Across the country, fewer things come before college football. The game has become a sacred way of life, celebrated every Saturday. School pride fills 90,000-seat stadiums each week and nothing runs deeper than team colors.

On Monday, the weeks and months of practice, footage study and game days culminated into the largest match of them all: the College Football Playoff National Championship. The Mercedes-Benz Superdome was alive with impassioned fans who had come from all over to support their team. The energy was only multiplied by the fact that it might as well have been a home game for Coach O’s LSU Tigers.

Among the waves of orange and purple, Lauren Woirol and her husband, Stephen, cheered with friends as they took in the biggest game of the season. Nothing alights quite like the devotees of a college football team, making the experience itself one for the books. After local hero, Joe Burrow, capped off his undefeated season with a national title, New Orleans erupted in celebration all throughout the streets. And you could only imagine the sights and sounds of Bourbon Street that night.