Wherever his Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team goes, Jim Dailer follows.

The Wheeling, West Virginia native has been a Notre Dame season ticket holder for five decades and has followed the Irish across the college football landscape: The 2012 national championship game against Alabama, along with away games at Florida State, North Carolina State, Ohio State, USC and more are just some of the highlights.

This year, Dailer’s travels brought him to Kyle Field, along with 107,314 other fans — and he says he’s never seen anything like it in his life.

“Definitely, it was the most intimidating place I’ve been as a visitor,” Dailer said.

A few hundred feet down from Dailer’s third-deck seats, Tyler Reidy was stressing out. Reidy, along with fellow Notre Dame student Jacob Irons, made the trip from South Bend, Indiana to College Station to call the game for WVFI, Notre Dame’s student radio station — only to find out that they didn’t have room in the press box for their broadcast.

Reidy and Irons ended up calling the game from a camera platform in the southwest corner of Kyle Field, just above the first deck. And as Reidy scrambled to set up his broadcasting equipment just before kickoff, he finally got the chance to pause and take in the environment — and he says he was floored.

“Right after the national anthem had wrapped up, I finally got my first chance to lean down and peer underneath that overhang of the second deck and look up at the second and third deck,” Reidy said. “And the fact that there were that many people going all the way up to the top of the stadium on that side with the white rally towels, was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is crazy.’”

The unorthodox broadcast setup ended up being a blessing in disguise, Reidy says.

“One of the main things about having the chance to be down in the position we were with the broadcast, is just really feeling those moments,” Reidy said. “Not feeling separated from those moments where the crowd really got into it, whether it was during a stoppage of play, during halftime, before a crucial third or fourth down to just kind of take a breath, take a step back and appreciate the rarity and how special what we were looking at and what we were dealing with really was.”

Reidy wasn’t the only one impressed by the sheer size of the fourth-largest crowd to ever see Texas A&M football play at Kyle Field.

Despite marrying an Aggie, Notre Dame alum Sheila Hickey found herself making the trip from Yardley, Pennsylvania to Aggieland for the very first time for Saturday’s game — and it was also her first time to be a part of a crowd that massive.

“I had never been in a stadium with 107,000 people,” Hickey said. “I couldn’t believe how loud it was. Tom had told me about the 12th Man, but I guess until you see it, hear it and experience it, you just don’t really understand how committed people are to the team.”

Hickey, Dailer and Reidy — along with the other specks of kelly green, navy and gold spread throughout Kyle Field — all had their own unique Aggieland experiences.

Dailer enjoyed a trip to the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library, guided by his Aggie daughter-in-law.

Reidy and broadcast partner Irons were impressed by the size of more than just the stadium — even the food scene was impressive, Reidy says.

“We have an area a couple of blocks off of our campus called Eddy Street Commons,” Reidy said. “It’s probably half a mile long, over by the stadium. You know, it’s a lot of local restaurants, a couple bars in there. It felt like A&M had about 70 or 80 of those as we were driving down Texas Avenue and University Drive.”

And Hickey enjoyed taking in the Aggies’ signature yells.

“I was shocked that they were saying ‘Beat the hell outta Notre Dame,’” Hickey said. “In contrast to how nice everyone was as we were leaving the stadium.”

But the biggest takeaway for all three of the visiting Irish? Aggies themselves.

“I’ve met a lot of different people from various SEC fanbases, and A&M is just the cream of the crop,” Reidy said. “ … That was the really cool thing. The conversations weren’t just about football and our assignments for the game and whose team is better than the other. Just about every conversation we had with the A&M fans just turned into a really nice kind of breakdown, get to know each other and a little bit of how we got to our respective positions.”

As for the Aggies who’ve already circled Sept. 14, 2025 on their calendar, when the Aggies face the Irish in South Bend next season? Dailer says they should make the trip.

“​​We were treated fantastic here the entire time we were here,” Dailer said. “And any A&M fan to come to South Bend will be treated the same.”