I have a buddy that smoked a brisket on the Huskers opening game. I was with him when he bought the brisket the afternoon before. If it was me I would have been putting it on at about 6 or 7 pm that night in hopes it would be ready by game time the next day. ( 6 pm ) I told him that and he basically told me to pound sand. He put the brisket on at about 8 am game day, said for the first hour the temp was around 300 then he dropped the temp to 225-250 until about 3 pm, then pulled the brisket, sliced it, and put it in a roaster for the remainder of the time at about 300. I asked him what the internal temp was when he sliced it and put it in the roaster, he didn't even pay attention. I thought for sure when I went to bite into the thing I was either going to be poisoned or it would be the toughest piece of meat ever, but to my surprise it was great. Of course I gave him some $hi* for the roaster, but he countered with me using my propane GOSM. He uses charcoal . Anyway just had to share that, it kinda pi$$ed me off, thats damn near a 24 hour brisket for me.