does your laundry, where Dad pays your bills and where your younger sister steals your DVDs.

After last weekend’s trip to Provo, Utah, to face BYU, the Eastern football team is glad to be back home for different reasons.

For starters, they’re facing a team that isn’t BYU. In fact, Eastern (1-1) is undefeated this season against teams that aren’t BYU.

While the trip into Division I-A football territory yielded a $225,000 check for the athletic department, it also left the Panthers with a 45-10 loss on their conscience.

Maybe if the team was heading back out on the road to face another Division I power, the loss would affect the team’s play.

But luckily for Eastern, the traveling has come to an end, and the team gets to enjoy some of the home field advantages its opponents have utilized.

The Panthers were greeted by 4,525 fans in their season-opener at Indiana State, a game Eastern won 24-13.

For the Sycamores, the home field advantage didn’t amount to much. One week after facing the Panthers, Indiana State was still reeling, losing 42-10 to St. Francis – a NAIA school named after the fat, rich guy who would do anything to get his hands on Pee Wee Herman’s sweet red bicycle.

Where Indiana State didn’t use its home field advantage, BYU made the most of it.

On the Panthers first offensive series, the partisan crowd had an impact. Crowd noise helped force consecutive delay of game penalties against the Panthers, backing them up onto their own 9-yard line.

In an attempt to neutralize the noise, the Panthers switched to a silent count – where the ball is snapped at a specific time, not because of a verbal cue. With the crowd still yelling and the BYU defense showing pressure, Eastern sophomore quarterback Mike Donato stepped back into the shotgun and looked to his left.

A miscommunication about the silent count led to the ball being snapped, with Donato turning to look straight ahead right as the ball hit him in his facemask. BYU recovered the fumble. Two plays later, the Cougars scored a touchdown, putting them up 14-0 less than halfway through the first quarter.

If the game had been played in front of an empty LaVell Edwards Stadium, BYU probably would have still won. But 52,630 fans were in the seats, and on that particular drive, they made a difference.

When Eastern runs onto the field at O’Brien Stadium Saturday at 6 p.m. to face Illinois State, 52,630 fans won’t be there. (They’ll all be at Marty’s trying to order a drink.)

While Eastern can’t compete with BYU when it comes to the volume of the fans, it can force Illinois State into some difficult situations.

The crowd can be loud. It can be obnoxious. It can be frustrating. It can have an impact.

With the late start time, the usual excuses Eastern students use for their lack of attendance won’t apply. Hangovers and bedmates will be long gone.

So when students are out tailgating, making plans for Saturday night, a trip to O’Brien Stadium might not be a bad idea.

Come welcome the football team home – and make Illinois State feel as unwelcome as possible.

Dan Woike, a senior journalism major, loves going home to the simple pleasures of allowance, curfew and repeatedly having the same night out with the same people at the same bar. Comment on his arrested development at [email protected].