TAMPA, Fla. – It will be easy to pick out newlyweds Brianne and Chris Vogel Wednesday at the Outback Bowl.
She'll be wearing Auburn orange and blue. He'll be rocking Minnesota maroon and gold.
Married on Dec. 14, the Vogels revised their honeymoon plans when their respective alma maters were matched up for the first time.
"We had heard rumors that our two alma maters were going to play against each other in the bowl game," said Brianne, who graduated in biomedical sciences from Auburn University's College of Science and Mathematics in 2014.
The Vogels originally intended to honeymoon in northern Minnesota, their home state, but made sure they could cancel their reservations just in case the dream matchup materialized.
"We found out that they were playing each other and we canceled our hotel and booked flights that night," said Chris, who graduated from Minnesota in 2014 in construction management.
Bowl pairings were released six days before their big day.
"When they actually announced it, we were like, 'It's once in a lifetime. We've got to go,'" Brianne said.
Attending college more than 1,000 miles from where she grew up, Brianne – like a lot of freshmen – felt homesick her first semester. Thankfully, Cam Newton's 2010 Auburn Tigers smoothed her transition.
"It was incredible," she said. "I didn't know a single soul when I moved down to Auburn and I quickly met a lot of people in my dorm. Thankfully there were a lot of students who were in the same boat as me.
"Won the national championship freshman year and then went back my senior year. The Kick Six was my last game in Jordan-Hare as a student, so I had a pretty incredible four years that I was there. I got really lucky.
"I was always a football fan growing up but once I came to Auburn, I realized football is not just something you watch on Sundays. It's a way of life. It really carried me through that fall semester, which was the hardest part, being away from family, not knowing anybody.
"Everybody on campus comes together around the football team. I had known one other person who had gone to Auburn before I did. She said the same thing. The fall semesters are hard, being away from your family, but bonding with everybody over the football team, it was awesome."
During her four years on the Plains, Brianne picked up a hint of a Southern accent, which Chris noticed when they met through a mutual friend the year after they graduated. It was, you could say, love at first frostbite.
"That was part of the lure because I'm a country boy at heart and I was very much attracted to the Southern twang," he said. "It kind of faded as she lived here a little longer, but every once in a while when we visit friends, she'll pick up the 'y'all' every now and then."
Chris experienced game day at Jordan-Hare Stadium when he and Brianne attended Auburn's season opener in 2016.
"We were in the stadium an hour beforehand and we were probably the last people there," he said. "We watched the band warm up and everybody was cheering for the band. You could tell it was more of a culture thing. That was kind of neat and different.
"Definitely more of a family aspect than I feel the Gophers have. We went and tailgated and everybody offered us food and drinks.
"It was way different than watching Big Ten football because I remember, when I was in college, you would try to make it to halftime before you left the stadium because the football team wasn't that great, or it was just boring."
During their engagement season, Chris and Brianne allowed the Associated Press poll to determine which team received top billing.
"When the Gophers and Auburn play football at the same time on Saturdays, we usually have two TVs going," she said. "We always have the tradition that whatever team is ranked higher gets to have the big TV, and this was the very first year that Minnesota had the big TV for one week. Other than that, it's been all Auburn."
On their wedding day, Chris wore Gophers socks while Brianne wore an Auburn garter. Six days after their nuptials, the newlyweds shot their shot, reaching out to both universities for tickets.
"As our first marital disagreement, we are having trouble agreeing on which side to sit on - Gophers or Tigers," wrote Brianne in an email. "If you have any tickets to spare, we would SO love to have some help with our decision!"
Both schools answered, but with varying replies. Suffice it to say, Chris will be a lonely Gopher Wednesday, surrounded by a sea of orange and blue.
"The Gophers responded and they said, 'Congratulations, here's the link where you can purchase tickets to the game,'" Brianne said.
"Auburn came through for us. That was incredible, just awesome."
Jeff Shearer is a Senior Writer at AuburnTigers.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jeff_shearer