Saturday, November 25, 2006

Ole Miss 20, Miss. State 17
Vaught-Hemingway Stadium – Oxford, Miss.
TV: None – Attendance: 57,658

Official Trip Song: "Dixie" by the Ole Miss marching band

OXFORD, Miss. – When we last left off, we had left Andrew’s family’s house on Friday evening after enjoying some Razorback Pizza. We trekked back to my house in Saltillo, stopping once in Olive Branch to fill up with gas at a Shell station where the Fast and the Furious 3 must have been filmed. Special teams once again became the ultimate downfall of Mississippi State against hated rival Ole Miss as the Rebels capped the season as Egg Bowl champions with a 20-17 win for the misshapen football trophy.



My dad had made it to the house earlier that night, and we got into town around 11:30 p.m. By 1 a.m., everyone had retired to his bed. We woke up early Saturday morning and threw the football around outside for a few minutes before piling into my dad’s truck and heading to Oxford.

On the way, we were passed by Jay “Frat Boy” Middleton, a Mississippi State media relations student assistant who had worked several SEC events with me. I couldn’t get ahold of him on the phone, and this was pretty much the only exciting portion of the journey. We eased through traffic on Highway 6 and made it to Abner’s off The Square for lunch. This is the original Abner’s, home of Mississippi’s most famous chicken tenders. The tenders, as always, were delicious.



We circled back to Highway 6 and exited onto Coliseum Drive to park. We hopped a curb onto the same lawn we had parked back in 2004 for the Auburn-Ole Miss game. The first stop on campus was a bookstore in order to purchase the needed items from campus. We ended up at the Rebel Spirit Store adjacent to the stadium’s parking lot. Inside, we found the deal of the trip: Nike Ole Miss jerseys for $14.99. We couldn’t pass it up as Andrew soon was sporting his Brent Schaeffer No. 7 while I countered with Robert “The Future” Lane’s No. 15. My dad then threatened to not allow us in his truck on the ride home.



We meandered up to the Grove just to say we had been there. Game time was inching closer, so after catching a Florida-Florida State score on a TV, we headed to our seats. After standing in line for a good 30 minutes to get a drink, dad and I headed to section B just in time for the Star Spangled Banner. Andrew started the game in Section K before joining us near the end of the first quarter.



Ole Miss had a touch and go initial drive before Schaeffer lofted a pass up to Greg Hardy, who crossed the goal line on third down 23 yards past the line of scrimmage to give the Rebels a 7-0 lead. Mississippi State then responded with a promising drive that ended with a field goal to cut the Rebel lead to 7-3.

The Rebels added three more points in the second half as the offense had difficulty moving against MSU’s inspired front seven. Anthony Dixon tied the score up with 2:57 to play in the first half after bulldozing his way into the endzone from two yards out. However, during the halftime intermission, State somehow gained three more points and led 13-10 until about 10 minutes left before the teams reemerged from the locker rooms.

The halftime shows featured MSU’s video game tribute (somewhere, Robert Boully is crying tears of joy knowing that the Maroon Band knows the theme to Zelda) and a patriotic medley from Ole Miss’s Spirit of the South band.

The third quarter didn’t have much to write home about, outside of another Ole Miss field goal to put the home team ahead 13-10 heading into the final 15 minutes. It appeared that neither team was playing to win but merely afraid to lose at this point, although MSU continually showed signs that they were more prepared and more inspired.

The Bulldogs then leaned on Omarr Conner’s arm a little too much in the fourth quarter as the senior, playing in his final collegiate game, tossed incomplete after incomplete. The Rebels finally seized momentum when Marshay Green juked and headed for the sideline to score on a 47-yard punt return to push the Rebels’ lead to 20-10 with under five minutes remaining.

Conner woke up and put the Bulldogs in the red zone in five plays, capping the drive with a perfect pass to tight end Jason Husband, who fell with the ball crossing the plane to narrow the deficit to 20-17.

Fed up with Schaeffer’s ineptness to put the team in a position to score, Ed Orgeron and offensive coordinator had made a decision before Green’s punt return to turn the offense over to backup QB Seth Adams. Adams failed to engineer a first down as the Rebels were stopped on four-straight rushing attempts. After a personal foul call gave the Bulldogs the ball for one last drive inside their 30, Conner went back to work. Out-routes to the white-clad receivers allowed MSU to get to the UM 34 with about 30 seconds to spare.

After one last pass fell incomplete near the 20 yard line, Sylvester Croom has decidedly seen enough from the offense and placed the game on Adam Carlson’s shoulders. Carlson’s attempt from 51 yards fell wide left as time expired to preserve the Ole Miss victory, possibly Orgeron’s signature win in his early head coaching career.



The Red & Blue will head into the off-season with a potential quarterback controversy for the fourth-straight season (or ever since Eli graduated). However, they do have some momentum after playing several teams close and finishing off the 2006 slate with a much-needed victory over their in-state rival. The early recruiting rankings give Ole Miss fans a faint sign of hope, although it is still going to take a lot of rebuilding in order to catch back up to Arkansas, LSU and Auburn in the West.

Meanwhile, Mississippi State also heads into the spring with some momentum of its own. Like Ole Miss, they played several teams close down the stretch and earned a monumental victory over Croom’s alma mater in Tuscaloosa. Several MSU observers feel as though the Dawgs out-played Arkansas and Ole Miss despite coming up short on the scoreboard. I think for the first time since his first game against Tulane in 2004, Croom has recaptured a positive buzz amongst the MSU faithful.

In conclusion, both teams have grown up over the course of the season and bowl bids could be in the very near future for one or both of the programs. Somewhere in Memphis, Liberty Bowl officials are rejoicing.

A few odds, ends and notes from the trip:

Favorite quote: “We’re giving them three points to cover the spread.” – Chris Purser, Ole Miss media relations assistant, when I asked how Miss. State ended up with three extra points during the halftime period to take an unearned 13-10 lead during the Maroon Band’s halftime show.

Things we learned: This was easily the most boring game of the trip. (Well, maybe not as boring as the 49-0 breath-taker we took in down on the Bayou.) Robert Lane was not, in fact, the “Future” as our friend Toothless informed Brad and Andrew back in 2004. All Coach O could say after getting the biggest win of the season for the Rebels: “Oyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyo Egg Bowl!” It’s been “Our Time” at Ole Miss in 2003, then 2004, then 2005, then 2006 and now 2007 according to this guy’s shirt.



Mitch Sighting: An honorable mention goes to the old user who wouldn’t let Andrew cross over the bleacher end zone to join my dad and I at our seats, but one character made sure that he would stick out in our section.

The guy in the picture below was our Mitch, complete with vibrant hand motions after every turning point in the contest. His “first down” motion in accordance with the announcer’s cue was inspirational to the Rebel fans around him. This guy was ruthless and almost knocked over his neighbors on several occasions. His face when State drove down the field undefended to cut the score back to within three with under three minutes to play was priceless.



The trip comes to an end next Saturday in the Georgia Dome at the SEC Championship Game between Arkansas and Florida.

A31 – South Carolina 15, Miss. State 0
S2 – Southern Cal 50, Arkansas 14
S9 – Georgia 18, South Carolina 0
S16 – Kentucky 31, Ole Miss 14
S23 – Georgia 14, Colorado 13
S30 – Florida 28, Alabama 13
O7 – West Virginia 42, Miss. State 14
O14 – LSU 49, Kentucky 0
O21 – Tennessee 16, Alabama 13
O28 – Florida 21, Georgia 14
N4 – Florida 25, Vanderbilt 19
N11 – Georgia 37, Auburn 15
N18 – Auburn 22, Alabama 15
N24 – LSU 31, Arkansas 26
N25 – Ole Miss 20, Miss. State 17
D2 – SEC Championship Game (Atlanta) – Florida vs. Arkansas

Friday, November 24, 2006

LSU 31, Arkansas 26
War Memorial Stadium – Little Rock, Ark.
TV: CBS Sports – Attendance: 55,833

Official Trip Song: "Hog Wild" by Hank Williams, Jr.

LITTLE ROCK – Thanksgiving affords everyone a time to concentrate on fellowship with family and friends, not to mention a little pigskin action. LSU entered Friday’s game with Arkansas as a possible BCS at-large team while Arkansas was shooting for its record-setting 11th-straight win. The two teams traded a fury of points in the fourth quarter as LSU hung onto the victory and the hope for a big-time bowl berth by a final score of 31-26.



Thursday, I had lunch with my family and sat down to watch a portion of the first half of Miami’s game at Detroit before beginning my trek to Little Rock for the Battle for the Golden Boot. I arrived at Andrew’s family around 7:30 p.m., and we watched television for awhile before retiring for the evening.

We woke up early Friday and spent some time with Andrew’s family before heading to the Ozark Country Restaurant for breakfast. When we walked in, we were welcomed with looks of astonishment and bewilderment since Andrew was decked out in his LSU gear. You would think that the locals weren’t used to opposing fans or something. When we first sat down at the first available table, we thought they “don’t serve our kind here” since it took awhile to get a waitress.

The food, to me, was worth the wait, as I ordered the bacon, egg and cheese sandwich as well as an additional order of the saltiest bacon I’ve ever eaten. I think I’m still a little cotton-mouthed just thinking about it. Andrew enjoyed a breakfast platter with potatoes, bacon, ham and scrambled eggs. There were a couple of LSU fans that came in as the morning went by, and we talked to a family sitting directly behind us to explain our trip. I’m not sure how the rest of their day went, considering they drove up from Louisiana without tickets and scalping is illegal in the state of Arkansas, but I digress.

From the restaurant, we weaved our way through back streets to get to Andrew’s dad’s office in downtown Little Rock. We got his parking clicker to leave the car in the garage there during the game, free of charge. Once we were parked, we made our way to the stadium. There, we were to meet up with one of my bosses, Bill Edwards, to tailgate and kill some time before kickoff.

After passing through the tailgating masses and crossing the babbling brook, we stood in the shadows of War Memorial Stadium and began to seek out programs and “Touchdown Arkansas!” bracelets. The proceeds from these go towards the Paul Eels scholarship fund, and it made for a pretty good souvenir from our journey. After finally getting ahold of Bill on the phone, we moved to the other side of the stadium to join his tailgate.

We were instructed to find a guy dressed in a red shirt and jeans named Mike right outside Gate 1. To add to the confusion, the tailgate directly next to Bill’s also featured a guy named Mike wearing a red shirt and blue jeans. We awkwardly stood with their group for a few minutes before Bill showed up with his wife, and we quickly corrected our misjudgment. After a couple of introductions, we enjoyed some ice cold Coke and a little bit of food.

Bill told Mike about our trip, and we spent the majority of our remaining time there answering questions to various passers-by about ranking the stadiums, crowds, fans, etc. Bill and Mike’s wives were also around, and we enjoyed chit-chatting with them. On a side note, I’d like to report that the long lines for the port-o-potty set ups are just as prevalent in Little Rock as Fayetteville.



Among some of the others who stopped by was Laney Briggs, another member of the BancorpSouth family who we were supposed to tailgate with in Fayetteville. He asked how we got tickets to the game, and I told him we had bought season tickets with the Little Rock package. He then said that scalpers were asking $600/ticket at the golf course earlier that morning. It was at this point, Andrew and I wished we had purchased more Little Rock packages and came up with a plan to sell the extra programs for $300 with the ticket inside the pages. This way, we couldn’t get caught red-handed by the police like so many others that were being hauled to jail on the spot.

After taking a group picture, we said goodbye and headed for our end zone seats. Upon entering the stadium, we found it to be even smaller on the inside. While the seats are rather spacious at Razorback Stadium on campus, it’s completely opposite at War Memorial as the person behind you is right on top of you and the people next to you always seem to be “in your grill,” for lack of better terms. (At the same time, having always wanted to attend one of these games, I’m much happier that the experience came in Little Rock and not Baton Rouge for the extra mystique of War Memorial.)



The Arkansas band lined up for the pre-game festivities following an intro video that pales in comparison to Auburn’s. Since they didn’t feature this in Fayetteville, one can be led to assume that someone took the idea from AU and made a quick fix for the remainder of their games. Congrats, to Andrew’s cousin Alan – you’ve started a trend.



Both teams opened the game with scores on their initial possessions, with Arkansas’ kicker missing the extra point – badly – to give the Bayou Bengals a 7-6 early lead. Later in the first stanza, the teams swapped scores yet again and LSU benefited from a failed 2-point conversion from the Hogs to lead 14-12.

The halftime show was a tribute to the armed forces with the most uneven circle of honor surrounding Arkansas’ senior band members. A nice touch was the honoring of one of Arkansas’ Purple Heart winners. During the waning moments of the 20 minute break, Hank Williams Jr.’s “Hog Wild” played on the loud speakers as stats rolled across the jumbotron. It was at this point that Andrew looked over and said, “This is definitely a must for trip song cause, man, I’m hog wild.” Who could argue with that?

In the third quarter, a methodical Tiger drive garnered another three points from the leg of Colt David to extend LSU’s lead to 17-12. The score would stand until the fourth quarter, when the fireworks started. Casey Dick began his awful fourth quarter with a pick thrown across his body to LaRon Landry, setting up a 7-yard pass from Russell to Craig Davis to give the visitors a 24-12 advantage. The score did not hold long as Darren McFadden went 80 yards untouched on Arkansas’ first play from scrimmage on the ensuing drive to pull the Hogs back to within five at 24-19.

Trindon Holliday kept the excitement level high for LSU fans as he returned Arkansas’ kickoff to paydirt to push the Tigers’ lead back to double-digits at 31-19. Not to be outdone, Felix Jones made a couple of Bengals miss on the next kickoff and raced down the sideline to the LSU 25 for Arkansas’ next drive. Jones finished the drive with a touchdown of his own out of the Wildcat formation with just over five minutes remaining.

After gaining a stop on LSU’s final meaningful possession, Houston Nutt came out with an offensive gameplan centered on passing the ball to Marcus Monk – and only Monk. Four incompletions later and LSU was kneeling on the ball to secure its fourth-straight victory over the Hogs.



A few observations of both teams are as follows: first off, how can you fumble like Russell and senior tailback Alley Broussard on sneaks up the middle? Les Miles may have 21 wins in his two seasons at LSU, but what has he really accomplished? Have those players that Nick Saban stockpiled in Baton Rouge really progressed during their time following Saban’s departure for Miami? It’s obvious that they have talent, but out of his 21 wins, none of them have secured an SEC title – even though they easily have the most playmakers out of the 12 teams. We’ll see about him next year, I guess, but how much longer are LSU fans going to be OK with saying that?

Darren McFadden (or D-Mac to Arkansas faithful) is incredibly good. Felix Jones has fixed his fumbling problem from the first game and has turned into a pretty good game-breaker in his own right. This tandem, not Justin Vincent and the aforementioned Broussard as I once thought, are the SEC’s new Ronnie Brown and Carnell Williams tandem. At the same time, it’s nice to see that after 10-straight wins, Houston Nutt still makes boneheaded mistakes that cost his teams more than just divisional titles. It’s turned into the difference between BCS berths and Cotton Bowl seasons.

We listened to a couple of score recaps from the other games that day as we headed back to Andrew's house to eat some Razorback Pizza before hitting the road to travel back to the Magnolia State. After a little more fellowship and some very good eats, it was time to say goodbye and return to the road once more.

We’ll see if we are indeed the Arkansas kryptonite next weekend when we travel to Atlanta for the championship game.

A few odds, ends and notes from the trip:

Favorite quote: “LSU…sucks!” – One Nation under Hog.

Things we learned: Auburn is in the Eastern Division, while South Carolina is in the Western Division according to the SEC banners at War Memorial. LSU sucks, no matter what the scoreboard says, just ask any Arkansas fan. Darren McFadden IS in fact the best running back in the SEC since Bo Jackson, and Pat Dye hasn’t hit complete senility yet.



Mitch Sighting: There were a few candidates for this honor, but one stood out beyond the crowd in the form of a lady one section over from us in the stands.

During the scoring frenzy in the fourth quarter, Andrew went ballistic after Landry’s interception to push the lead back out to 24-12. Apparently Mitchette didn’t appreciate his crazy antics very much. When D-Mac went to the house untouched on the next play from scrimmage, she pointed to Andrew and mocked his celebration. This caught us off-guard and she successfully separated herself from the pack of unruly fans surrounding us.

The battle for the misshapen football, also known as the Egg Bowl, is next in Oxford.

A31 – South Carolina 15, Miss. State 0
S2 – Southern Cal 50, Arkansas 14
S9 – Georgia 18, South Carolina 0
S16 – Kentucky 31, Ole Miss 14
S23 – Georgia 14, Colorado 13
S30 – Florida 28, Alabama 13
O7 – West Virginia 42, Miss. State 14
O14 – LSU 49, Kentucky 0
O21 – Tennessee 16, Alabama 13
O28 – Florida 21, Georgia 14
N4 – Florida 25, Vanderbilt 19
N11 – Georgia 37, Auburn 15
N18 – Auburn 22, Alabama 15
N24 – LSU 31, Arkansas 26
N25 – Miss. State @ Ole Miss
D2 – SEC Championship Game (Atlanta) – Florida vs. Arkansas

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Auburn 22, Alabama 15
Bryant-Denny Stadium – Tuscaloosa, Ala.
TV: CBS Sports – Attendance: 92,138

Official Trip Song: "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynard Skynard (only at ear-splitting decibels in Bryant-Denny)

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – This rivalry is big. How big? If you didn’t grow up in Alabama around fans of either school, you couldn’t understand the magnitude of these 60 minutes every November. I’ve been to Florida-Georgia, and it doesn’t compare. Alabama-Tennessee doesn’t have the same flavor. Ole Miss-Mississippi State is a pillow fight compared to an Iron Bowl. Florida-Florida State isn’t quite there, either, since you have Miami to divide up a third of the state.



This is the Super Bowl for Alabama natives. It takes on another level of mental preparation for everyone involved, down to the street vendors. This was my sixth-straight Iron Bowl and seventh of the last eight contests between the two schools. As Prechae Rodriguez brought down Brandon Cox’s toss in the third quarter on the complete opposite side of the field from our seats, my heart stopped as I waited for the arms to be thrown up to signal the touchdown.

As the official alerted the crowd of 92,000-plus that Rodriguez had put the Tigers ahead (not to mention earning his own Daniel Moore painting in the near future), screams of glee erupted from our section atop the newly renovated end zone seats and calm swept across everyone’s hearts as Carl Stewart found Lee Guess with separation on a crossing pattern in the end zone for the two-point conversion. A little over 15 minutes later, Auburn won its fifth-straight over Alabama by a final score of 22-15.

We sporadically arrived in Tuscaloosa, beginning with my father at 7:30 a.m. He set up his camper on Campus Drive and awaited the rest of us. Paul Crane got into town around 3 p.m. and helped my dad level the RV and get a couple of things set up while Andrew and I finished out the day at work in Birmingham and Tupelo, respectively. Meanwhile, Josh Jackson was driving across three states from Tampa in a rental car which he had acquired $1,000 worth of insurance. During his drive, we were coming up with different ways that he could get the rental company to have to use the insurance. (My personal favorite was waiting until he got back to drop the car off and smashing one of the windows right in front of the agents. When they looked at him with astonishment, he would say, “Hey, I paid $9 extra per day. I didn’t want it to go to waste.”)



I got into Tuscaloosa around 7 p.m. and Andrew arrived around 7:30 p.m. We parked in the Student Recreation Center parking lot directly across the street from our camper and got accustomed to the surroundings rather quickly. After about a 30-minute wait which included meeting one of my dad’s coworkers from the Tuscaloosa plant, Josh arrived and we could set our course for Dreamland and some famous ribs.



After a few navigational inquiries with the natives, we got to Dreamland and went straight to a table in the back. One thing that caught me off guard when we walked in was the sight of David Marsh, Auburn’s swimming coach, about to go to the restroom. He walked out and said hello to us and offered a big “War Eagle!” to our table after Paul asked him how the swimmers did at the dual meet with Bama. We ordered three slabs of ribs after Marsh left, and they were brought out to us almost immediately. I’d be lying if I didn’t say these were the best ribs I’ve ever had in my entire life. Josh had some great quotes about the ribs, but this is a family-friendly site.

One other side story about our trip to Dreamland: during the afternoon, Birmingham’s Fox affiliate came around and interviewed fans of both schools on campus as tailgates were getting set up and kickoff neared. My dad was one of the Auburn fans interviewed, and the cameraman took several shots of his camper. We watched the segment at the restaurant and had some good laughs before heading back to the camper.



My dad went to bed, while the four of us went into the parking lot to play a little two-on-two football. We played one and a half games, splitting the decisions. I morphed into Sidney Rice as Paul heaved up pass after pass that went straight into my hands. In the second game, we had no answers for Andrew on defense as he torched our “secondary” for touchdown after touchdown. To make matters worse, he even came in on a quick blitz and forced me into a safety on our first play from scrimmage following an Andrew/Josh touchdown. Once all of us couldn’t walk any more and injuries were coming from every direction, we decided it was best to go to bed.

After waking up and taking ice cold showers on Saturday morning, Andrew and I went to Krispy Kreme and picked up some donuts for breakfast. We came back to the camper, then Josh and Andrew left again – this time for Burger King so that Andrew could get something “salty.” While Josh and Andrew were gone, we sat around and watched GameDay (did you know that the crew was in Columbus, Ohio, for this big No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup?) with a big guy (didn’t catch a name) who worked for Dish Network. Once Josh and Andrew got back, we locked some stuff up in the camper and set off for Coach Hal and Co.’s tailgate.

We met this group at the Alabama-Tennessee game, and Michael had informed me of their website. I e-mailed Coach and kept up with him over the course of the past month, and they invited us to hang out for a while before the game. We got to their setup near Hackberry Lane, and I am immediately asked to take a picture of their group. Soon after, we make introductions and meet some of the guys from WarDamnTailgate.com before talking about the game. My favorite Coach Hal quote: “That’s a completely different team than two weeks ago!” upon returning from watching the Tide boarding their buses for the stadium.



Paul and my dad went to Tiger Walk, and Josh trailed Andrew into the Bear Bryant Museum next door to the tailgate, so I spent most of the time at the tailgate hanging out with the gang. Once everyone else had returned from their adventures, we thanked Coach and Crew before heading to the stadium. On the way, we alerted any Bama fans on the journey of what the team was playing for today: the thumb. They apparently already knew and didn’t care to be reminded. Oh well, I digress…

All of us went our separate ways once we got inside the stadium gates. Andrew and Paul headed towards our seats in section MM in the Bama faculty and staff seats. Josh ran down to the Auburn band to see Katie’s little sister, while I went up to section 423 with my dad to sit in his seats. Josh joined us in the upper deck, and it was a good shock to see Mark Frazier in our section.



The new upper deck in the north end zone was dominated by Auburn fans. Apparently, Alabama has taken a page out of Tennessee’s play book and decided to put the visiting fans as far away from the field as possible with the exception of a small corner in the lower deck. We were also high enough that, when we were graced by the fly-over prior to kickoff, we literally were fearful that the helicopters were too low. We could tell the profiles of all passengers in the helicopters also.



Auburn won the toss and elected to receive the ball first. The first series started out fast with a healthy mix of Brad Lester and Kenny Irons getting the Tigers across midfield. However, the drive stalled and we were forced to put the Tide deep in its own territory. Thanks to a couple of defensive miscues and blown assignments, Bama was inside the Auburn five shortly. Mike Shula remembered he was in fact Mike Shula ad called for three-straight runs up the middle before electing for a Jamie Christensen field goal to put the home team up 3-0.

The Tiger offense didn’t respond as hoped with the next series and soon punted back to Alabama. Quentin Groves provided the first good spark for Auburn in the second quarter, forcing a John Parker Wilson fumble on a blindside rush, giving the Tigers the ball deep in Tide territory. Three plays later, Lester scooted in from the right side to put Auburn on top 7-3. A couple of plays later, Groves forced another fumble, this time inside the Bama 10. Irons ran untouched into the end zone on AU’s next play from scrimmage, putting the Tigers up 14-3 midway through the second quarter.

Will Muschamp’s defense forced another stop on the Tide, and Auburn proceeded to take one of its methodical, time-consuming drives to get within John Vaughn’s range. The drive stalled on a failed bubble screen pass to Lester, and Vaughn’s attempt came up short of the uprights, giving UA the ball near midfield. Two plays later, Wilson burnt the Auburn safety blitz with a 52-yard strike to Nikita Stover over the middle of the field, bringing the halftime deficit to 14-9 after Wilson was picked off by Jonathan Wilhite on the ensuing two-point conversion.

Bama’s first drive of the second half netted six more on a Wilson 13-yard pass to tight end Travis McCall, giving the Tide the lead at 15-14 after failing on its second two-point try of the game. The Auburn defense played opportunistic the rest of the way and created two more Bama turnovers to keep UA at 15 points. Brandon Cox shook off the bad performance against Georgia the week before in the second half, completing 4-of-5 passes in the final 30 minutes of the contest, including a third-down completion to fullback Carl Stewart on a wheel-route and another third-down bomb to Prechae Rodriguez, who leapt over Simeon Castille in the corner of the endzone to provide the Tigers with the winning score. Auburn’s unheralded senior wide receiver Lee Guess provided AU with a touchdown lead after breaking open behind the Bama secondary on a halfback pass provided by Stewart near the end of the third quarter.

Heading into the game’s final 15 minutes, the score stood 22-15 as the Auburn faithful raised four fingers and a thumb on the opposite hand to alert any Bama fans in the vicinity that No. 5 was just 15 minutes away. Josh and I had been through this before against Alabama and predicted that Borges and Tuberville would elect to sit on the ball and just escape Tuscaloosa with a victory, no matter how slim the margin. We were right, but the plan was almost foiled when Kenny Irons coughed up the ball near midfield to give Bama great field position and a ton of momentum.

On the next play from scrimmage, Will Herring returned the favor by scooping up a Stover fumble to regain possession for the visitors. After Kody Bliss’ punt gave the Tide a long field to conquer in order to tie the score, Wilson drove the Bama offense down the field and into Auburn territory. After a couple of costly penalties, the drive stalled near the Auburn 25 and Shula faced third and long. After going for the end zone on third down, it was soon 4th and 17. Shula’s career likely came to an end after pondering whether to kick a field goal or go for the first down as the clock neared five minutes. He took so much time that UA was forced to use a valuable timeout to think over their choices.

Shula ultimately elected to go for the first down, and Wilson’s throw fell to the ground incomplete to give the Tigers the ball back. One more Bliss punt forced Bama deep on their side of midfield, nearly 90 yards from paydirt. After four snaps, the Tide was across the 50 and gaining momentum with every play. Auburn senior cornerback David Irons put an end to Bama’s dream and ensured that Tiger fans could leave the stadium with their thumbs hoisted by picking off Wilson with just over 1:30 remaining in the game.



The best part of beating Alabama is being able to sing the “Hey” song along with Auburn’s band following the final seconds expiring. For the fifth-straight time, we were able to scream as loud as we could, “Rammer jammer, yellow hammer, GO TO HELL Alabama!” as the red and white faithful left their seats in disappointment. Cheers of “We love Shula!” and “It’s great to be an Auburn Tiger!” filled the stairwells as we made our way down to the Auburn band to meet back up with Andrew and Paul. Josh alerted all Bama fans in our path that he would be back in two years for No. 7.

After getting a couple more pictures and excitedly discussing our favorite parts of the game, the five of us left for the Auburn players busses to congratulate the guys. We hung out there for a few minutes as Josh and I said hello and congrats to a couple of the gridiron warriors before returning to Coach Hal’s tailgate. We stayed here for about an hour and thanked the group once more for letting us hang out.



We got back to the camper and waved to Auburn fans and Alabama fans alike as they left town. After traffic died down a little while we were watching a couple of other games on TV, Josh, Andrew and Paul left Tuscaloosa and headed to Birmingham. Dad and I cleaned up some more and went to sleep.

Sunday morning, we wrapped up the last bit of cleaning up and waited for Andrew to come back to Tuscaloosa to pick up his school bag, which contained his study materials for a test he had on Tuesday. We arrived back in Macon in time to watch Jason Campbell make his first start for the Washington Redskins to put the finishing touches on an outstanding weekend.

A few odds, ends and notes from the trip:

Favorite quote: “They do their talking in the papers. We do our talking on the field.” – Quentin Groves, Auburn starting defensive end. Enough said.

Things we learned: We are supposed to fear Alabama fans’ RVs. Or at least, that’s what the signs in all of them said as we walked to the stadium. Alabama fans have a serious obsession with Lynard Skynard. Ohio State and Michigan were apparently playing in the biggest regular season game of all-time, but no one bothered to inform me of this. Everyone else we talked to were caught off guard too. Auburn fans are almost as annoying as Alabama fans in many instances, especially those that are uneducated. Bama fans also get fired up whenever you wave to them with your entire hand, much more than with just four fingers like last season. For further examples, see the Mitch sighting below.



Mitch Sighting: What would a trip be without at least one Mitch. Since we sat in separate locations during the game, it was hard to really gauge one annoying fan in the stadium. There were a couple of candidates around us, including one Auburn fan that sat in front of Josh and me in the upper deck. Josh almost came to blows with this guy.

However, this fan didn’t take the cake. While we were standing on a street corner right outside the camper, we all held up our hands with five fingers extended. We were flipped off 49 times, called “gay” by several others and had a couple of things thrown at us. None of these Bama fans could take the Mitch moniker either.

As I said, we were waving our five fingers in the air but keeping our mouths shut aside from the occasional War Eagle from Auburn fans. A couple of real winners were stationed a couple of campers down from our site. These guys took real offense to our waving and ran their mouths non-stop with idle threats. Such gems came from their mouths as, “Oh yea, five? How about 5-years-old? Get a life, losers.” I reiterate, we did not say anything aside from the occasional War Eagle to Auburn fans. They said many more things, but I can’t publish those expletives here.

They ran their mouths for about 45 minutes and threatened to come across the street and do bodily harm to the five of us. Not that I thought they could do anything, but I really didn’t want them to do anything to my dad’s truck or camper. Once they returned to their pop-up tent, we went back inside to watch USC-Cal.

After a little Thanksgiving turkey, it’ll be two games next weekend as we take in the Battle for the Golden Boot in Little Rock and the misshapen football in Oxford.

A31 – South Carolina 15, Miss. State 0
S2 – Southern Cal 50, Arkansas 14
S9 – Georgia 18, South Carolina 0
S16 – Kentucky 31, Ole Miss 14
S23 – Georgia 14, Colorado 13
S30 – Florida 28, Alabama 13
O7 – West Virginia 42, Miss. State 14
O14 – LSU 49, Kentucky 0
O21 – Tennessee 16, Alabama 13
O28 – Florida 21, Georgia 14
N4 – Florida 25, Vanderbilt 19
N11 – Georgia 37, Auburn 15
N18 – Auburn 22, Alabama 15
N24 – LSU @ Arkansas (Little Rock)
N25 – Miss. State @ Ole Miss
D2 – SEC Championship Game (Atlanta) – Florida vs. Arkansas

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Georgia 37, Auburn 15
Jordan-Hare Stadium – Auburn, Ala.
TV: Lincoln-Financial Sports – Attendance: 87,451

Official Trip Song: "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor

AUBURN, Ala. – On the rolling plains of Dixie, ‘neath the rain-filled skies, the beleaguered Georgia Bulldogs found a sleeping Auburn Tiger team and punched them in the eyes. There’s my one and only attempt at poetry for the blog, spinning around the words from the Auburn Alma Mater to aptly described just what happened in front of my very eyes in Jordan-Hare Stadium Saturday. Matt Stafford looked very Reggie Ball-esque against Auburn’s defense and, on the aid of 11ty billion quarterback draws, directed the Dogs to a 30-7 halftime lead and a 37-15 victory on the Plains.



We arrived in Auburn Friday night and went straight to a college favorite hangout, Buffalo Connection, for dinner. To me, there is no other wing place better on earth and their medium buffalo sauce is one of the greatest in the country. Anything that involves their chicken tenders is recommended on the menu, and I consider this one of the last Auburn-only restaurants in town.

We were joined at BuffConn (that’s what we like to call it in the AUB, by the way) by Paul Crane, and we had a good time cracking jokes with him throughout the remainder of the evening before leaving the restaurant around 11 p.m. Robert Boully, you may remember him from the LSU blog, was driving from Jackson, Miss., to join us and beat us to the GuestHouse International Inn in Opelika, where we would set up shop for Friday night. After finally finding the hotel on the opposite side of the interstate that was originally explained to me, I checked us in and tried to figure out exactly what was going on with the billing system. After a few hours of phone calls to the front desk by my parents, it was resolved and they only charged us for the one night.

We awoke Saturday a.m. prior to daybreak thanks to Lincoln-Financial Sports’ telecast of one of college football’s oldest rivalries. After I checked out of the hotel and walked out to find that we had temporarily lost Andrew, we loaded up the car and headed to campus to make the legendary trek from our old apartment to the stadium as we did every Saturday in 2004 and last year for the Iron Bowl. We stopped by the Haley Center bookstore and picked up a couple of game day spirit buttons, not to mention losing Robert in the process while he looked for a shirt for Jennifer, who couldn’t make the trip with him.

We arrived at the tailgating spot near the Terrell Mall on “The Hill” (where all Auburn’s sorority dorms are located). We met Andrew’s uncle there, where he had chicken and burgers waiting for us as well as various other snacks. We sat down and visited for awhile, tossing around the pigskin and getting more hyped for the game. Robert jinxed us by making the statement, “Hey guys, when we are all sitting at this tailgate together, we’re undefeated.” This statement came from someone who grew up playing baseball, essentially ruining a no-hitter in the middle of the sixth inning by mentioning it to the pitcher. Needless to say, I place a small portion of the blame for what happened on the field Saturday to Robert’s asinine comment.

We headed towards the stadium after packing up the tailgating tent and supplies in the Brazzell’s van. As we walked through the shaded area surrounding the Bibb Graves Amphitheater, Andrew started his “red hats, silver britches” cheer every time we came across a Georgia fan. Soon, we had made our way to the Tiger Walk plaza on the student section side of the stadium where we stood around and cheered with the band for a little bit before going to our seats.

I stopped at the Media Will-Call window for a few minutes and talked to Kathy Harker, my former supervisor during my student days at Auburn. She is one of the coolest people I have ever met, and I miss working with her everyday. She had to put up with a lot from me over the years, but I think deep down she misses Joshua Jackson and me. After the rain started to sprinkle a little harder, I thought it was best to go ahead and get to the seats.

When I entered our section, I meandered through the sparse pre-game crowd and stopped by to say hello to Josh and Katie, who were sitting with Katie’s parents a couple of sections over from our seats. After talking to Katie and her mom for a little while, I returned to our seats with Andrew, Robert and Josh to get ready for the band’s intro video and pre-game march around the field. This was subdued a bit by the fact that Georgia’s band decided to play and drown out our band in the process, keeping me from enjoying one of my favorite parts of the pre-game. It was at this time that I really wanted to take it to Georgia early in the game.

First up, we had Tiger’s final flight around the stadium. It was rather fitting that her last pre-game flight would come against the same opponent in which we first flew her around the stadium to a raucous “WAR EAGLE! HEY!” in 2000. At halftime, we would retire Tiger and introduce Nova as War Eagle VIII, the equivalent of a new Uga or Mike the Tiger at LSU. I was very impressed by the band pre-game video intro, which was produced and edited by Alan Brazzell (Andrew’s cousin – you can access the video on his website at brazzam.com). Alan has a bright future ahead of him in whatever he should decide to do, as you can tell by this video. Next up, we got our first look at the Auburn Under Armour “Click Clack” preview, which was drowned out yet again by the UGA band.



LSU’s pre-game festivities are pretty cool, especially the Golden Band from Tigerland’s march across the field. Georgia’s band playing the UGA anthem while Vince Dooley speaks on the jumbotron was pretty special. Florida fans will like to tell you that nothing compares to the “This is the swamp” intro video, even though it has music from a movie about sharks and not alligators playing in the background. If you ask me, the best pre-game atmosphere in the entire conference is Auburn (especially Auburn for big games). I’ve been to Fayetteville, Knoxville, Athens and Gainesville. I’ve been to Tuscaloosa, Lexington, Nashville and Baton Rouge. Nothing is quite the same as Auburn. You can quote me on that.

The team walked arm-in-arm out of the tunnel and separated into the AU formed by the band with excitement, which had me ready for a good game. When Sen’Derrick Marks burst through Georgia’s offensive line for a three-yard loss on UGA’s first play from scrimmage, visions of the 2005 Iron Bowl danced in my head. After a completion on an out-route on second and 13 to set up third and four, we had a pre-snap flag thrown (which 95 percent of the time is a false start penalty). I was feeling fine until the official announced that it was offsides and would give Georgia an automatic first down. Two snaps later, Stafford heaved the ball down the field and the Dogs had a first down inside the red zone. The game was pretty much over at that point.



While Stafford could do no wrong, Brandon Cox could do no right. We had a pretty good running game going, but Cox had a hard time getting any velocity on his throws, which led to three first-half interceptions, including a pick-six from Tre Battle to put the Bulldogs ahead 24-0 in the second quarter. We scored to narrow the deficit to 24-7, but UGA answered with one last score prior to the intermission to lead 30-7.

The only thing that I can think to do at this point is blame Robert for his comment at the tailgate. He redeemed himself during the halftime show with the quote of the trip, but I was still a bit stunned. All the Auburn fans sitting around us had agreed that if we couldn’t come out and do anything our first drive, we were done for the day. It wasn’t our first drive of the half, but we did force a Stafford fumble inside the AU five-yard-line and responded with a 95-yard drive to cut the UGA lead in half at 30-15. Auburn couldn’t cash in on the momentum and would throw another interception on its ensuing drive to set up Georgia’s final march down the field, which culminated with a Stafford quarterback draw to set the final score of 37-15.



We stuck through the very end, despite getting soaked by the torrential downpour that came through the Auburn area in the third quarter. We even got a scoreboard shot to commemorate our trip, even though part of me didn’t really want to take the picture. And yet, despite getting out-coached, out-played and out-manned in our own house, I still had no regrets about being an Auburn Tiger. I guess you can go home.

We walked back to Andrew’s car and weaved through traffic on Highway 14 and University Ave./Shug Jordan Parkway to get to Alan’s trailer to watch South Carolina-Florida, Arkansas-Tennessee and LSU-Alabama. After the South Carolina-Florida game ended, we took Robert back to his car at the hotel and said our goodbyes before picking up pizza from Brick Oven to take back to the trailer for the Bama-LSU game.

Paul met up with us at Alan’s, and we watched TV with Andrew’s family until the final seconds drained off the clock in Baton Rouge. After we said our goodbyes to the Brazzells, we drove back to Paul’s house to hang out for a couple more minutes before deciding that it was best to return to Birmingham that night. By the time I plopped down on the air mattress in Andrew’s living room, I was ready to turn my attention to Beat Bama week.

My team assessments are as follows:

Georgia went 3-1 in the four games we saw them play this year. They were a completely different team every game. The first two, they responded pretty good when they had to with adversity and came out with two closer-than-they-appeared victories. In Jacksonville, they had Florida on the ropes if not for a careless facemask penalty on Quentin Moses. Against Auburn, they were the world beaters I predicted they would become should Stafford gain an ounce of confidence this season.

The biggest difference in Auburn 2004, Auburn 2005 and Auburn 2006 is leadership. The Tigers have only one true leader, Tommy Tuberville, and he doesn't take a single snap. A large percentage of the Auburn fan base wants to know why this team has been so erratic despite being 9-2 at this point in the season, well there's your answer. It's not new schemes from Will Muschamp. It's not Al Borges forgetting how to coach. Auburn's fan base has become predominantly spoiled since the beginning of 2004. The coaching staff that has won 32 of its last 37 games and 22 of 25 SEC contests hasn't forgotten how to coach this year. It could be one of the best coaching years of Tuberville's career, not just in win totals, if Auburn can beat Bama next weekend in Tuscaloosa. With 10 or 11 wins, including victories over LSU, Florida and Alabama in the same season, you can't really complain with that no matter who you are.

On the other hand, a loss to Alabama in Tuscaloosa could erase every good feeling this program has had since the Music City Bowl in 2003, which led to the return of all three top-10 draft picks for their senior season. As soon as some people begin to realize that there aren't any Carnell Williams, Ronnie Brown or Carlos Rogers type players at the skill positions; or there aren't any Junior Rosegreen, Travis Williams or Jason Campbell type players from a leadership standpoint - Auburn fans will realize just how great of a job Tommy has done with this team in 2006. No matter what, the last time I checked Auburn did beat LSU and did beat Florida.

A few odds, ends and notes from the trip:

Favorite quote: “I’m betting that this halftime show was going to be a lot more dramatic at night.” – Robert Boully earns his second “Quote of the Weekend” for the season with this nugget during the Auburn band’s halftime salute to the U.S. Armed Forces. This was made in reference towards Lincoln-Financial’s 6 a.m. kickoff for the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry.

Best Mullet of Auburn Award: While we were walking to the stadium on Saturday morning prior to the crack of dawn, we were trailing a guy who had one of the best mullets of the trip as well as his orange hard hat I’m assuming he acquired at the Auburn-Florida GameDay show. We attempted to get pictures, but they all came out blurry. To top off the ensemble, he was wearing a Wal-Mart special generic jersey.

Things we learned: Lincoln-Financial kickoffs are completely different at Vandy and Auburn. Robert also knows how to jinx a good thing.

Mitch Sighting: There were a couple of 9-year-old Georgia fans sitting directly in front of Andrew. They kept hitting Andrew with their “I’m Georgia” spirit towel, which was angering him to no end. During the Redcoat Band’s consistent play during the pre-game march of Auburn’s band, Andrew kept inserting the fact that UGA lost to Vandy and Kentucky prior to coming into Auburn. The 9-year-olds then felt their need to defend Georgia, which I somewhat respect. However, the braces made me lose any and all respect for those kids.

Their mouthing off to us elicited this response from the guy sitting ahead of us (edited for content): “Look, kid. (He puts his arm around the shoulder of the ring-leader) He (pointing at Andrew) will kick your (expletive), and when he does, I’m just going to stand back and watch it happen because you deserve it. Now, shut the (expletive) up and watch the (expletive) game.” You gotta love when a dirty dog gets put back in his place.

It’s the most important week of the year and the biggest game on both team’s schedules as we invade Tuscaloosa for the Iron Bowl. War Eagle and we look forward to tailgating with the fine folks from CoachHal.com and WarDamnTailgate.com in T-Town.

A31 – South Carolina 15, Miss. State 0
S2 – Southern Cal 50, Arkansas 14
S9 – Georgia 18, South Carolina 0
S16 – Kentucky 31, Ole Miss 14
S23 – Georgia 14, Colorado 13
S30 – Florida 28, Alabama 13
O7 – West Virginia 42, Miss. State 14
O14 – LSU 49, Kentucky 0
O21 – Tennessee 16, Alabama 13
O28 – Florida 21, Georgia 14
N4 – Florida 25, Vanderbilt 19
N11 – Georgia 37, Auburn 15
N18 – Auburn @ Alabama
N24 – LSU @ Arkansas (Little Rock)
N25 – Miss. State @ Ole Miss
D2 – SEC Championship Game (Atlanta) – Florida vs. TBD

Saturday, November 4, 2006

Florida 25, Vanderbilt 19
Vanderbilt Stadium – Nashville, Tenn.
TV: Lincoln-Financial Sports – Attendance: 38,134

Official Trip Song: "Beer for My Horses" by Willie Nelson/Toby Keith

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – Several firsts came on this trip, including the witnessing of our first car wreck on 21st Ave. Sunday morning outside the Pancake Pantry, as we traveled to Nashville to witness the Florida Gators’ SEC Eastern Division-clenching 25-19 victory over the upstart Vanderbilt Commodores with 38,134 of our closest friends at Vanderbilt Stadium.



With the drives being comparable between Birmingham and Tupelo to Nashville, we decided that it would be best (especially with separate weekend plans) to drive separately to the Music City. After a couple of progress reports, we decided on using Big Jim’s Boobie Bungalow at Exit 6 as a reference point, and I had determined that Andrew was 36 miles ahead of me on the drive. (Note: There was no stop made at Big Jim’s, but with a name like that, how can you not mention it in the blog? Come on, you can’t say it without at least a smirk coming across your face.)

Since Andrew beat me to Nashville, he ran to the airport to pick up Dave Curtis and returned to our hotel, the Ramada Inn and Suites off the Briley Parkway, to meet up for dinner. I arrived at the hotel around 8:45 p.m. and checked us into good ole room 222. This room featured the smallest bathroom I’ve ever had the pleasure of showering in as well as amenities dating back to the early 50s (I may be generous here). After a quick change of wardrobe, it was back to town and Rotiers for some burgers and good laughs.

We met Tampa Tribune beat writer Andy Staples at Rotiers and submitted our order to our self-confidence deprived waitress. The atmosphere, while a bit smoky for my tastes, is one of the best we’ve encountered on the trip, and I can’t give the burgers a better ringing endorsement than Andrew’s comment: “I would make a deliberate stop in Nashville for these burgers.” I think the smoke lets up the further you are from the bar, but as a fair warning: it’s a cash-only payment accepted.

After dinner, Andrew headed back towards our part of town while I stayed with Andy and Dave to go to a couple of bars. After a small detour to their hotel, we meandered through a couple of side streets and found ourselves at the Salty Dog Saloon. Here, we would stay for quite awhile and just talked of good times and current events. We also had the pleasure of meeting a vibrant 29-year-old female who had recently broken off her engagement. She told the story of returning the $10,000 ring to her ex-fiancé, who happened to be quite a few years older.

After I got over the fact that I was astonished by her story, she went back to her crew inside as we followed after some of the UF student writers made their way to the bar. The stories kept being told and introductions were made to random strangers before we left the bar in the wee hours of Saturday morning. I hopped a cab back out to the Ramada and grabbed a few zzz’s before daybreak.

Thanks to Lincoln-Financial, we had an early kickoff so this meant an extremely early wake-up call. We left for campus around 8 a.m., and I made the call to Craig (or Vandy420 as he’s otherwise known online) to get directions to his tailgate. We get a bit confused on the drive into town, but Craig gets us straightened out as we solicit parking at a Korean Church of Christ for $5. It turns out that we’re a very short sprint from Craig’s set up and soon meet our Vanderbilt friend.

After a few quick introductions, Andrew left to go to the bookstore and get his Vandy gear while I stayed behind to get to know the guys and help set up (as much as possible). Craig shared some of his tailgating stories from games past, including his great experience at Michigan earlier this season. Andrew returns with his “Commodore Pride” Nike hat and we have a lot of good laughs. We hung out with Craig and Co. for about two and a half hours and enjoyed some delicious grilled chicken and porkchops before leaving for the stadium around 11 a.m. Unlike our Dixieland Delight Tour counterpart, we were not going to miss kickoff at any of our games on schedule, especially Vanderbilt’s.



We traded our ticket stubs with a scalper so that we could have the official Vanderbilt season ticket design as opposed to the ticketmaster design we originally were stuck with. Our seats were a few rows closer to the field than the ones we had purchased online, and we got to our section just as the band was lining up for their pre-game show.

It doesn’t take us long to get acclimated to the crowd around us as we make several friends with some of our neighbors dressed in Vandy gear. I can’t really say that the Florida fans in our vicinity cared for us too much, but that’s not the point of this story. After Vandy elects to receive the opening kickoff, it doesn’t take long for the ‘Dores to get pushed back deep in their own territory. Before we know it, VU is punting from inside its own 10 when the kick is blocked and recovered on the Vandy 6. Chris Leak, who had a Heisman-like performance with 18-of-25 completions for 237 yards with a touchdown (plus three interceptions), snuck in from 4 yards out on second down to put the Gators ahead 8-0 after a botched snap led to a quick-thinking 2-point conversion.



In the first two minutes, UF had executed Urban Meyer’s “Plan to Win” with perfection by winning the field position battle and scoring in the red zone. It was while discussing this “Plan to Win” with Mr. Staples that I realized that the rest of the trips should also hold true. I’m still in the developmental stages of this plan, but I promise to post it as soon as it has become finalized.

Vandy responded with a convincing drive down the field, the first this season on the UF defense so I’ve been told, consummating with a touchdown from the running back with three last names. Florida would post another score later in the half, a 15-yard strike from Leak to Dallas Baker, to make the halftime score of 15-6.

In the second half, Leak snuck in once more while Chris Hetland made just his second field goal of the season to push UF’s lead out to 25-6. However, a pair of Leak interceptions kept the Gators from putting the game away and Chris Nickson was able to lead two Commodore touchdown drives in the fourth quarter to narrow the final deficit to 25-19.



So Florida left Nashville needing only one more Tennessee loss or a victory in their final conference game of the season, South Carolina, to wrap up their spot in Atlanta. Those who remember my prognostications will remind me that I picked UF to lose three conference games and finish second or third in the division. I apologize to those readers now because I was wrong about Urban’s ability to coach them up in tough road games. However, Florida looks no different coming out of the bye week this year than they did last season. Think about it: spring out to a big lead on Georgia then hold on late in the fourth quarter with a big stop and key pickup of a first down followed by a closer-than-expected game against Vanderbilt that came down to an onside kick in the fourth quarter. Last season, they followed these two performances with a damaging loss in Columbia. How do they respond to this adversity in the Swamp?

This is not to take away from anything Vanderbilt has accomplished in the last 12 months since I last saw them in person. They may have had the best player in the SEC last year (Cutler), but I think they have one of the best overall teams in the league this year. The only thing separating Vandy from the top of the SEC East is Vandy. Think about if they hadn’t have dropped the ball against Ole Miss and Alabama by choking away chances at those games. We could be looking at a two-game stretch that would possibly leave them at 5-3 in the conference (splitting between Tennessee and Kentucky). The good news for Vanderbilt is that they aren’t going to lose those games forever. The bad news is that Georgia isn’t going to be this bad again for a long time. If I had a ballot, I would cast Bobby Johnson for my Coach of the Year.

We went to the bookstore and made the ritual purchases before trekking back up the hill to the truck so we could get back to our hotel. Andrew had apparently gotten pretty cold the night before and decided against this ever happening to him again. We walked into an oven at 125 degrees since he had the heater running full blast while we were gone. While we got accustomed to our tropical feel in good ole 222, Andrew called Taylor and her friends so that we could get dinner plans arranged. After suggestion after suggestion was either noted or dismissed, Staples called in with the suggestion for Sam’s Sports Club on 21st Ave. After getting directions and informing Taylor, we were set to return to downtown.

Sam’s was a first-come, first-serve type of establishment with an apparently happening bar scene. After stalking the restaurant for an open table, we finally were able to grab a small high-top where we ordered to our extremely busy waitress. When a gigantic booth became available, we moved in there and waited on our food. A variety of entrées were ordered, highlighted by my choice of the wing-sauced chicken tenders and Andrew’s enormous pizza. The pizza received high marks, while I wasn’t very impressed with the wing sauce on the tenders. Maybe if I hadn’t have stepped out on that limb…It comes with high recommendations, but only if it’s after a Titans or Dores game.

Staples and Curtis arrived shortly after we received our food with Orlando Sentinel columnist Mike Bianchi. When we finished dinner, I left my group to hang out with the writers for a while. Andrew took my truck and Taylor back to her friend’s house and eventually to our hotel. We stayed at Sam’s for the remainder of the evening’s ball games, including the disappointing Arkansas victory over the hapless Gamecocks.

We dropped Bianchi back off at their hotel and hit the streets again one last time. We met up with a couple of the Alligator writers at another bar (I can’t remember the name of the establishment – Dave or Andy?) where we sat and, through a few rounds by everyone, developed the plan for the ultimate college football playoff. Andy is supposed to write a blog detailing the bracket, so stay tuned to www.tampatrib.com for that.

I returned to the hotel via cab once more and slept until Andrew’s wake-up conversation at 8:30 a.m. We checked out of the hotel around 10 and made our way towards the Loveless Café. However, a detour messed with the directions so we decided to reverse our course and eat at the Pancake Pantry. This was possibly Andrew’s best decision of the Nashville trip. Despite the long wait, the food was amazing, especially the cinnamon sauce they bring out with the maple syrup. I highly recommend this staple Nashville restaurant for breakfast, and the food is rather affordable considering how much you pay at a Waffle House or IHOP.

I returned to Mississippi after breakfast, while Andrew remained in Nashville for a little while longer to spend time with his sugar momma. It’s about that time to do it all again.

A few odds, ends and notes from the trip:

Favorite quote: “He didn’t get the contract he wanted.” – Ah, thank you, Pancake Pantry for not only having the best French toast and cinnamon syrup that I’ve ever had (in a restaurant) but also bringing out Mitch. If we had gone to the Loveless Café as originally planned, we may not have been able to get a Mitch for this trip.

Best Toupee of the Tour de SEC Award: We were standing in our section awaiting the beginning of the second quarter, when out of nowhere, we’re hit with a new hairdo for the trip. While we came across several mullets-in-progress, a gentleman walking up the stairs to his seats in the next section over had one of the most obvious toupees I’ve ever seen. His wig was tilted at an angle towards his eyebrows, almost meeting his aviator sunglasses at the brim. Should there have been a gust of wind from his back, the hairpiece would have flown off his noggin. Much like a crazed single woman at a wedding attempting to catch the bouquet from the bride, I had visions of Marvin Harrison-esque diving catches to take home the souvenir.



Things we learned: Florida fans really don’t like when their cheers are turned back on them. Dennis Franchione did not leave Tuscaloosa in the middle of the night in order to secretly take the job with Texas A&M – he was fired from Alabama in 2002. We also learned that there is a logical solution to a college football playoff that would not destroy the bowls. Vanderbilt is located in the SEC’s largest city, and VU fans are pretty proud of this distinction. Vanderbilt also has the SEC’s only person walking around tailgates selling victory cigars during pregame.

Mitch Sighting: Nashville holds a higher class of people, and Vanderbilt has one of the highest-educated and knowledgeable fan bases in the country. Finding a Mitch was extremely difficult for this trip, although no town big or small exists without its village idiot. Finally, at the Pancake Pantry Sunday afternoon, he showed his face.

As we are standing in line, I’m on the phone with John Hines discussing the television selections for Nov. 11. After learning that Auburn-Georgia had been passed up by ESPN in favor of LSU-Alabama, I was just a little ticked off and vented a bit to John and Andrew. Enter Mitch. He was standing right in front of us, daughters in tow, and, being the keen observational creature he is, notices my Auburn shirt before asking me who Auburn plays this upcoming weekend. When I say its Georgia, he nods his head and says, “Georgia is terrible. No wonder ESPN didn’t take that game.”

It was then that I knew this guy could truly be something special to our trip. We, of course, retaliated with “The Deep South’s oldest rivalry isn’t a better game than Alabama-LSU?” (Remember his keen observation tactics…) His response: “Of course. Alabama and LSU are both good. Georgia lost to Vanderbilt, and Auburn hasn’t done anything this season.” When we remind him of Alabama’s loss to Mississippi State the previous day, he has a look of disbelief on his face and refuses to acknowledge Alabama’s embarrassing loss.

His next nugget comes in the form of this question: “Who is Auburn’s head coach now?” I answer, “Tommy Tuberville.” This is my favorite. “Oh yeah, he hasn’t done anything as Auburn’s head coach, and he’s going to leave Auburn after this season anyway. My people say he’s going to Texas A&M.” Of course, this kind of stupidity cannot go unpunished, so I respond: “You do realize that he was 13-0 in 2004 and has won 31 of 35 games, right? This includes 21 of 23 SEC games.” He has a Mike Shula face after this statement before thinking of this: “He didn’t receive a contract extension last year. He also didn’t get a raise.”

Not to be outdone, I quickly reply: “He just signed a 10-year contract and got the rollover year after last season. He’s the third-highest paid coach in the country AND has the highest-paid coaching staff in the country. What more would he want?” Mitch just shook his head and looks to his daughters. He then explains to them, “If Fran hadn’t have been fired by Alabama a few years ago, that Tuberville wouldn’t have done anything at Auburn. Fran is the best coach Bama has had since HIM.” Before things got really ugly, I left the line to go to my truck and get my camera.

I could lie to you and say that the story ends there, but it just got better. Keep in mind that this guy is probably 20 years older than either Andrew or myself. He has his family with him in a pretty upscale city, when you consider some of the other towns we’ve visited on this trip. The interaction between us and Mitch die down for about 30 minutes as we move forward in the line. Once we cross the doorway and the hosts start seating groups, Mitch’s family is one of the first groups to leave. Right after Mitch, the host grabs our menus and is about to direct us.

As he’s walking away, Mitch turns back to us one last time and says, “You were right, he did get the extension, but he didn’t get the raise he wanted. He’s gone.” I look at him and say, “Man, he’s the third-highest paid coach in the country.” His response, while backpedaling, “He didn’t get the contract he wanted. He’s going to Texas A&M.” Andrew comes back by saying, “Fran’s not getting fired at A&M.” By this point, we’ve almost got him cornered into a booth, my fist clenched as I prepare to unleash a FOUR on him, followed by the thumb. “Of course Fran’s getting fired. He has done a terrible job this year at A&M.” Andrew retaliates with, “He’s 8-2 at A&M this year.” I chime in, “And he’s going to have A&M in the Holiday Bowl, worst-case scenario.” This gem erupts from Mitch’s desperate face: “He hasn’t beaten anyone and will lose to Texas. They’re going to fire him.” At this point, he runs away to the safety of his family.

Up until our interaction with Mitch, the title was going to be shared by Andrew and myself thanks to our constant bombardment of taunts thrown in the faces of Florida fans in our section. We also had another candidate…

This guy will be referred to as “Scraps.” Much like the name suggests, he went from tailgate to tailgate in search of food during the morning. When he came upon Craig’s setup, he calmly asks, “What’s on the grill, fellas?” Craig tells him what we’re cooking and the guy just stands there and holds out his plate. When Craig informs him that we just have enough for our crew, Scraps gets an angry look and moves onto the next tailgate. I even hear him tell the guys working their grill how he likes his burgers cooked. (In the picture below, he is the older gentleman standing to the right of the grill. Notice part of Craig's halloween costume - he was a beer keg with full working tap.)



It feels like coming home this weekend as we take in the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry on the rolling plains of Dixie. For the first time this season, we get to see Auburn in person and don’t have to worry about watching the Tigers via text messages or phone calls as they take on the wounded Georgia Bulldogs.

A31 – South Carolina 15, Miss. State 0
S2 – Southern Cal 50, Arkansas 14
S9 – Georgia 18, South Carolina 0
S16 – Kentucky 31, Ole Miss 14
S23 – Georgia 14, Colorado 13
S30 – Florida 28, Alabama 13
O7 – West Virginia 42, Miss. State 14
O14 – LSU 49, Kentucky 0
O21 – Tennessee 16, Alabama 13
O28 – Florida 21, Georgia 14
N4 – Florida 25, Vanderbilt 19
N11 – Georgia @ Auburn
N18 – Auburn @ Alabama
N24 – LSU @ Arkansas (Little Rock)
N25 – Miss. State @ Ole Miss
D2 – SEC Championship Game (Atlanta)

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Florida 21, Georgia 14
Alltel Stadium – Jacksonville, Fla.
TV: CBS Sports – Attendance: 84,572

Official Trip Song: "Roll Out" by Ludacris

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Well, we got the longest trip out of the way as we took in what was formerly known as the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party in Jacksonville, Fla.’s Alltel Stadium where Florida raced out to a 21-0 lead in the third quarter before holding off a late surge by the Georgia Bulldogs en route to a 21-14 victory – their 15th in the last 17th meetings between the two rivals.



Getting to Jax was a large part of the fun. For the last eight weeks, Andrew’s father was taking a business course at Harvard and graduated this past Friday (congrats, Mr. Carl – avid reader of the tourdesec blog), so Andrew flew up Thursday night to celebrate with his entire family. Meanwhile, I left work around 2:30 p.m. CST to make my way towards Gainesville to stop off for the night before following some old coworkers into the city on Florida’s first coast.

I stopped in Ashland, Ala., to spend some time with my grandmother, aunt and uncle. Randy and I rehashed some memories from the weekend before, while it was great to see my grandmother again. I don’t know how many more opportunities I’m going to have to spend with her, so every one holds a dear place in my heart. After about an hour and a half, I trekked to Auburn in order to give Paul the spare key to my house, where he and some of his buddies were staying for the Auburn-Ole Miss game in Oxford.

After a brief meal at the King with Andy Shores, I got back on the road and had one last gas stop before Gainesville. I rolled into town around 3:30 a.m. EST and plopped in bed after securing John Hines’s spare key he left for me outside. I was asleep by 4 a.m.

I woke up first around 7:30 a.m. to say hello to Hines before returning to a slumber that lasted until 9:45 a.m. when I showered and headed to the Sports Info office. I was greeted by Jennifer Wagner and Dawn Zinsmaster – two of my favorite UF people as well as dedicated tourdesec readers. John and I went down to the Gator Sports Shop in the North End Zone and walked around while waiting for the lunch hour. After refueling my truck, we picked up Dawn and Jen at the stadium and also meandered over to Christa McElyea’s boyfriend’s digs to pick her up for the Moe’s lunch extravaganza.

Earlier blog participants Mike Vietti and Emily Hedges met us there as did Natalie Gonzalez and Fred Demarest, and we sat down at a makeshift booth before being joined by Heidi Johnson and Kathy Cafazzo of the UF SID crew. It was my first trip to Moe’s in a couple of months, and the Joey Bag of Donuts tasted as good as ever. After some table discussions surrounding the game and other Gainesville activities, it was time to return to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium for a few more minutes before hitting the road to Jacksonville.

Christa went back to the stadium with us, and it was just like old times in John’s office with several topics of conversation ranging from career moves, Roven (the third intern from our group) and the upcoming weekend. Around 2 p.m., it was time to say goodbye to Christa as John and I set sail for Jax.

I followed John on the nearly 2-hour drive to the east coast of Florida and admired some of the scenery along the way in neighboring vehicles. We arrived at John’s hotel, the LaQuinta Inn off Butler Blvd., in the 4 p.m. vicinity, and I headed out towards my hotel – the Mariott Sawgrass Resort and Spa – around 5 in the p.m.

First stop at the hotel was the bar, where Zack, Dennis Black and a few others were enjoying happy hour. I had the pleasure of meeting Melissa Kristofak for the first time, a nice young lady whom I would have been working with at Virginia-Commonwealth had I taken the job back in July. Tanner came down from the room, and our group had others accompany us throughout the course of the evening in Champs – the sports bar located in the hotel’s spacious lobby.

The evening was relatively uneventful with a couple of laughs here and there. I headed up to my room around 11 p.m. since I was running off very little sleep, and it wasn’t long before the rest of the group followed suit.

I awoke the next morning almost frozen and quickly jumped in the shower to thaw out. Andrew sent a text saying that he had made his first flight and would touch base again when he got to his connector in Charlotte. I rejoined the refreshed duo of Tanner and Zack, and we watched a little bit of GameDay before heading to the stadium.

I fought my way through traffic to Lot H, where I had a prime spot thanks to John giving me an extra parking pass. Luckily, Andrew’s flight made it into Jacksonville a few minutes early, and we arrived at the stadium within minutes of one another. After parking and crossing the street, we converged close to where we would tailgate the rest of the day with Natalie and her crew.

We took Andrew’s stuff back to the truck and walked around to the other side of the stadium to pick up merchandise and meet up with Justin Sabo, who was going to take the extra pair of tickets I had for the game. After a brief moment of catching up with Justin, we returned to the tailgate with Natalie and Co. I saw John hanging out with his family and stopped by to say hello then made a quick appearance at Katie Plageman and Alecia Pynn’s tailgate before getting ready to go into the stadium.

Since Alltel has a policy on the length of camera lens permitted inside the stands, John sent down Cory Walton to take Andrew’s camera across the media security while we entered a fan gate and met back up with Cory inside. While Andrew went in search of a restroom, I spent a few minutes shooting the breeze with Cory before we parted ways in search of our seats in Sec 227.

We arrived at our destination about 25 minutes prior to kickoff as seats around us began to fill every second. It didn’t take long for the Mitch to surface as we awaited kickoff with anticipation. Georgia’s band had pre-game, so of course we were treated to the UGA Alma Mater. However, UF fans showed their true colors and began chanting, “Let’s go Gators!” right in the middle of one of the prettiest alma maters in the country. I’m relatively new to this rivalry having only experienced twice, but I’m pretty sure that the fan bases really dislike each other.

Florida’s defense swarmed Georgia’s Matthew Stafford, often spending more time in the Bulldogs’ backfield than Kregg Lumpkin, while Chris Leak led a pair of scoring drives to give the Gators a 14-0 lead at the break. Leak handed the ball to Andre Caldwell on an end-around reminiscent of the Tennessee touchdown last season in the first quarter then added a 40-yard strike to a wide-open Caldwell in the second frame to push the UF lead to two scores.

The halftime shows featured songs from Athens-native REM from the UGA band, while the Pride of the Sunshine State countered with several classics from Queen – including a We Will Rock You/We Are the Champions medley dedicated to the national championship men’s basketball team. When the two teams hit the field in the second half, Ray McDonald gave UF the winning score by scooping up a Lumpkin bobble and stumbling across the goal line on the first play from scrimmage to put the Gators up 21-0.

Georgia added a pair of Stafford-led touchdown drives thanks to short fields, but the game was never truly in doubt. An incidental facemask by Quentin Moses on third down gave the Gators an automatic first down to allow Chris Leak to run out the clock as the Gators preserved their dominance in the series of late, winning 21-14.



Georgia has progressively gotten worse since we first saw them in week two at South Carolina. However, their defense showed signs that they’re tired of poor performances because it only took one score from the offense for them to raise up and shut down the UF offense. I wish that Georgia could have scored to tie the game up just so we could see what the UF team is made of. When called on to make game-winning drives twice this year, they’ve gone 1-1. Championship teams have to make stands when it matters.

I don’t think that UGA had the horses to hang with Florida in an overtime situation, but it would have been interesting if Urban would have played for the end zone instead of a field goal if the game was tied 21-21. That’s just my two cents, though.

After the game, we went to Jeremy Foley’s tailgate right outside Alltel and I met up with some old UAA friends that I hadn’t seen since I left Gainesville. The food was tremendous, and there were a lot of fun stories shared. Everyone’s spirits were lifted thanks to Oregon State, while there were only a few grumbling fans that stated the game shouldn’t have been that close. After a little while, we went back to the car and got our stuff to make the trek back to Gainesville.

I said goodbye to John’s family, and we headed to the truck in Lot H. I wasn’t sure on how to get back to Interstate 95, but luckily we ran upon Jerry Wetzel, who led us to the highway. Within an hour and a half, we got to the stadium in Gainesville. I went upstairs and said thanks to Steve McClain for getting us our tickets and said my goodbyes to the SID crew. After a quick stop at McDonalds, it was time to get back to John’s house and get some shuteye before the trip back on Sunday.

We arose early and spent a few minutes with John in the a.m. before getting on the road. On the way, we talked serious smack with each other due to our much-anticipated (and overhyped) fantasy football matchup. Andrew’s team destroyed mine as I had the single worst day in fantasy football history. In hindsight, I’m just glad that the score stayed within 100 points, but that’s neither here nor there.

Nothing really exciting happened on the drive back outside of us stopping outside Lake City at a Texaco station selling five Florida t-shirts for the bargain price of $10. Andrew chickened out on buying a small gator head, and it was back on the road. We stopped in Douglasville, Ga., for lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings. Also in Douglasville, I made an even bigger claim to the “Who Can Buy the Cheapest Gas on the Trip” war by filling up for $1.96. Andrew’s best is $1.98, and I just don’t see how he will be able to find $1.95 anywhere down the road. It’s all about the small victories in life.

I got Andrew back to his car at the Birmingham airport, where he left to go pack up only to return to the air so that he could go see Taylor in Houston. I got back to Saltillo before dark and started the laundry process to get ready for the next trip.

A few odds, ends and notes from the trip:

Favorite quote: “Yea? Well that’s a real good one, buddy. Why don’t you go ahead and get on the field since you’re wearing your jersey. It’s almost game time. Fag.” – A random Georgia fan standing in the port-o-potty line to a Gator fan who perfected a taunt-and-run while drinking from a barbecue sauce bottle. I don’t think this would have been as good if he hadn’t have added the emphatic “Fag” at the end. Did I mention that these two fan bases hate each other?

Honorable mention comes from the drive back on Sunday. As we are moving along northbound on I-75, we are passed by a truck with “GATORS WEAR JEAN SHORTS” written in window chalk across the back windshield. We sped up to get a picture of this monumental display of Georgia pride.



Best Mullet Award: There is no doubt who this dubious honor will go to in Jacksonville. After several attempts from Gator fans I know to debunk the myth that “Gators wear jean shorts,” we found one two sections over from us in the corner of the end zone. Andrew first spotted him early in the first half, but it wasn’t until the waning moments of halftime that I caught my first glimpse of Joe Trashy Gator. He was wearing cutoff acid jeans from the late 80s, complete with several holes and the shreds hanging from above the legs. To make it even better, he was wearing a shirt that photo evidence shows to be of the denim nature with the sleeves cut off. Now, some people could say that he’s not a Gator fan, but no – he had a gigantic “F” on the back of his shirt as well as the old Albert logo on the front chest pocket. His mullet was straight out of 1991 as well with the Jeff Brantley mullet going on. We were able to secure pictures of him grooming this masterful hairdo.



Things we learned: Gator fans still do, in fact, wear jean shorts. For further evidence, check out the comments in Andy Staple’s blog from Friday afternoon. I am going to quote Ron Fults of the Land O’ Lakes community in the Sunshine State: “That’s the best those Dawgs can come up with? I guess losing 14 out of 16 will do that to you. Anyways, I’ll be proudly wearing my jean shorts AND my orange & blue Hawaiian Gator shirt today as we make it 15 out of 17 and get that much closer to our next SEC title."

Mitch Sighting: We even had the pleasure of a Mitch-in-Training this weekend. But first, we have to give the title of Mitch to someone.

One row ahead of us and about six seats down stood a man who came to Jacksonville to be heard, early and often. Most times, he did so in his bare feet. Mitch had on a Charlie Brown orange and blue polo and must have coached football in another life. He had an intense look on his face the entire game, which would have made Urban Meyer’s look like that of Lou Holtz (now on ESPN, not 15 years ago on the sidelines at Notre Dame). To make it even better, he had such gems as “HEY RICHT! THAT WAS A GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRREAT PLAY CALL WHEN YOU ARE DOWN BY THREE TOUCHDOWNS!” which was followed by Matt Stafford waltzing into the end zone untouched. He also claimed to be on several of Richt’s body parts that are just, well, inappropriate for a public (and family-friendly) forum. However, nothing can compare to Mitch’s finger-pointing. It’s like he went to class on this art because, I’m not going to lie, I could learn a thing or two about finger-pointing from this guy.



Now, for my personal favorite, the Mitch-in-Training. We had a kid fresh out of grade school sitting a couple of rows ahead of us, decked out in his Florida football No. 1 jersey and all. To top off the outfit, he had even dressed up his braces for this special occasion with alternating orange and blue staples. Yes, he was a true Florida fan, and like most fans that were sitting around us, full of Florida class and sophistication.

As the game went on, his annoyance factor continued to rise and really get to Tanner’s cousin sitting right next to me. After Ray McDonald recovered and returned Kregg Lumpkin’s fumble on the first play of the second half for six points, MIT looked back and shrugged his shoulders before taunting Tanner’s family with a gator chomp. I’m still not sure what was thrown, but Tanner’s cousin couldn’t take it any more and hurled something at MIT, which caused the kid to turn back and start talking. After a couple of jawing back-and-forth, MIT comes back with the usual, “Yea, well, who’s dominated this series the past 15 years, pal?” I couldn’t take him any more either, so I yell back, “Hey, have you even been alive for 15 years?” This stunned MIT, who made a little face at me and before turning around, I hit him with, “Hey kid, have fun at your eighth grade dance in a few years.” We didn’t have any more problems out of MIT, and the fans around him and us had a ton of laughs.

He made one last futile attempt at talking smack before he left with his dad-in-tow, but as he turned to say, “See you guys later!” with a hand gesture, he tripped and nearly went headfirst down the stairs. I must say, he would have gotten a standing ovation from me, and probably Tanner’s family, as well.

One shoutout I’d like to give is for Coach Hal from CoachHal.com. The group of Alabama fans that we met in Knoxville gave us a little pub in Coach’s weekly tailgate review, and Coach – I’m sorry for making the comment about the fight song. I have honestly never been able to find two Bama fans sitting side-by-side who knew the fight song from start to finish. Also, I will be a tad bit disappointed should MTV fail to release a DVD of Two-A-Days prior to the Christmas season.

The games have gotten much better the last two weeks. Hopefully, the trend continues through the next six. An easy trip to Nashville awaits us as we see the Gators play once more against the Vanderbilt Commodores.

ADVISORY TO READERS: Pictures are up! To access, click on the “User Info” button above the blog and hit the “Pictures” button (I think it says something like, “Over 30 public”). There’s a gallery from each game, so enjoy!

A31 – South Carolina 15, Miss. State 0
S2 – Southern Cal 50, Arkansas 14
S9 – Georgia 18, South Carolina 0
S16 – Kentucky 31, Ole Miss 14
S23 – Georgia 14, Colorado 13
S30 – Florida 28, Alabama 13
O7 – West Virginia 42, Miss. State 14
O14 – LSU 49, Kentucky 0
O21 – Tennessee 16, Alabama 13
O28 – Florida 21, Georgia 14
N4 – Florida @ Vanderbilt
N11 – Georgia @ Auburn
N18 – Auburn @ Alabama
N24 – LSU @ Arkansas (Little Rock)
N25 – Miss. State @ Ole Miss
D2 – SEC Championship Game (Atlanta)

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Tennessee 16, Alabama 13
Neyland Stadium – Knoxville, Tenn.
TV: CBS Sports – Attendance: 106,695

Official Trip Song: "Back Where I Come From" (Live from Neyland
Stadium) by Kenny Chesney

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. – We were deemed “Shula bait” this past weekend
in Knoxville as we took in the Alabama-Tennessee game. The Vols
finally awoke a rather subdued crowd of 106,695 with a one-yard
plunge into the endzone from Arian Foster in the waning moments
of the contest to defeat the Tide for the 10th time in 12 tries
by a final count of 16-13.



We left Friday night from Birmingham, and the trip had gotten
off with a bad omen: Andrew had been held up meeting me since he
got pulled over for failure to come to a complete stop at a stop
sign (how many times can I say “stop” in one sentence?). He was
able to get by with just a warning, and a few minutes later, we
were on the road again.

We arrived on Lovell Road in Knoxville in the 1 a.m. vicinity
and found the Waffle House where we had a late meal following
the Auburn game in 2004. It was located right across the street
from our hotel, so we decided to check in first before getting a
late-night snack. We were scheduled to stay at the Travelodge
Hair Care, Convenience Store and Tire Center for both nights for
a nominal fee of $40 per night. What we hadn’t planned on was a
glitch in their Internet booking system as they had overbooked
for the night. The hotel concierge/gas station attendant was
rather rude to me, and I plan on taking this up with some of the
administration of Travelodge hotels.

So there we were – 1 a.m., hungry, seated at a Waffle House in
Knoxville, Tenn., with nowhere to stay. Luckily, two of my
friends – Koby Padgett and Casey Self – are both GA’s in the UT
Women’s Athletic Media Relations Department and came to the
rescue. Not knowing if we’d be able to get a room for Saturday
night in the greater Knoxville area, we opted to stay with Casey
since Koby would be leaving Saturday afternoon to travel to
Auburn with soccer. We finished our food and went to Casey’s
house to lay claim to a couple of sofas with our names written
on them.

We spent a few minutes catching up with Casey and Elizabeth, her
roommate, before crashing into deep sleep. The next morning, I
had breakfast at Hardee’s with Koby and caught up with him for
about 45 minutes. I had given our extra pair of tickets to my
uncle and one of his best friends, both Bama fans, for Christmas
so I got the phone call from Randy alerting to me to their
travel status around 10:30 a.m. Andrew and I said our goodbye to
Koby and headed onto campus shortly thereafter.

We found the church where we had parked in 2004 thanks to
Casey’s help and gladly paid the $25 to help the church’s youth
group. The church is located on Cumberland and Poplar and is an
easy walk to the stadium. I highly recommend it, and it also has
its bathrooms opened for parking patrons, FYI. Unfortunately,
several Alabama fans had our same idea. One rather observant
group noticed Andrew’s Auburn sticker and license plate on his
car when we pulled into an open spot. He of course had to make a
smart remark to us when we exited the car, and we retorted with
some playful banter. I would like to say that this is the last
we would see or hear of them, but stay tuned…

We made our way to the bookstore just shy of Gate 21 at Neyland
where we made a few quick purchases before moseying over to Gate
nine to meet Randy and Benny. There, we waited for about half an
hour before the duo showed up. We walked back to the car for a
little while where we threw around the football and talked a
little more with the group from earlier. One guy was wearing a
Mike Shula jersey from his UA playing days and was referred to
as “Coach” since he headed up their tailgate everywhere they go.
He even has a website, CoachHal.com, I’m told. Once they found
out about the Tour de SEC, they were pretty cordial – until they
found out that there was no way we could root for Bama in
Tuscaloosa (or anywhere else, for that matter). Overall, they
were pretty good guys and we had a pretty good conversation with
them. I encourage anyone to check out CoachHal.com.

At 1 p.m., we returned to the stadium where I made my way
through the masses to the media will call booth where good
friend Derek “Rookie” Satterfield was working. We set up plans
to meet up after the game, and I came back to my group near the
location where the Pride of the Southland Band would march
towards their stadium entrance. Andrew got his Juwan Simpson-
special double scoop of cookies & cream Mayfield Ice Cream while
we were waiting. Benny went off in search of a restroom and said
he would meet us at the seats.

After the band entered the stadium, we followed suit and began
the upward trek towards Gate 10 and the upper deck. On the way,
we noticed a program vendor sporting one of the greatest mullets
we’ve seen on the trip, but I couldn’t get a picture without
blowing a stealth-like cover. We arrived at the seats and took
in the view. It was my uncle’s first-ever road game and first
Alabama-Tennessee game, and he was enjoying every minute of it.

During the pre-game festivities, every time the Million Dollar
Band would strike a note, UT’s answered with a different
rendition of Rocky Top. We probably heard Rocky Top 10 times
(including the four outside the stadium on the band’s pre-game
march) before both teams were on the field for warm-ups.
Meanwhile, more UT fans began to fill the seats near us,
including our new friend Wes and his lovely wife. They were
great Vol fans, and I think one thing that bonded Wes and I so
quickly was the love we shared for MTV’s Two-A-Days. (Many of
Wes’s taunts were centered on John Parker and Ross Wilson.)

We also had several Alabama fans in close proximity, including a
rather annoying pair directly behind us. When Wes let them know
that we were Auburn fans, they did what they could to get under
our skin. One of their most common beliefs was that Auburn’s
recent success is the sole byproduct of Alabama’s wrongful
probation and would come to an end now that they were back to
full recruiting strength. I guess this is fair since I attribute
a large amount of Auburn’s recent success to the hiring of the
innovative Mike Shula, but I digress.

Kickoff was creeping closer as the jumbotron featured past UT
victories over Alabama and other various advertisements. During
the Pride of the Southland’s opening ceremonies, they began to
play Alabama’s fight song in sync with the Million Dollar Band.
The two Bama fans sitting right behind us sang the song from
start to finish, and I turned to compliment them since they were
the first two I’ve ever heard know all the words. Usually, Bama
fans just clap from start to finish. They didn’t find it as
complimentary as I would have thought.

The first half sped by since both teams were married to the
running game. Kenneth Darby couldn’t get any kind of momentum
going, while Erik Ainge seemed to be restless in the pocket on
the few throwing assignments called in from David Cutcliffe. The
crowd seemed subdued throughout the entire first half and only
got loud when booing the officials. The only intrigue the first
half featured was Mike Shula’s choice to go for the sure three
points on fourth and goal from the 1-yard-line instead of taking
the risk of putting the ball in the endzone. The teams entered
the locker rooms with UA clinging to a 6-3 lead.

Major cool points were lost by the Million Dollar Band when they
performed the same halftime show from the Alabama-Florida game
three weeks earlier, meaning that this was probably their third
time to play this particular set of songs including a number
from Gloria Estefan and Charlie Daniels’ hit The Devil Went Down
to Georgia. One positive note is that this was the first
halftime to be sans hall of fame inductions.

Following Alabama’s touchdown in the fourth quarter, LaMarcus
Coker went down during the ensuing kickoff return with a knee
injury, causing a wave of silence to pass through the stands.
However, Alabama fans in the upper deck with their cheers
of “ALA” and “BAMA” response tactics. The Tennessee student
population did not approve of this and began a chant which
filtered through the entire end zone where we happened to be
sitting. I cannot repeat what the chant stated, but it involved
a notorious four-letter word beginning with F and ending with
YOU, BAMA!

Arian Foster plunged over the goal line from a foot out with
just under three minutes to play to give UT the winning margin
of 16-13. The play was set up by the Vols’ best drive of the day
which featured a nice mix of short passes from Ainge, who
finally seemed to be settling down. The best part was the
touchdown revived the crowd, which made it incredibly difficult
for the Tide’s first-year signal-caller and company. The Vols’
defense forced a three-and-out followed by one of their own to
waste all three Bama timeouts. The defensive line penetrated the
Bama backfield on every snap of the final drive, sacking Wilson
on both second and fourth downs.



When the final horn sounded, Randy and Benny left while we
gathered up our belongings and said goodbye to the fans sitting
around us. To pass the time waiting for crowds at the spill
wells to shorten, we discussed some of UT’s past games and
traditions with an older gentleman sitting right in front of us.
It was informative, and he would also provide us with a runner-
up for quote of the trip, listed later.

We went to Calhoun’s on the River for dinner and decided that an
hour was worth the wait before being seated after about 45
minutes. The Alabama clientele at the restaurant were none-too-
pleased with Shula and his play-calling, and we took in several
criticizing conversations during our wait. One in particular is
noted below in the Mitch Sightings. Taylor called to let us know
that we had a hotel for Saturday night, which helped alleviate
some of the headache I had been suffering since the middle of
the third quarter.

Inside the restaurant, we received excellent service from our
waitress and enjoyed hearty meals of grilled chicken and the
world-famous ribs. Rookie came by after he finished working and
returned us to our car at the church after we ran a couple of
errands with him. We said our goodbyes, and I got ahold of Casey
to let her know that we had gotten the hotel for Saturday night.

After a little adventure to get our stuff out of Casey’s house
and checked into our room, the night ended rather peacefully
with some TV and rest. Andrew woke up Sunday morning and
attended church while I slept in a little longer and got my
stuff packed up.

We stopped at the Downtown Grill and Brewery for lunch before
leaving Knoxville, which is something of a tradition for us. In
the spring of 2004, Robert, Jennifer and I rode up to Knoxville
to see Sister Hazel perform downtown and stumbled upon the
restaurant on our way to the concert. We returned here for the
Auburn game later that fall, and it just wouldn’t be a trip to
Knoxville without at least one meal here.

I had the burger, straying from my normal order of the Philly
cheese sandwich, while Andrew had steak and eggs. The atmosphere
is one of the tops in the conference, and the food is delicious.
Parking is the only problem, but there are several parking decks
and pay lots near the Gay Street establishment. In addition to
the bar and brewery downstairs, the upstairs portion features a
big screen TV with video games, dart boards and pool tables.

We got on the road somewhere around noon CST and enjoyed waving
a Tennessee shaker at any Bama fan we passed on the way back to
Birmingham. After a quick “see ya later,” I was en route to
Tupelo to rest up for the next one.

A few odds, ends and notes from the trip:

Favorite quote: “I’m sick of losing.” – An elderly Alabama fan
said this several times while waiting outside for a table at
Calhoun’s on the River. I think the count was over 10 on the
times he made this statement.

Honorable mention goes to an older UT fan sitting in front of us
at the stadium, who proclaimed after one of Tennessee’s plays
was overturned by instant replay, “That’s gonna cost you another
$5,000, Bama! They’ve always paid off the refs, and they always
will!” And Paul Finebaum said that this rivalry had lost its
edge this year?

Another candidate for quote of the trip came from one of my
newfound friends and blog reader Beau Kenneft. Beau is an avid
Clemson fan, and I had e-mailed him wishing them luck last
weekend against Georgia Tech. I did not read Beau’s response
until Sunday night, but it was a classic. “Be careful in
Knoxville this weekend. The seats are packed pretty tight, and
you might be next to a mountain native who considers soap to be
a luxury not a necessity.” I laughed for a good five minutes.
Thanks, Beau, and congrats on the huge win Saturday. CJ Spiller
is a hoss.

Best Mullet Award: Two individuals we noticed walking around
campus Saturday morning fought vehemently for this award. One
was a Bama fan walking across the small parking lot separating
gates nine and 10 outside the stadium. The hair dropped beneath
his convenience store-purchased hat to almost his hips. I give
the award to him, barely edging his competition – a program
vendor also stationed outside Gate 10. The fact that the
University of Tennessee had him in a position for tons of people
to admire his hairdo gave him a serious chance at taking over
the award.



Funniest Window Chalk Writing: When we left Calhoun’s Saturday
night after dinner, we were walking out to my buddy Derek’s car
when he pointed out a crimson Ford truck parked next to him. On
the driver’s front window, someone had written “We Heart
Faggos” – apparently spelling isn’t a priority to some people,
but the damage was done. We have pictorial evidence.



Things we learned: Tennessee, not Auburn, is THE rival for most
Alabama fans. For further examples, observe below…

Mitch Sighting: While there were a couple of people who most
definitely fit the Mitch mold, the obvious choice to me was
our “special” couple we had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting
at Calhoun’s.

You know how good boyfriends or just gentlemen in particular
will relinquish their seat outside a restaurant for women and
children? This kind of sight gives girls and hopeless romantics
a reason to smile at night – and sometimes a reason to get mad
at their significant other for not being as considerate. Well,
we had this kind of moment outside Calhoun’s with a pair of Bama
fans…both male. I’m looking over the menu while Andrew was
inside waiting for a pager, minding my own business, when I
hear, “Here you go. Take my seat.” I look over to see one guy
offer up the seat to another guy. I immediately became
intrigued, like watching a car wreck.

Luckily for Mitch #1, a seat next to his sweetheart opened up a
couple of minutes later…directly to my left. Since we are the
only “Tennessee” fans around, the Mitches become involved in a
conversation with an elderly set of Bama fans sitting next to
them that quickly turns to hilarious. All I hear is
how “Tennessee is THE rivalry” and that they shouldn’t hate
Auburn because “Auburn doesn’t deserve that kind of respect or
attention from us. That’s all they want.”

When I hear about how great Alabama’s receiving corps is going
to be in 2007 with the return of Keith Brown, DJ Hall and Tyrone
Prothro (yes, THAT Tyrone Prothro). At this point, I can’t help
myself and jump in the conversation by stating, “Prothro will
never play again. He can’t even walk any more. The most you can
ever hope for him to do is suit up and lead your team onto the
field from the locker room. Otherwise, he’s nothing more than
sideline inspiration. He shouldn’t have been playing on the pass
that got him hurt, and he will never be able to play again
thanks to that.” I immediately regret opening my mouth.

What I then receive is a lovefest for Tennessee fans on their
trip and continual Auburn bashing. Personally, I think Mitch #1
had a thing for Andrew but didn’t know how to show it without
upsetting Mitch #2, but that’s neither here nor there. Long
story short, I prod a little to figure out their deep-seeded
hate for Auburn (even though I perfectly understand and just
want to keep up my cover as a UT fan) before the pager goes off
alerting us that our table is ready. I give them a swift four-
finger wave goodbye before we sit down to eat.

Don’t worry about those two, though. It does have a happy
ending. They were seated at one of Calhoun’s most romantic
tables for two, candlelit and all. The best part? They were
seated near the exit so I was able to wave to them on our way
out the door.

Next up is the World’s Largest Outdoor…I mean Florida-Georgia
game at Jacksonville’s Alltel Stadium.

ADVISORY TO READERS: Still working on uploading pictures to
Shutterfly. As soon as the site is up and running, I will have
blog linking readers to the pictures.

A31 – South Carolina 15, Miss. State 0
S2 – Southern Cal 50, Arkansas 14
S9 – Georgia 18, South Carolina 0
S16 – Kentucky 31, Ole Miss 14
S23 – Georgia 14, Colorado 13
S30 – Florida 28, Alabama 13
O7 – West Virginia 42, Miss. State 14
O14 – LSU 49, Kentucky 0
O21 – Tennessee 16, Alabama 13
O28 – Georgia vs. Florida (Jacksonville)
N4 – Florida @ Vanderbilt
N11 – Georgia @ Auburn
N18 – Auburn @ Alabama
N24 – LSU @ Arkansas (Little Rock)
N25 – Miss. State @ Ole Miss
D2 – SEC Championship Game (Atlanta)

Saturday, October 14, 2006

LSU 49, Kentucky 0
Tiger Stadium – Baton Rouge, La.
TV: None – Attendance: 92,148 (announced)

Official Trip Song: "Life is a Highway" by Rascal Flatts

BATON ROUGE, La. – It was just like old times this weekend as we
made our way to Baton Rouge for the LSU-Kentucky game, a 49-0
shellacking by the Bayou Bengals in Death Valley. We were
accompanied by our third roommate from Auburn Robert Boully and
his wife Jennifer. The four of us met up in Brandon, Miss.,
Friday night and began our journey to LSU. However, first on the
agenda was a stop at Lil Dooey’s in Starkville to take care of
unfinished business.



Kyle Lewis, one of my best friends, was in Starkville for the
first-ever Kyle Lewis Bowl, pitting the Bulldogs against
Jacksonville State where he interned for a little over 1 1/2
years. We had talked during the week about getting to hang out
for the first time since the SEC Championship Game in Atlanta
back in December, and we thought Lil Dooey’s would be the
perfect location for this.

Andrew met up with my family in Macon and rode up to Starkville
with them so that he could leave his car at my parents’ house
for the weekend. Meanwhile, I arrived in Starkville around 5:15
p.m. and went straight to the Bryan Building to catch up with
Kyle and Tony Schmidt, another good friend of mine from Miss.
State. The three of us goofed off for a few minutes and went to
the new bookstore across the street from the stadium while
waiting on my family to make it to Starkville. After the
bookstore, which features the only escalator in northeast
Mississippi, we walked around the Junction where the dance team
and cheerleaders were practicing for their Saturday halftime
performance.

Kyle was in need of a restroom, so to his luck, we found the
Junction Johnny and Junction Janie port-a-potties so that he
could take care of things. Kyle was reluctant to enter through
the car wash-like curtain because of other people possibly being
in there, but we assured him that an old man had just left the
building. Not three seconds after Kyle went in, another guy
stumbled up the steps and followed suit. Kyle exited a couple of
minutes later with a perplexed look on his face. I’m still not
sure what the look was exactly for, but he did enlighten us that
the potties inside were maroon and white. This is a fitting
touch, if you ask me.

We picked up mini footballs and shakers before heading over to
Lil Dooey’s to meet my family and Andrew. Unfortunately, my mom,
sister and her boyfriend Jaren were scared by the line inside
and decided not to eat dinner with us, so we said our short
hello and goodbye before we made our way inside. After placing
our order and finding a table large enough for our group, I
bought Kyle a shot of Crown & Coke for his birthday and the fun
began.

I had the famous BBQ for the first time there, while Andrew
enjoyed a pulled pork sandwich. I really don’t think you can get
a bad meal here, so everything on the menu is recommended. It is
truly a SEC traditional restaurant, even receiving the top
Herbie Award on ESPN.com for the nation’s Best Gameday Meal.

We were joined over the course of the evening by Cassie Chance,
her boyfriend Will, Amy Robertson, Susan Hughes and Jay
Middleton. Our waitress was a lot of fun and had several
hilarious comments such as “The Original Tony,” and randomly
pointing out that she recognized Kyle by pictures scattered
through his younger sister’s apartment. The best moment of the
night, however, came when she alerted our group to a young man
in a blue shirt named Ben stalking her throughout the
restaurant. So, in her honor (and much to her displeasure, I
might add), we began our own search for this Ben character.
Alas, we were unsuccessful in our mission.



Just before we left, Kyle and I had to take care of a tradition
we set a couple of years back at Lil Dooey’s by writing a
certain message on the wall with a Sharpie. Andrew and I also
signed the wall signifying that the Tour de SEC had made its
stop at the Starkville landmark. After our goodbyes, it was time
to get on the road.

Now, Andrew had a rough week and seemed a little somber at
times, but when Robert and Jennifer joined us, he found his
youthful spirit again. During the drive, I was constantly being
showered with wet willies and objects sneaking through the crack
between my backrest and seat in the truck. Robert even got me
with an enormous ice cube down the back of my shirt, which
didn’t melt for like three hours. A new rule is to be formed
from these shenanigans: No more riding in the backseat together
for Andrew and Robert.

We arrived at our Red Roof Inn around 1 a.m. and checked into
our rooms, nos. 204 and 208. The next morning, we woke up just
in time for GameDay, being broadcast from Auburn, and got ready
to go onto campus. After GameDay, we ate at TJ Ribs which was
excellent. The atmosphere was great with Billy Cannon’s Heisman
trophy as well as a replica of the 2003 National Championship
trophy on a spinning display in the center of the building with
numerous LSU memorabilia on the walls. We split two slabs of
ribs amongst the four of us and ordered several sides including
red beans and rice, fries and a sweet potato.

After TJ Ribs, we parked for free on Lakeshore/Stadium Drive
just shy of Highland St. Our first stop was the university
bookstore where we made our ritual trip purchases and a little
bit of walking around and exploring followed. We picked up
schedule posters in the athletic administration building and
made our way over to Alex Box Stadium where a baseball scrimmage
was about to take place.

After watching a couple of innings, I got a phone call from
Dennis Hodges, a good friend of mine who shoots athletic events
for LSU, letting us know that he wanted to get us on a tour of
the locker room and Bill Lawton Room – home to all of LSU’s
trophies and awards collected over the span of their football
history. We met up with Dennis and traded our upper deck tickets
for a pair of lower level tickets with a scalper before waiting
on the tour to start. One of Dennis’ good friends works in Event
Management for LSU, and he was waiting on a family from
Shreveport to show up before starting the tour. We waited for
about 30 minutes before giving up and heading to one of our
tailgate invitations.

Tim Parrott invited our group via e-mail earlier in the week
after catching our post on tigerdroppings.com’s OT message
board. After missing his set-up in our search, he sat us down
and immediately fed us gumbo and smoked sausage. We stayed here
for about an hour and had a great time. Tim, Pierre, Gary and
the rest of the gang there really know how to throw a pre-game
party. To top it off, they’re great people (and the food was
excellent also).



We were trying to make it to a second tailgate with other
members from tigerdroppings.com where they had a couple of TVs
set up so that Robert and Jennifer would have somewhere to watch
the Auburn-Florida game while we were inside the stadium. We
couldn’t get up with Mike on the phone, and none of the
tailgates in the area where Tim directed us knew a Mike, so we
gave up. We walked back to the truck to drop off our posters and
bookstore purchases before parting ways with Robert and Jennifer
as they headed to Walk-Ons to watch AU-UF.

We bought programs shortly after, and I returned to the truck to
drop those off. On my way back to the program stand where Andrew
was patiently waiting, I witnessed an arrest for “evading
police” since a guy kept driving through a police barricade on
Highland St. The female officer began yelling at him as he kept
driving and finally grabbed ahold of his rearview mirror,
pulling it off its hinge before pulling the driver out of the
truck. After he parked his truck in the lot next to where he was
stopped, he was cuffed and placed in the back of her partner’s
squad car. To make matters even worse for him, he was given a
citation and I’m pretty sure the truck was towed.

We entered the stadium and watched the closing moments of
regulation and the overtime of the Alabama-Ole Miss game on the
TVs located on the south endzone concourse. After buying our
souvenir cup drinks, we located our seats behind the yellow S in
the purple LSU end zone. We watched the game through the split
of the uprights.

LSU’s pre-game march by the GOLDEN BAND FROM TIGERLAND is one of
my favorite pre-game traditions in the SEC. When you hear the
crowd erupt following the first four notes of “Tiger Rag,” it’s
a thing of beauty. (Unless you’re my old co-worker and friend
Rich Varner, who made a joke asking “You wanna know how to get
90,000 Cajuns to go nuts simultaneously? Play those four
notes.”) Soon afterwards, the team ran out of the tunnel and
kickoff was upon us.



The game was pretty boring, I’m not going to lie. There’s not
much to report in a 49-0 blowout. LSU looked like they should
have, and Kentucky followed suit when thinking about the
competition they faced. The only negative on the night for LSU
seemed to be that the defensive line had a hard time wrapping up
on UK’s elusive quarterback Andre Woodson. I was impressed by
his ability to turn what should have been a huge sack by Tyson
Jackson, Glenn Dorsey and Co. into a 5- or 6-yard gain.



The halftime show was a tribute to New Orleans as the band
rehearsed their halftime show for the Saints-Colts game the next
day in the Superdome. In the second half, we saw our first
action of Matt Flynn and Ryan Perilloux – LSU’s quarterbacks in
waiting. Both of those guys are studs, but the offense did not
flow as well with either behind center as when JaMarcus Russell
was calling the signals.

A couple of more observations about LSU: Where is Alley
Broussard? I know he had catastrophic knee surgery last season,
but all I heard about him through fall camp was that he had
regained his step and was back to bruising the LSU defense. On
the same note, what happened to Justin Vincent? I’m shocked by
the fall-out these two have suffered since their phenomenal
freshman seasons. When your leading running back is Jacob
Hester, something is not fully clicking on your offense –
especially with the recruiting Nick Saban and Les Miles have
done at that position.

Kentucky only had two good drives the entire game, but LSU’s
swarming defense forced mistakes on both inside the redzone to
preserve the shutout. It’s hard to believe that this team can go
from beating someone 49-0, 45-3, 45-3, 42-17 and 41-7 to losing
23-10 and 7-3 against real defenses. They remind me a lot of
Auburn from 2003. This does not bode well as Auburn’s hopes for
a rematch with Florida in Atlanta somewhat rest on the shoulders
of LSU’s ability to beat Arkansas in Little Rock.

With about 10 minutes left in the slow-moving game, we received
word from Robert and Jennifer that Auburn had won 27-17 against
Florida, and my celebration angered a few remaining LSU fans
sitting around me. After I explained what we were doing with
this trip, though, they understood completely and laughed about
some of the stories from previous weeks. Once the final buzzer
sounded, we trekked back to the truck where Robert and Jennifer
were waiting for us.

We walked down Highland St. to The Chimes restaurant for a post-
game meal and waited out the seating delay by catching
highlights of Auburn-Florida from Robert and Jennifer. Jennifer
made a proclamation that she felt the two of them had watched
different games, which I later agreed with after watching the
replay on ESPN back at the hotel. After about 45 minutes, we
were seated and ordered the Louisiana alligator appetizer.



I had a shrimp Po’boy while Andrew enjoyed the down home burger.
Robert and Jennifer had eaten at Walk-Ons during the game, so
they just enjoyed the appetizer and desert. We stayed around at
Chimes for awhile, and I walked back to the truck so that not
all of us would have to make the hike during the night. Once we
loaded up outside the restaurant, we meandered back through
campus to I-10 and returned to the hotel in the neighborhood of
2 a.m.

We were out of the Red Roof Inn at 11 a.m. and were in search of
the Mall of Louisiana, which housed a Café Dumont to fix my
craving for beignets. After not being able to find the exit, we
retracted back to Perkins Road and tried to get a table at IHOP,
but the line was way too long. By this time, food was a must and
we finally found a McDonalds and hurriedly ate lunch before
getting back on the road to the Magnolia State.

The ride back was relatively uneventful as Andrew and Jennifer
slept off headaches, leaving Robert and I to talk about the
future of Auburn’s football program. I’m not sure when this
happened, but Robert has suddenly gotten very interested in
recruiting and can carry a pretty good conversation when talking
about some official and unofficial visitors, commitments, etc.
We dropped the dynamic duo off at their house around 3 p.m. and
hung out for about an hour before making our way to Macon.

During the drive, Robert alerted us to the first BCS standings
released Sunday, and we discussed the possibilities for the rest
of the trip. Andrew hung around for a couple of minutes before
heading back to Birmingham. I had dinner with my family and
watched football before leaving later that night to return to
Tupelo.

A few odds, ends and notes from the trip:

Favorite quote: “Yes! Fries at the bottom of the bag!
Goldmine!” – Good ole Robert Boully. His love for food is
surpassed only by his love of his wife Jennifer (we think). As
an awkward moment came up during the ride to Baton Rouge on
Friday night, Robert made this exclamation to break the ice a
little bit (or he may have just been oblivious to everything).

Runner-up for favorite quote: “Oh no…” – Paul Crane, one of our
Auburn buddies, said this to Andrew after he called and let him
in on a little secret on Saturday night. We laughed the rest of
the trip about this exchange.

I wanted the song of the trip to be “Calling Baton Rouge” by
Garth Brooks. I mean, come on, who could argue with that
selection? However, Andrew trumped this due to his disregard for
all things Garth. I think he needs to get over whatever caused
this because “Calling Baton Rouge,” like Neil Diamond’s “Sweet
Caroline,” is one of the classics.

Best Waiter/Waitress of the Tour de SEC Award: The unanimous
selection for this award for the first half of the trip goes to
Jacob, our waiter at Chimes following the game Saturday night.
He rolled with the punches all night long and kept our drinks
full despite the huge crowd. Well done, Jacob. Well done.

Best Louisiana Mullet Award: Hands down, this award goes to our
buddy walking through the concourse during overtime of the
Alabama-Ole Miss game before we made our way to our end zone
seats. The guy was wearing a white wife-beater and had “the
party in the back” all the way down to underneath his shoulder
blades. We got a picture, but unfortunately, it came out blurry.

Mitch Sighting: Mitch sat in front of Andrew and me at the game
on Saturday night. He and his buddy made colorful comments
throughout the evening. However, nothing can top him calling for
the post-pattern to one of LSU’s receivers (no one in
particular) every snap of the ball. His buddy almost topped him
when Matt Flynn entered the game midway through the third
quarter when he proclaimed that all Flynn does is throw
touchdown passes, which angered some of the LSU fans sitting in
front of him. These guys were from Shreveport, and you would
have thought that this would be something to be extremely proud
of the way they talked about it. I now know of four Shreveport
natives and nothing about them makes me ever want to spend an
hour in that town.

Thanks to Paul, Robert, Jennifer, Andrew’s aunt and uncle as
well as my dad for keeping us updated via text messaging on the
Chris Rushing Bowl going on down on the Plains during the LSU-
Kentucky game. Auburn is 2-0 when we were watching Kentucky play
simultaneously with an important AU contest in 2006.

Rocky Top will always be home sweet home to me next weekend as
we take in the Alabama-Tennessee Third Saturday in October
grudge match.

ADVISORY TO READERS: I am looking into a Shutterfly account to
put pictures up on the web – just have to sort through the mass
of pictures to find the best ones. Unfortunately, it costs money
to put pictures in the blog, so I can’t afford to make that
investment at this time. Once the Shutterfly is up and running,
we’ll link it so that everyone can check out the multitudes of
pictures.

A31 – South Carolina 15, Miss. State 0
S2 – Southern Cal 50, Arkansas 14
S9 – Georgia 18, South Carolina 0
S16 – Kentucky 31, Ole Miss 14
S23 – Georgia 14, Colorado 13
S30 – Florida 28, Alabama 13
O7 – West Virginia 42, Miss. State 14
O14 – LSU 49, Kentucky 0
O21 – Alabama @ Tennessee
O28 – Georgia vs. Florida (Jacksonville)
N4 – Florida @ Vanderbilt
N11 – Georgia @ Auburn
N18 – Auburn @ Alabama
N24 – LSU @ Arkansas (Little Rock)
N25 – Miss. State @ Ole Miss
D2 – SEC Championship Game (Atlanta)

Saturday, October 7, 2006

West Virginia 42, Miss. State 14
Scott Field at Davis-Wade Stadium – Starkville, Miss.
TV: None – Attendance: 40,327

Official Trip Song: "Who Let the Dogs Out" by Baha Men

STARKVILLE, Miss. – Injuries piled up for the Mississippi State Bulldogs this weekend as they took on their third top-10 opponent of the 2006 season, the No. 4-ranked West Virginia Mountaineers. West Virginia scored 14 points in the final 5 minutes of the game to break open an otherwise competitive contest en route to a 42-14 thrashing of MSU.



State lost three quarterbacks to injuries in the game, including starter Omarr Conner for a significant amount of time with a severely sprained ankle and backup Tray Rutland for the season with a torn ACL on his only snap of the contest in the fourth quarter. Michael Henig will return to the starting role at the signal-caller position next weekend in the Kyle Lewis Bowl against Jacksonville State despite playing a couple of weeks earlier from a broken collarbone suffered in the season-opening loss to South Carolina.

West Virginia taught me a couple of things. First, there is not really a No. 2 team in college football this season. I don’t think that Florida is it, I don’t think Southern Cal is it, and I know for a fact that West Virginia isn’t. They played a sluggish game and had more personal foul penalties than Miss. State at points in the game. It’s obvious that they didn’t take MSU seriously, and any other Southeastern Conference opponent would have made them pay for their play on Saturday.



We kicked off the trip Friday with dinner at Obey’s in Starkville. The New Orleans-style cuisine featured here is delicious, and I had a very enjoyable time considering it was only my second time to eat here despite growing up 30 minutes down the road. The atmosphere is very good and one of the top-three in all of Starkville. The clientele also was interesting, as will be described later in the Random Moment Award section.

After dinner, I met up with Mike Vietti and hung out with him for a little while at Polliwogs. There, we enjoyed a couple of drinks and talked about the wonderful world of sports information. Just a note of advice, when traveling to Polliwogs and sitting outside on the deck, be prepared to become a smoker.

Saturday morning, we awoke around 7:30 a.m. and got packed up for the 30-minute trek to Starkville. We packed a satellite dish, television, receiver, coolers, chairs and tables to set up our own tailgate in the parking lot on campus so that we could watch GameDay, Auburn-Arkansas and LSU-Florida following the West Virginia game. Before we got things going at the tailgate, we meandered over to Chris Wade Depot and bought our MSU souvenirs in the new bookstore across the street from the stadium. Among those souvenirs were stickers to decorate our cowbells, a must-have for any Miss. State traveler.

While we were sitting around and watching the various programming that morning, several West Virginia fans stopped by and marveled at the portable satellite dish. Apparently, rabbit ear antennas are still the epitome of technological advances up in Morgantown. My dad was thrilled around noon thanks to our West Virginia friend Steve, who gave him a WVU car flag. My dad has an obsession with flags, and this excited him to no end. Among others to stop by was a nice lady who graduated from Auburn and happened to be married to a WVU alum. There was also a random University of West Alabama hat sighting before we packed things up and went into the stadium.



After the game, which there really isn’t much more to report on, my old friend Tyler Huerkamp and his new significant other Sarah McCarty stopped by for a few minutes during the fourth quarter of LSU-Florida. It was great catching up with Tyler, and I must say that he’s done very well for himself with Sarah. We packed things up and returned to my parents’ home, where my mom’s steaks awaited our arrival.

Andrew and Taylor left the house on Sunday around 12:30 p.m. after taking in a little bit of the NFL Sunday Ticket in hi-definition on my dad’s new TV. Andrew was very impressed with the quality of the picture. I spent the rest of Sunday napping and watching football with my parents before retiring. Thanks to Columbus Day, I made my way back to Tupelo on Monday in order to get charged up for the next trip in four days.

A few odds, ends and notes from the trip:

Favorite quote: “WRAP UP AND TACKLE SOMEBODY, DADGUMMIT!” – Idiot visor fan sitting next to me in the stands who cheered for every negative State play throughout the afternoon. Apparently, his favorite word is “dadgummit.”

Most Random Moment Award: When we went to dinner in Starkville on Friday night, a guy in front of us in line was wearing cowboy boots with spurs. That’s right, spurs. You can’t make this kind of stuff up. We figure he came straight from his calf-roping and has a nickname like “Spurs.”

Mitch Sighting: There really wasn’t a true Mitch this trip, but heavy consideration was given to Spurs and Visor Idiot sitting next to me. One other candidate would jump up and start doing provocative dances whenever State would do something correct. We’re talking even first downs.

A special thank you to the greatest parents anyone could ever ask for after putting up with us this past weekend. I couldn’t think of any better place to spend a three-day weekend or with better people.

We’ll see if the home team can get back on track this weekend down in Baton Rouge when LSU takes on Kentucky.

A31 – South Carolina 15, Miss. State 0
S2 – Southern Cal 50, Arkansas 14
S9 – Georgia 18, South Carolina 0
S16 – Kentucky 31, Ole Miss 14
S23 – Georgia 14, Colorado 13
S30 – Florida 28, Alabama 13
O7 – West Virginia 42, Miss. State 14
O14 – Kentucky @ LSU
O21 – Alabama @ Tennessee
O28 – Georgia vs. Florida (Jacksonville)
N4 – Florida @ Vanderbilt
N11 – Georgia @ Auburn
N18 – Auburn @ Alabama
N24 – LSU @ Arkansas (Little Rock)
N25 – Miss. State @ Ole Miss
D2 – SEC Championship Game (Atlanta)

Saturday, September 30, 2006

Florida 28, Alabama 13
Florida Field at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium – Gainesville, Fla.
TV: CBS Sports – Attendance: 90,671

Official Trip Song: "Thank You" by Sister Hazel

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – A group of hot ladies named Emily, Sarah and
Jennifer were awaiting our arrival Friday night at the Ale House
in Gainesville as the Tour de SEC made its stop in the
Swamplands to witness the Red Elephants of Alabama take on the
Swamp Lizards from Florida. The Gators overcame a handful of
first half blunders and a 10-0 deficit with solid play on both
offense and defense in the third and fourth quarters to capture
a 28-13 victory over Alabama Saturday in Ben Hill Griffin
Stadium.



This trip was full of worthy shout outs, and I’ll save those for
later. I don’t intend to leave anyone out. Back to the story…

Paul Crane, one of our Auburn buddies, was supposed to make the
trip with us to Gainesville, but due to traveling mishaps on
both our parts, he was unable to do so. We left Birmingham
around 2 p.m. CST after a quick bite at Milo’s and were on 280
en route to Auburn. After stopping for gas at Exxon off Glenn
Ave. and checking in with John Hines, we continued southeast on
our trek towards the Sunshine State.

We pulled into Gainesville close to 9:45 p.m. EST and exited I-
75 on Archer Road en route to the Ale House. This was one of my
favorite places in town during my one-year sabbatical at the
University of Florida, and I consider it a must-stop for any
visitor. A dinner of zingers and fries awaited us at the table
as well as several friends I hadn’t seen since June. John Hines,
Zack Higbee, Emily Hedges, Cory and Sarah Hoodjer as well as
Jennifer Wagner greeted us with smiles and stories as we
continued to play catch-up with one another.

Tim Caruthers, Lisa Johnson, Jon Rubin, or Jonnoj to former UF
intern Christa McElyea and me, in addition to current Florida
sports information intern Cory Walton also made appearances
before I took Andrew to Natalie Gonzalez’ home – our host for
the weekend. I returned to the Ale House and had a few more
laughs with the group before people began leaving one-by-one.
Around 12:30, the only ones remaining were UF beat writers Dave
Curtis and Andy Staples, Bama beat writer Ian Rappaport, Miss
Hedges and Billy Donovan’s favorite hometown author Kevin
Brockway of the Gainesville Sun. We devoured through some
appetizers and tales of times gone by before I plopped down on
the couch at Natalie’s for the night around 2:30 a.m.

I awoke around 10 a.m. and called Josh Jackson and Katie Hughes,
our Auburn guests who had agreed to make the journey from Tampa
to attend the ball game just to aggravate the Bama faithful in
attendance. Josh made his transition from Auburn fan to “Joe
Trashy Gator” once they arrived in town around 11:15 a.m. We
exited stage right and made our way onto campus to tailgate with
Emily, the Hoodjers and Mike Vietti, UF volleyball SID. We
parked across 2nd Ave. from the UF Law School and the Ring
Tennis Complex for $20. I really miss having a parking pass to
set up shop just outside the North End Zone at the stadium, but
alas, I digress. We were asked not to trample on the flowers in
the person’s back yard where we parked because “my mom will kill
me,” he insisted.

After meandering through the parking lot behind the Law School,
we found Vietti’s bright red Trans Am marking the spot for our
tailgate. I caught up with Mike, who attempted to guide me
through the basics of track and field last year at Florida, and
Josh made friends with the Bull Gator shuttle bus driver. We
passed a tailgate on the way where a couple of guys were playing
horseshoes, and Josh yelled at the one dressed in Alabama
gear “Don’t miss wide right!” Laughter erupted from the UF fans
before they offered us food. Josh and Andrew returned to the
tailgate a little later before coming back and declaring it
the “worst tailgate ever.”

We made our way towards the stadium and ran into the Million
Dollar Band from Alabama as they were walking down Stadium
Drive. Of course, we had to interact with band members and
Alabama fans alike as we moved closer towards Ben Hill Griffin.
After taking a few pictures and waiting outside the Gator Sports
Shop in the North End Zone for a little while, I separated from
Josh, Katie and Andrew to go up to the press box to say hello to
everyone from the sports info crew as well as a few writers.



I stayed up on press level for about an hour catching up with
old co-workers and media members alike before returning
downstairs to my crew, who were anxious to enter the stadium.
With all the new signage in the stadium put in for the 100 Years
of Florida Football celebration, it was pretty neat to see some
of the hard work that I had put in for the last couple of months
of my internship come to fruition. There were so many
improvements on the atmosphere from last season to this,
including better game day programs and ticket stubs. I’m not
sure if all the stubs were as enormous as the ones we were given
Saturday, but it was almost like a bowl ticket and the marketing
department (kudos to Mike Hill, Martin Salamone and crew) were
genius to hand out Red Baron lanyards to all fans entering the
gates. Andrew has sworn to make his a staple in wardrobe for the
remainder of the trip.



Another thing that really impressed me was the band’s
alterations of their pre-game shows of 2005. I thought it was
really cool that they marched out of the visitor’s tunnel and
spelled out “100” on the field after the script “Gators.” The
Ring of Honor ceremony before the game, which is the sixth such
hall of fame induction festivities we’ve been able to be a part
of this season, was very cool – and I’m still a little shocked
that Steve Spurrier was once again allowed by South Carolina to
return to Gainesville, especially now that we’re five weeks into
the season. Anyway, it was pretty neat to see Danny Weurffel,
Spurrier and Jack Youngblood all address the crowd and pump them
up even more before the Gators’ intro video and running out of
the tunnel.

I, for one, am a huge fan of the throwback unis UF sported for
the game. I don’t really know of any complaints around us during
the actual game itself outside of a couple that were upset
because they didn’t have the players’ names on the back. I’m not
a fan of how they pack fans into the seats like sardines, but
our view of the field can only be topped by our seats at Georgia
last weekend – but these didn’t cost a penny for anyone involved
as opposed to the c-notes that Charlie Mac has to drop every
season in Athens.



Alabama came out fired up, but the Gator defense finally started
to get to John Parker Wilson in the second half and cause him to
make mistakes that are expected for a quarterback making his
second start on the road. I don’t think that Alabama will get
blown out by anyone this year, but I also know that they’re not
going to get defensive touchdowns in every game while their
offense has been relatively constant against SEC competition
since Prothro’s injury in 2005.

Without Marcus Thomas, the Gator defense seemed to have trouble
getting constant pressure on the porous offensive line of
Alabama and also had a problem with wrapping up on their tackle
assignments. To get to where Florida wants to be in December,
with or without Thomas, they have to improve on some
fundamentals. Jarvis Moss is much better than last season, and
the combo of Brandon Siler and Earl Everett at linebacker could
be one of the SEC’s most legendary tandems at year’s end. After
breaking off a 44-yard run in the second quarter, Chris Leak
finally settled back into his role as a leader of the offensive
unit and had pretty much a perfect game from there on out.

I’m happy to see Jemalle Cornelius finally starting to get a
little more love from Leak and Tim Tebow. J.C. had some great
separation from Bama’s physical defensive backs, and he made
them pay with three huge catches to get the Gator offense within
striking distance. Josh made one of the most accurate statements
that I’ve heard yet about Tebow, and his bad throw where
Cornelius bailed him out with a tremendous catch further
validates his thoughts: “They love him now but they will hate
him next year when he starts making all his mistakes.” Tebow can
run, probably better than anyone else on the Gator roster. He
still hasn’t learned not to float the ball and will really show
his worth when defenses contain him to passing next season.
However, until then…

Dallas Baker’s touchdown catch in the fourth quarter was
incredible. Now, I’ve never been the biggest Dallas Baker fan,
but he has really grown into a leadership role this season. He
had the potential last year to do the same thing but never
really took that next step until the Outback Bowl. I think that
a healthy Andre Caldwell has a little to do with this, but I
don’t want to shortchange Dallas one bit – he’s a true playmaker
and one of the nation’s top wide receivers this season.



After the game, we took some more pictures and caught back up
with Josh and Katie before leaving the stadium en route to
dinner. Along the way, we interacted with Bama fans – some were
cordial, but most were not so happy.



After finding out that The Swamp had a $5 cover, I made the
decision to change our plans and go to the Copper Monkey Pub and
Grill, my favorite restaurant in Gainesville. The burgers there are
excellent and live up to their billing as “the best in town.” After
waiting about 45 minutes, we pounced on an open table and all proceeded
to enjoy the burgers. It is very affordable, within walking
distance of the stadium and great atmosphere. You have to get
the Copper Monkey Burger – no ifs, ands or buts.



We walked back to the Sports Information Department office in
the stadium after dinner and waited for John, Zack and Co. to
wrap up their post-game duties. I went down to the Florida
coaches’ offices on the second floor and looked at some of the
new pictures they had put up since I left in June. They’ve made
a lot of improvements, and the interns in SID did a great job of
getting stuff down there to them. Once everyone finished work,
the five of us crammed (literally) into John’s Honda and rode
over to my truck, which was still parked in the guy’s back yard.
I made sure not to step on any flowers when we got there.

Andrew took Josh and Katie back to Natalie’s so that they could
get on the road and he could call Taylor. I stayed with Zack and
John and headed over to Flavet Field for a post-game tailgating
with some of the people in marketing. There, I caught up a bit
with Dennis Black, Jerry Wetzel and Jonnoj of Gatorvision fame.
Also, Mr. Salamone was making his rounds from group-to-group
politicking as usual. It was a nice way to unwind after a long
day and see some old friends.

John and I left Flavet Field and the crew congregated there to
meet up with several people at CJ’s, another Gainesville staple
hangout. It was great to be able to talk about the game with
Dawn Zinsmaster, Vietti, Walton, Hineszy, Miss Hedges and the
Hoodjers. If Andrew had been with us, we would have had another
Mitch moment, but seeing as we have to both witness these
circumstances, I will describe one of my favorite non-Florida
fans of the weekend.

We were sitting around and occasionally glancing at the big
screen which featured Ole Miss and Georgia’s dogfight in Oxford.
While I do not care very much for Ole Miss, it wasn’t a game
that I was all that interested in either, but that wasn’t the
case for our Georgia buddy standing along the railing on the
third floor balcony. Mr. Georgia Fan got a bit excited when
Georgia had its couple of highlight moments throughout the
fourth quarter, and needless to say, this isn’t a welcome sight
in Gainesville. He became belligerent with our table,
particularly Walton. Don’t worry, Cory – I would have had your
back (not that you would have needed it).

After saying my goodbyes, John dropped me off at Natalie’s and I
rested up for the drive home on Sunday. We left Natalie’s just
before 11 a.m. and went to The Swamp for lunch. We made a couple
of stops at the Gator Sports Store next to Larry’s Giant Subs on
University and at the Gator Sports Shop in the North End Zone of
the stadium before exiting onto I-75 North to make the long
journey home.

We made one more pitstop on the drive in Auburn, where we met
Paul and Andy Shores for dinner at The King on College Street –
a frequent hangout for us when we were all in school together.
Smack talk was swapped and stories were told before returning to
the trip back to Birmingham.

A few odds, ends and notes from the trip:

Favorite quote: “Cheating will not be rewarded! Cheating will
not be rewarded!” – Several UF fans sitting behind us would
chant this phrase whenever Alabama would be penalized. It
cracked us up, and as soon as we heard it the first time in the
second quarter, we knew immediately what the quote would be.

Most Random Moment Award: After dinner Saturday night, we were
walking on University Ave. towards the stadium. I stopped to
take a picture of the North End Zone scoreboard from outside the
stadium. As I’m aligning my shot, an extremely intoxicated
female and her friend are walking by. The intoxicated girl
reaches up and pushes the camera back in my face. We were all
stunned. Her actions produced this exclamation from Josh: “I’ve
been drunk on a lot of campuses, but I’ve never seen anything
like that!” It gave us all a pretty good laugh, but I’m
definitely getting the camera cleaned.

Happy Birthday shout outs to Tampa Tribune beat writer and good
friend Andy Staples. Andy’s big day was Friday, and I’m happy to
say that I was there for some of the festivities at the Ale
House with him, Emily Hedges, Dave Curtis of the Orlando
Sentinel, Ian Rappaport of the Birmingham News and Ale House
stockholder Kevin Brockway of the Gainesville Sun. It was
definitely one of the best highlights in a fun-filled weekend to
hang out with you guys, and Andy – I’m glad we went with the
cheese fries instead of the chicken nachos at 1:22 a.m.

Also celebrating a birthday was my replacement, Tanner Tedeschi.
Unfortunately, Tanner had last man standing duties in the press
box and couldn’t join us after work Saturday night. I hope you
had a good one, anyway, Double T.

Mitch Sighting: Since Mitch’s first appearance in the South
Carolina blog, it has received heavy praise, so it’ll be a
standard from here out. That being said, here they are:

The first Mitch experience came in the fourth quarter of the
game. Earlier in the day, several Alabama fans that had
populated one of the boxed seats areas behind a spill well above
Section 36 remained standing much to the anger of the Florida
fans around him. He kept proclaiming that he and his friends
had “paid money for their seats and were going to do what they
damn well pleased.” Fast forward three quarters. After Florida
had taken a 28-13 lead, needless to say the group didn’t really
feel like standing up any more. When fullback LeRon McClain went
down with a knee injury, we waited for the quiet to creep
through the stands. When I knew that Mitch and Co. could hear
me, I stood up and said, “Hey, buddy! You paid good money for
those seats, why don’t you stand up now?” They heard me and
tried to drown me out, but I would not go without a fight.
Andrew and I were relatively belligerent towards them, much to
the happiness of the UF fans they had annoyed earlier in the
afternoon. They left moments later after John Parker Wilson’s
fumble inside the 10 on the same drive.

The second Mitch sighting came as we were leaving town Saturday
morning. After stopping at the Gator Sports Shop in the North
Endzone of the stadium, we left town on Lemerand Drive.
Approaching the stop light at Museum Road, a pedestrian on the
sidewalk kept looking behind him trying to gauge his speed on
the portable speed detector set up by UFPD. It was pretty
comical to see him take a step then whip his head back.

It’s back to Starkville and back home for me as we take in the
West Virginia – Miss. State contest next weekend from Scott
Field.

A31 – South Carolina 15, Miss. State 0
S2 – Southern Cal 50, Arkansas 14
S9 – Georgia 18, South Carolina 0
S16 – Kentucky 31, Ole Miss 14
S23 – Georgia 14, Colorado 13
S30 – Florida 28, Alabama 13
O7 – West Virginia @ Miss. State
O14 – Kentucky @ LSU
O21 – Alabama @ Tennessee
O28 – Georgia vs. Florida (Jacksonville)
N4 – Florida @ Vanderbilt
N11 – Georgia @ Auburn
N18 – Auburn @ Alabama
N24 – LSU @ Arkansas (Little Rock)
N25 – Miss. State @ Ole Miss
D2 – SEC Championship Game (Atlanta)

Saturday, September 23, 2006

Georgia 14, Colorado 13
Sanford Stadium – Athens, Ga.
TV: Lincoln-Financial Sports – Attendance: 92,746

Official Trip Song: “It’s the End of the World” by REM

ATHENS, Ga. – We entered Sanford Stadium Saturday expecting a Georgia blowout and left with a quarterback controversy brewing for Mark Richt’s Bulldogs as the home team made it two-straight victories on our trip with UGA’s 14-13 edging of winless Colorado. Trailing 13-0 and not getting any kind of offensive firepower under the guidance of freshman Matthew Stafford, Joe Cox came off the bench late in the third quarter and directed two Bulldog scoring drives in the waning moments of the contest to lead Georgia to the win.



The anticipation built early in the week for this trip after I found out that Colorado’s Ralphie IV would be making the trek from Boulder to Athens for the game to lead the Buffalos out onto the field. To add even more to the excitement, it was my first game in Sanford Stadium since the 2003 Auburn contest and Andrew’s first since 2001. Needless to say, it felt great to be getting back to my second-favorite battlefield in the conference.

After stopping for dinner at Zaxby’s (originally founded by a UGA grad) in Anniston, Ala., we made our way into Athens around 11:30 p.m. EST Friday evening. We stayed with an old family friend Charlie McMullen and his wife Jane, and we couldn’t have asked for better hosts. Charlie Mac’s friend Jack Davis is a renowned cartoonist in Athens, and he had gotten his 2006 UGA rendering autographed for me. After a few minutes of catching up, it was time to get in the bed since we had a very early morning awaiting us on Saturday.



Charlie Mac got us up around 6:30 a.m. so that we could join him and some of his buddies for breakfast at Mayflowers on Broad Street. The pancakes here are excellent, and it starts getting crowded for all game days (regardless of kickoff time) at 7:30 a.m. – so arrive as early as possible. We had a great time listening to some of the friends’ stories about Charlie Mac, and as I said before, the food was great as well as pretty affordable. You can leave relatively full for under $6.

We walked the breakfast off around campus as Charlie Mac gave us a historical tour. We conversed with fans as they set up their tailgates along the way, and eventually made our way to the bookstore in the student union, although I was later told that Georgia students and fans only know the structure as “Tate” and will become confused should you ask for directions to the student union. (Thanks to an old friend Caroline Domecq and her roommate Lauren Kokemar for the tip.)

After making the necessary purchases in the bookstore, we returned to Charlie Mac’s house to hang out for a little while and catch up with Mrs. Jane while watching America get demolished in the Ryder Cup. We returned to campus around 11 a.m. and went straight to Charlie Mac’s tailgate where we ate some chicken, mingled with some UGA fans and continued getting hyped up for the game. All the fans were generally discussing not “if” Georgia would win but by “how much.” Of course, I was under the same line of thinking in the moments leading up to kickoff.

Close to noon, we entered the easy access gate in the northeast corner of the stadium and meandered our way through the crowd to our seats in section 130. These were easily the best seats we’ve had on the trip as we were 43 rows up on the 45-yardline. Introductions were made to some of the fans sitting around us as kickoff neared.

It must be said that Georgia’s Red Coat band is my second-favorite in college football, and I have always enjoyed their pre-game sounds – especially the trumpet soloist in the top corner of the upper deck to lead into the UGA battle hymn. One thing that really impressed me was the battle hymn being played at a low hum on the field as a voiceover (I believe to be Vince Dooley’s) boomed from the jumbotron with several highlights of great Georgia plays, heroes and games.

Both teams made their way out of their respective locker rooms early for normal standards as Ralphie led the Buffalos to the near sideline and the Bulldogs crashed through the G sign after exiting the tunnel locked arm-in-arm (hmmm, wonder where I’ve seen this before?). It’s the first game I’ve ever seen the entire team come out before the game captains started making their way to midfield. Georgia won the toss and elected to defer, and suddenly, it was time for kickoff.

After Colorado’s first three drives, Andrew and I were fully convinced that the Dan Hawkins had snuck Kordell Stewart back under center for CU as this was a much different Colorado team than had shown up in their previous three games. Everything seemed as the Buffalos could do no wrong en route to building a 10-0 first half lead. It was though the Georgia defense had never seen a quarterback draw, tight end rollout pass or bubble screen before as Hawkins rotated among those three basic plays for the first 30 minutes. The few times which the Dawgs were able to stop the opposition, a Georgia turnover or three-and-out killed all momentum.

Stafford finally started to look human and made freshman mistakes all over the field. He couldn’t get the offense in a rhythm and the running game wasn’t helping either. Dropped passes, missed blocking assignments and silly penalties or turnovers kept UGA from getting on the scoreboard. After watching the entire game, it was though Georgia had no game plan whatsoever for this contest. Luckily for Georgia and the SEC, the offense finally woke up in the third and fourth quarters.

After Stafford couldn’t get anything going early in the third period and Colorado built their lead to 13-0 with another field goal, Richt turned to Cox, who lit up the Buffalos like someone possessed. Suddenly, Kregg Lumpkin was getting into the open field and making defenders miss and the slant passes that were drops for Stafford were being caught by Massoquai and Co. However, the Bulldogs still kept stalling in the red zone and were stopped on two fourth downs within striking distance of the Colorado endzone in the fourth quarter.

Finally, Georgia got the big play and put points on the scoreboard on a screen pass from Cox to fullback Brannan Southerland along the Colorado sideline to narrow the defecit to 13-7. Georgia responded with a fumble recovery on the 50, but the Dogs stalled in the redzone for the second time and still trailed 13-7 with precious few minutes remaining on the game clock when they got the ball back around the 40 for their final drive.

After another Southerland screen pass to the opposite side set the Dogs’ offense up in the red zone for a fourth time in the fourth quarter, Cox lofted a pass toward the goalposts on third down for tight end Martrez Milner, who pulled down the ball with 42 seconds remaining. Kicking sensation Brandon Coutou provided the winning margin with a successful extra point to ensure the UGA victory.



Andrew went down to the hedges and clipped a twig for scrap booking purposes before we exited the stadium and returned to the tailgate in order to allow traffic to die down a bit. The only negatives from Sanford Stadium are the tremendously long lines for concessions as well as the inability to leave the stadium following the game. Everyone flows to two or three exits, and when you have 92,000-plus at a game, this creates for quite a logjam. It’s almost like postgame traffic in Auburn with just a tad bit more fluidity. At the tailgate, we watched the rest of the first half of the Arkansas-Alabama game before going back to Charlie Mac’s house, where we watched the rest of the game.

After relishing Arkansas’ victory for a few moments (OK, so it lasted the rest of the night and most of yesterday), we went to dinner at Hilltop Grille, owned and operated by old friends of Charlie Mac and Mrs. Jane. Every time I go to Athens, a meal here is a must. The aforementioned cartoonist Jack Davis has a drawing of Charlie Mac from his playing days at UGA prominently displayed in the front of the restaurant as well as a large drawing on above a pair of booths in the main dining area depicting a Georgia Bulldog on top of a pile of UGA’s biggest and fiercest rival mascots. The place, as always, scores a 10 as the food, service and atmosphere are incredible. It is one of very few restaurants where I order a steak since I feel as though very few places on earth can compare to my mother’s cooking. Hilltop Grille is on Broad Street/Athens-Atlanta Highway near a Hampton Inn. It comes with the highest of recommendations.

After dinner, we returned to the house to watch Kentucky/Florida and Notre Dame/Michigan State while I waited on Caroline and Lauren to pick me up for a night out in Athens. We went to Allgood’s and sat there for a couple of rounds as several of their friends came by and visited. Due to the early morning breakfast, I was pretty beat and ready to go back home and catch some Zzzz’s.



Sunday, we visited a little bit longer with the McMullens before going back to Broad Street for lunch. We returned to the Broad Street Bar & Grill (also known as Between the Hedges) after UGA alum Tanner Tedeschi’s suggestion of Achim’s K-Bob sandwich shop was not yet open. We had eaten at Between the Hedges earlier this summer, so we knew that it was going to be pretty good. Our waitress, Sabrina, greeted us with a smile and offered suggestions on the menu without being asked once we sat down. Andrew ordered the cheese steak sandwich while I had the meatball sandwich, both to be described as very tasty. I would give Between the Hedges an 8 and highly recommend a side order of fries to accompany your meal.



Finally, it was time to embark on our return journey to Birmingham to recharge the batteries for the next excursion.

A few odds, ends and notes from the trip:

Favorite quote: “THAT…WAS THE GREATEST…GAME I HAVE EVER…BEEN TO!” – Georgia fan who sat a few seats down from us on the phone after the game clock hit all zeros. His outward appearance had “Serial Killer” written all over him.

Favorite moment: After the game, we made our way back to the tailgate and were watching the Arkansas-Alabama game on CBS with some other fans around. One guy was decked out in Bama garb, and he apparently had a couple of followers in his corner. After a sack of John Parker Wilson, Andrew and I called the hogs to support Arkansas and our hatred for their opponent. This didn’t sit well with the Bama fans in attendance. After JPW threw the 78-yard touchdown pass to DJ Hall, Mr. Visor (we had already found a Mitch earlier in the crowd) turned back and said, “You know what’s funny? You’re an Arkansas fan. That’s funny. No, it is.” I only wish that we could have been around Mr. Visor in the second half.

A runner-up moment was when we were told to leave by a girl we affectionately referred to as “Red” sitting next to Andrew after she found out that the home teams had lost all but one game on our trip so far. Her and her friend “Black” were fascinated by our trip up until that moment in the fourth quarter.

Mitch Sighting: We had a couple of guys who could have fit the “Mitch” mold Saturday. After first entering the stadium and purchasing our souvenir cup drinks, I hear in passing by a guy who is being held up by two of his buddies, “It’s 12 in the afternoon, and I’m already drunk!”

The second, and my personal favorite fan in the stands around us, was wearing black suit pants that barely covered the top of his navy blue socks and black penny loafers. He had a trucker hat, or a “hat with the air conditioner in the back” as Christa McElyea would say, from the early 1980s and dark blue sunglasses. As the crowd would get quiet to give the offense the ability to hear the quarterback’s cadence, he would get louder screaming such gems as “THERE ARE SEVEN OF YOU AND FOUR OF THEM! BLOCK THE HELL OUT OF THEM!” You gotta love fans like him.



Note to Andy Staples and Dave Curtis, Florida beat writers: “Tip Drill” by Nelly barely missed the cut for Official Trip Song since it was Athens, but we had to go with something by an Athens native instead.

Georgia has regressed since seeing them in Columbia two weeks earlier. Yes, their defense is quick but Colorado exploited them. There are a lot of things for them to work on before Tennessee, but it will be interesting to see what kind of team shows up when we next see them in Jacksonville at the end of October.

And finally…one last thank you to Charlie and Jane McMullen for the tremendous hospitality. Also, I’d like to extend a huge thanks to Caroline and Lauren for the night out on the town and Tanner for all your restaurant suggestions. Unfortunately, we ran out of time and meals for all of them.

It’s time for some Gator Chompin’ in the Swamp as we visit Gainesville next weekend for the Alabama game.

A31 – South Carolina 15, Miss. State 0
S2 – Southern Cal 50, Arkansas 14
S9 – Georgia 18, South Carolina 0
S16 – Kentucky 31, Ole Miss 14
S23 – Georgia 14, Colorado 13
S30 – Alabama @ Florida
O7 – West Virginia @ Miss. State
O14 – Kentucky @ LSU
O21 – Alabama @ Tennessee
O28 – Georgia vs. Florida (Jacksonville)
N4 – Florida @ Vanderbilt
N11 – Georgia @ Auburn
N18 – Auburn @ Alabama
N24 – LSU @ Arkansas (Little Rock)
N25 – Miss. State @ Ole Miss
D2 – SEC Championship Game (Atlanta)

Saturday, September 16, 2006

Kentucky 31, Ole Miss 14
Commonwealth Stadium – Lexington, Ky.
TV: PPV ESPN Gameplan – Attendance: 60,338

Official Trip Song: “Remember the Name” by Fort Minor

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Well the first-ever trip to Lexington for the two of us ended in a great time and another bad football game. I don’t want to take anything away from Kentucky because this was a win that most of their fans described as a “must,” and Rich Brooks delivered with a bang.



A solid mix of play-action passes downfield from Andre Woodson in the first half to Dicky “Nittany” Lyons as well as sprints and draws from the electric Rafael Little were too much for the young Ole Miss defense. A home team finally escaped with a victory, this one coming in a 31-14 fashion for the ‘Cats in front of 60,338 at Commonwealth Stadium.

Before going too much farther into the journal, I have to do a couple of things first. I would like to apologize to all the great fans on CatsPause.com for not stopping by the Tailgating Extravaganza set up on the corner of Alumni and College Drives. The people on the message boards were very gracious to extend an invite to us, but we just ran out of time watching the Auburn-LSU first half with an old friend of mine from Auburn.

Next, everywhere you turned on campus and at seemingly every tailgate, the UK faithful were involved in games of bean-bag tossing. While we were heading on our circle of the stadium, I got ahold of the aforementioned friend, Scott Dean, and asked him for an explanation – which was a mission given to me by Andy Staples back in early spring when I started telling people about this trip. The game is called Cornhole, and it originated on the streets of Cincinnati earlier last century. The object of the game is to earn more points than the opposing team after four tosses of the bean bags. If you sink a bag into the hole at the other end, you earn five points and landing a bag on the board itself garners a single point. At the end of both teams’ four throws, the net point total is awarded to the team with the most bags in the hole and/or on the board. First team to 21 wins.

I took part in a series of Cornhole at our tailgate and was successful in sinking two bags into the hole and giving Aunt Terry and myself 10 points. However, my other two tosses went wide left keeping us from erasing more of the 13-1 deficit Aunt Tracy and her partner were handed in the early goings. After my attempt just to say that I have played the game, I entered the stadium gates.

Now, on with the story…

After meeting up in Birmingham, I jumped in Andrew’s car with him and Taylor, his significant other who had flown in from Houston to make the journey with us. We stopped in Shadyville, Ala., off I-65 for a healthy meal consisting of soft tacos and taco pizza from Taco Bell and stopped to fill up the tank with gas at Shadyville’s one-stop gas station – Movie Gallery – grocery – hair care – tire center before resuming our trek. After a couple more stops in Tennessee and Kentucky, we made it to Lexington and checked into the Baymont Inn around 3:30 a.m. EST.

I awoke to GameDay Saturday a.m. on ESPN and watched the story on John Vaughn, Auburn’s maligned place kicker, before jumping in the shower. We left the hotel and meandered through Lexington to Ramsey’s off High Street for lunch. Here, Andrew took the advice of countless UK fans on CatsPause.com and ordered the Hot Brown, while I stuck to a more reasonable meal of Southern fried catfish and Taylor enjoyed the turkey Reuben sandwich. The only way to best describe Andrew’s dish without pictorial evidence is “cheesy McCheesy cheesiness.” It was basically a plate of nachos with Texas toast, ham, turkey, white gravy and tomatoes instead of tortilla chips. To top it off, three strips of bacon are placed over the mountainous layer of cheese. Basically, it was a heart attack on a plate. It is highly recommended by Andrew, however.



The service was so-so (but to be fair, the restaurant was extremely crowded for its small quarters) and the food was excellent. On a 10-point scale, I easily award it a seven. The tradition seeps out of the walls, and the crowd size tells me that it’s definitely a Kentucky favorite.

We scooted down High Street and made our way to the Lexington Civic Center attached to Rupp Arena for a tour of the UK Basketball Museum. It is well-worth the $5 admission charge and is a must for any Kentucky basketball fan or admirer. I was a bit disappointed that we couldn’t tour Rupp on the weekends, however.

Next, we drove around campus admiring the scenery and the buildings (especially the blue Arby’s and blue McDonalds) en route to the UK Student Center. There, we purchased souvenirs at the bookstore before walking down the street to Kennedy’s Bookstore. Afterwards, we parked behind the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints on Alumni and walked towards the stadium. A word to the wise: it’s free parking and just a couple of extra blocks past all the pay parking sites.

We met up with Scott Dean and crew after walking around the stadium, who was sporting a throw-back LSU jersey in support of his alma mater. After suffering through the final minutes of the Arkansas-Vanderbilt game on one of the televisions set up at the tailgate (it was on the same affiliate as CBS), we joined the Auburn-LSU game in the middle of the first quarter in time to see the Auburn offense do absolutely nothing. This was pretty much our tailgating experience until halftime when Andrew took Taylor back to the car so she could return to the hotel, and I tried my luck in Cornhole before entering the stadium.



We sat in the opponents’ corner of the end zone just a couple of rows behind the Ole Miss prep band. Anyone who knows me also takes on the understanding that I think very little of Ole Miss, but the seats were great. It was hard to fully enjoy the atmosphere without most of my thoughts and concerns being on the Plains as Auburn was winning a battle of epic proportions at Jordan-Hare Stadium. After the Star-Spangled Banner and the singing of My Old Kentucky Home, I noticed a luxury box above had the Auburn-LSU game on TV so I paid more attention to the TV upstairs than the game being played on the field.



Once our luxury box friends changed channels to the UK game on the in-house feed, I attempted to reach my parents on my cell phone. After countless tries, I got through in time to listen to LSU’s final drive. Once my mom screamed that Auburn had won, I felt much better and celebrated with Andrew. The Wildcats had also just extended their lead to 14-7 after a fade route worked to perfection from Woodson to Nittany Lyons at our corner. The Rebels added a score of their own on the ensuing possession to knot the score at 14-14. However, UK put another drive together near the end of the second quarter to secure the lead for good at 21-14.

A quick turnover forced by the opportunistic Wildcat defense gave the Big Blue excellent field position with precious seconds remaining until the buzzer. Woodson hit Lyons on a perfect pass inside the 20 to set up a field goal, but Ole Miss came up with a momentum-changing block as time expired to send the teams to the locker rooms with the home team up by a score.

Turnovers and penalties halted drives from both teams in the third quarter, and Kentucky finally cashed in on another fade route to our corner of the field, this time to tight end Mike Strickland, which set up a 2-yard score from Tony Dixon to put the game out of reach for the visitors. The Kentucky offense cashed in on another Ole Miss turnover, its fifth of the night, with a field goal to provide the final margin of 31-14.



Ole Miss’ offense seems to thrive on the big play (both of their touchdowns came courtesy of busted defensive assignments that led to huge gains en route to their scores) but can’t handle the pressure of being inside the red zone. Yea, you can gain 400 yards on a young Kentucky defense, but it should have netted you more points than 14 – on a young Kentucky defense. Some Ole Miss fans will point to missed calls and poor officiating as part of their defense (a touchdown in the third quarter was called back thanks to an ineligible receiver downfield penalty, which just so happened to come at the expense of tight end Robert Lane) that would have tied the game at 21-21. However, in a game that was seemingly a must-win for both sides for their respective bowl hopes, the Rebels fell far short on the coaching, offensive and defensive sides of the game.

Kentucky is a much-improved program from the last time I saw them in person in November 2004. Rich Brooks does have the program headed in the right direction if the improvement between the 2004 and 2006 teams is of any indication. However, it was against a much weaker opponent Saturday than the last time I saw them (Auburn’s undefeated team). At the same time, a 6-6 record isn’t out of reach after securing this statement victory.

Woodson leads a very talented offensive backfield with Dixon and Little to take carries and keep opposing defenders off guard. The defense is very much a bend-but-don’t-break corps that flies to the ball carrier or receiver but also holds a penchant for over-pursuits as well as creating turnovers. They’ll scare someone this year but will have to beat Vanderbilit, Miss. State, Central Michigan and Louisiana-Monroe in order to punch a ticket to Shreveport, La., and save Brooks’ job…again.

The public address announcer at Commonwealth Stadium is one of the best I’ve ever heard. The sound system was also leaps and bounds above South Carolina’s last weekend. The music selection by the UK marketing department also received major props from us as they had several key tunes including “Billie Jean” by Michael Jackson, “Jump Around” by House of Pain, “Thunderstruck” by AC/DC and “Tricky” by the legendary group Run DMC.

One thing that really bugged the two of us was UK’s fan support in the waning moments of the game. After going up 28-14, a lot of Kentucky fans took the Rebels’ supporters’ cue and started filling out of the stadium instead of sticking around to congratulate their team following the game. I know that not all Kentucky fans left, but there definitely should have been a lot more people in the stands when the final buzzer sounded and the team exited stage right. To me, this is inexcusable – especially for a program that is starved of wins right now. I mean, come on…it’s the first victory in an SEC opener for the Wildcats since the late 1980s.

Overall, it was an enjoyable trip, and I look forward to a return to Lexington…for hoops at a date to be determined in the future.

A few odds, ends and notes from the trip:

Favorite quote: We have a tie this week.
“You stay classy, Commonwealth.” – After reading through the first half stats, the PA announcer at Commonwealth Stadium ended his time on the mic with this classic phrase made famous by one Ron Burgundy.

“Why do they keep calling penalties on us? Because they don’t want us to win.” – This came courtesy of an elderly Ole Miss couple sitting directly behind us in the stands. In case you can’t tell, they’re discussing the game’s officials.

Also, we made another couple of “Mitch” sightings. You remember Mitch from the USC-UGA game blog? The first occurred during the drive to Lexington Friday night. We were cruising along in the HOV lane outside Nashville, and a car came flying up behind us. We moved over to the right-side lane to pass another car in the HOV lane, apparently cutting off Mitch and his crew. After flashing his brights behind us, he moved past us and stared us down. Now, Mitch couldn’t have been older than 18 or 19 and had several teenage females in the car with him. Andrew and I both decided (against the wishes of Taylor in the backseat) that we should definitely pay them back by scaring the crap out of the passengers in the car. We weaved through three lanes of traffic and planted ourselves right behind Mitch and flashed our brights a few times, causing Mitch to panic and leave the interstate in search of safety.

The second Mitch sighting happened to be an Ole Miss fan in our section at the game. Mitch apparently had a hard time keeping his pants above his waist as Ole Miss’ final score caused him to jump in excitement and almost mooning Andrew (I had, thankfully, made a restroom break before the halftime rush and missed this). When Mitch left with the majority of the Ole Miss fans after their fifth turnover early in the fourth quarter, we thought it would be the last we would see of him. However, we were proven wrong not even 24 hours later at the Nashville airport (which mysteriously has the code of BNA) when we were dropping off Taylor for her flight back to Houston. As we rounded a corner, here comes Mitch with his Ole Miss hat on and all. It made the two of us laugh heartily as we explained the story to Taylor.

We had originally picked out “My Old Kentucky Home” as our official trip song. However, the only version I could find online was by Johnny Cash and we decided against using his version as the trip song. We settled on Fort Minor’s “Remember the Name” thanks to UK’s team intro video on the jumbotrons.

Speaking of songs: For the first time since the early 1990s, we heard “Achy Breaky Heart” by Billy Ray Cyrus on Sirius during the drive to Lexington Friday night. We had to take a picture of the radio receiver displaying the song title and artist to forever capture this historic moment.



I have to give major props to Urban Meyer, Chris Leak and the Gator defense – and eat a small portion of crow. I did not think that UF could go into Tennessee with Chris Leak and win a game like they did Saturday night. Not only did they win, but for the first time under Meyer, came back from a 10-point deficit on the road on the shoulders of Leak. The play call for Dallas Baker’s winning touchdown catch was the best of Urban’s coaching career as far as I’m concerned. So much the 8-4 forecast I had originally given the Gators. I’m leaning more towards 9-3 or 10-2.

Shifting gears, we’ve got Georgia on our minds as we travel to Athens for a weekend of football, carousing and fellowship for the Colorado game.

A31 – South Carolina 15, Miss. State 0
S2 – Southern Cal 50, Arkansas 14
S9 – Georgia 18, South Carolina 0
S16 – Kentucky 31, Ole Miss 14
S23 – Colorado @ Georgia
S30 – Alabama @ Florida
O7 – West Virginia @ Miss. State
O14 – Kentucky @ LSU
O21 – Alabama @ Tennessee
O28 – Georgia vs. Florida (Jacksonville)
N4 – Florida @ Vanderbilt
N11 – Georgia @ Auburn
N18 – Auburn @ Alabama
N24 – LSU @ Arkansas (Little Rock)
N25 – Miss. State @ Ole Miss
D2 – SEC Championship Game (Atlanta)

Saturday, September 9, 2006

Georgia 18, South Carolina 0
Williams-Brice Stadium – Columbia, S.C.
TV: ESPN – Attendance: 82,513

Official Trip Song: “Carolina in My Mind” by James Taylor

COLUMBIA, S.C. – First off, we’ll get the negatives out of the way. I had never met a Georgia fan that I didn’t like, respect or generally get along with until Saturday night. In Columbia, S.C., I met hundreds of them. Unfortunately, we were sitting with the unknowledgeable group, and it showed. More on that later.



I retract anything good I said about South Carolina in the preseason. I overestimated Spurrier’s ability to turn around programs in his second year, and Carolina obviously needed more than confidence to carry over from last season. Through both games we’ve seen them play, their offense has been atrocious in the red zone. If you think that it’s been bad on TV, you can rest assured that it is 10 times worse in person.

The sound system in Williams-Brice is terrible. I only understood maybe five words the public address announcer said all night. The four speakers that they have set up in the end just isn’t getting it done. Other than that, it’s a beautiful stadium – especially considering the rest of their facilities besides the Colonial Center.

With that being said, here’s our trip review. I was sorely disappointed in the fans on South Carolina’s Rivals site since they offered us little-to-no help on ideas for things to do in Columbia. However, my good friend Doug Adams came to the rescue and provided to be a very useful tour guide. Thanks to Doug, we were able to see a lot of campus, meet some people to tailgate with and not have to pay for parking.

We arrived in Columbia around 1:45 a.m. EST. We stayed at a LaQuinta Inn off I-20 on Horseshoe Blvd. Apparently, in Columbia, “LaQuinta” translates to “halls that smell like alcohol and broken air conditioners in every room.” It’s a good thing that the national marketing campaign is “LaQuinta is Spanish for free high-speed Internet.” However, it was a hotel that we could get a two-night stay for an affordable price, so I move on.

Saturday morning, we met up with Dougie Fresh outside Addams’ Bookstore on Assembly Dr. It’s the e-Follet store, a company which holds a special place in Andrew’s heart (he was a book-buyer one summer with a family friend in Arkansas). After making a couple of quick purchases, we moseyed over to the South Carolina Bookstore off Greene, where I found a car flag for my dad and Andrew a t-shirt to wear to the game.

We ate lunch at Yesterday’s in Five Points, and the food was fantastic. It delivered an 8 on a 10-point scale. The atmosphere was pretty good, and the prices on everything were relatively affordable. All three of us ordered chicken-based meals, thanks to the recommendations of our waitress, Lauren. Following this was a walking tour of Columbia and the sites around campus.



(On a side note: a majority of the USC female population decided to dress up for the game Saturday night, and it was a brilliant move, in my opinion. There were amazing-looking girls everywhere we turned. Back to the story…)

A quick stop in the Colonial Center to acquire schedule posters followed before we decided to make our way over to the stadium. Doug led us to USC’s athletic administration building, where we parked and jumped in the car with him since he had a media pass down in the Fairgrounds. More eye-candy dotted our short drive through massive traffic.

ESPN had their Gridiron Fan Fare set up in the north end of the Fairgrounds, and we hung around in it for a little while. Doug’s friend Harry and a couple of his counterparts were there and invited us to tailgate with them for the rest of the afternoon. After a mishap with opening my Dr. Pepper bottle left Doug with a spotted new white Under Armour shirt, we made a quick exit to the ESPN area and over to Harry’s set-up.



At the tailgate, we mingled with fans of both USC and UGA while continuously watching the television set up to keep up with scores of other games. After a couple of hours, we made a circle around the stadium and checked out the Cockaboose on the other side of Williams-Brice. It seemed as though the tickets for this game were extremely difficult to come by as demand far exceeded supply outside the gates. I didn’t see a single scalper with tickets to sell, just people looking. The atmosphere outside the stadium was terrific, and most USC fans seemed to be quite knowledgeable of the game and their team’s chances.



We were part of history when we entered the gates about an hour and a half prior to kickoff. It was the first night in which USC officials were scanning barcodes on the ticket stubs. Everything went off without a hitch, and we made our way to the seats. We made a stop at the concession stands, and I was disappointed to figure out that they haven’t distributed new 2006 souvenir cups since mine still had the 2005 schedule on it. Anyway, I digress.

As the UGA fans started filling the section, the more annoying people were around us. I know that every school has their share, but come on…We had a guy sitting in front of us who knew just enough about football to really make you mad. One of his greatest quotes of the night came during one of the first TV timeouts in the first quarter. I kid you not, his exact wording was, “Wow, they’ve been huddling for a long time. This sure is a long huddle. I smell a touchdown.” I can’t make this stuff up.

I was impressed by USC’s opportunistic defense, and they did a great job of holding UGA to one touchdown and three field goals despite having to play a ton of minutes. I really didn’t think that Blake Mitchell was going to regress this much under Spurrier, but he doesn’t seem to have the game management skills that he showed following sitting out the Auburn game last season with an injury. However, he did go up against one of the top defensive units in the conference, and there wasn’t much of a running game to bail him out.



Georgia was somewhat forced into a tough spot when Joe T. went down in the first quarter. I’m sure that Mark Richt expected to put Matthew Stafford into the game at some point, hopefully in mop-up duty if I had to guess, but wasn’t really keen on the idea of having to play him practically the entire game. For what he was asked to do, Stafford did a commendable job. He made some good reads and some bad reads, but he has to work on his deep ball. Only one of his interceptions could have hurt the Dogs if the defense hadn’t have been up for the challenge of Spurrier’s anemic offense. However, UGA quickly converted that into a safety and returned the ball into its possession.



Following the game, we made our way back to the truck but not without a story. One guy, we’ll name him Mitch, was engaged in a meaningful conversation with a truck full of passersby in heavy traffic outside the Fairgrounds. After being yelled at by a state trooper directing traffic, the guy stumbled over to the sidewalk on the right-hand side of the road directly in front of us. Apparently in his intoxicated state, he decided to direct traffic or hail a cab to every car passing by, sometimes stepping out into the road in oncoming traffic.

We lost sight of Mitch after he dropped his Blackberry, which splintered into several pieces. Luckily for us, however, after crossing the street Andrew found Mitch leaning forward, almost to the point of toppling over, as he tried to reassemble his Blackberry. Sadly, Mitch’s buddies left him in the dust as they continued their trek to their destination without Mitch.

Through very little traffic, we meandered back to Five Points and had a post-game pizza at the Village Idiot. We were able to get a parking spot right outside the bar, and the food was excellent. The music was a little too loud, but it was essentially a bar and had a handful of ladies dancing away their misery from the game in front of the bar. The Idiot is a must for any Columbia visitor as it offers great food, great prices, a wide variety at the bar and an even better atmosphere.

On Sunday morning, we left our beloved hotel room and grabbed a bite to eat at my personal favorite, Delaney’s down in Five Points. I suggest the cheese fries appetizer since they are easily the best cheese fries on the planet. The burgers, as always, were great, and we were the only ones in the room since the bar had just opened at 11 a.m.



A few odds, ends and notes from the trip:

Favorite quote: “Mmmmmm…That’s some good clock!” – Moronic Georgia fan sitting in front of us as the minutes wound down on the scoreboard in the fourth quarter. A little more background: he had turned to his brethren and stated, “Eat that clock, yum yum, clock sure tastes good.” I kid you not.

Favorite thought: “Yea, they’ve figured out how to beat Spurrier finally. But they still don’t know how to get Florida.”

On deck: our first-ever trip to Lexington.

A31 – South Carolina 15, Miss. State 0
S2 – Southern Cal 50, Arkansas 14
S9 – Georgia 18, South Carolina 0
S16 – Ole Miss @ Kentucky
S23 – Colorado @ Georgia
S30 – Alabama @ Florida
O7 – West Virginia @ Miss. State
O14 – Kentucky @ LSU
O21 – Alabama @ Tennessee
O28 – Georgia vs. Florida (Jacksonville)
N4 – Florida @ Vanderbilt
N11 – Georgia @ Auburn
N18 – Auburn @ Alabama
N24 – LSU @ Arkansas (Little Rock)
N25 – Miss. State @ Ole Miss
D2 – SEC Championship Game (Atlanta)

Saturday, September 2, 2006

Southern Cal 50, Arkansas 14
Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium – Fayetteville, Ark.
TV: ESPN – Attendance: 76,564

Official Trip Song: “Ridin’ Dirty” by Chamillionaire

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Game two on the trip featured an Arkansas team looking to mesh newcomers on offense with a new offensive system against a team from out West which manhandled the Hogs the year before by a final count of 70-17. A record-sized crowd of 76,564 was on hand to hopefully witness the biggest upset of the young season as well as the biggest win for Arkansas since 2003’s rout of Texas in Austin.



It was not meant to be as Southern Cal squeaked to a 16-7 halftime lead before exploding for 28 unanswered points in the third and fourth quarters en route to a 50-14 victory over Arkansas Saturday, ending their dominance in the home-and-home series by outscoring the Hogs 120-31. The good news for Arkansas? They played pound-for-pound and yard-for-yard with one of the top-five teams in the country for the first half. The bad news for Arkansas? Even with the new clock changes, the games are still 60 minutes and not 30.



While USC came away from the game with 50 points when the clock reached all zeros in the fourth quarter, they do not seem to be as dominant as the Men of Troy in recent seasons. Even though it can be argued that there was no need for such play-calling, John David Booty did not seem entirely comfortable looking downfield until late in the third quarter. No doubt he will get better, but he has to get better fast as Nebraska comes calling in two weeks. Play another first half like Saturday against the Huskers’ improved offense and defense and it will take a lot more than a couple of bubble screens and big runs to put the Trojans back in the game.



On the other sideline, there’s Arkansas. While we were walking around outside the stadium, we overheard a student talking to someone on the phone. He made the statement, “This is our bowl game.” While I agree that it’s true, usually bowl games bring up a lot of questions for the off-season or give a team big hopes heading into the following campaign. Arkansas doesn’t have an off-season to figure out the answers to all of its questions but only six days.

Utah State will allow the Hogs to show a ton of improvement, and it will give new starting quarterback Mitch Mustain a very smooth transition into being a first-year starter at the D-1 college level. The Hogs’ defense played heroically in the first half and just ran out of emotion and gas in the second 30 minutes. Despite the offense giving USC the ball inside the UA half of the 50 three times, they only allowed one touchdown thanks to John David Booty taking the first snap of a series from the Arkansas 3-yard-line. After curing his case of the fumbles, Felix Jones reeled off a couple of big plays in the second half to try to spark something for the Arkansas offense.

Outside the stadium, things were electric walking around campus. The students were fired up after taking their place in line extremely early Saturday morning. When we arrived on campus around 1 p.m., the line for the general admission student section reached well over 600 feet and grew by the droves as the day went along. Everywhere you turned, “Beat USC” shirts were being worn. One of the funniest shirts, proclaiming “You Can’t Spell SUCK without USC” led to a very funny story to come later on in the blog…



We arrived in Fayetteville late Saturday morning and went straight to Penguin Ed’s B&B Barbecue for lunch. It was fantastic and very affordable, easily earning a 9 on a 10-point scale from the two of us. The comfortable restaurant boasts 40 years of service in its current location as well as an addition or two from the original building structure. A unique addition to the atmosphere was the ordering system at each booth. After looking over the menus, customers call the cook with a red telephone and place their orders. The service was great, and the food was even better. Our recommendations: BBQ pork, battered fries and as much Texas Toast as you can handle.



After Penguin Ed’s, we meandered over to Dixon Street and spent some time in the Campus Bookstore. After making a few purchases (including Andrew’s officially licensed hog head hard hat), we entered the Hog Haus Brewery where Andrew enjoyed a root beer as we watched the last half of the Vanderbilt-Michigan contest. While we heard no complaints of the home brew, the in-house root beer was also very tasty and sits high on our recommendation list.

We parked at Fayetteville High School for $10, just past soccer stadium on campus off Sixth Street. (The proceeds go towards the FHS band, so you are supporting a great cause if you so choose to park here.) We made our way around the stadium to take in a little of the atmosphere as we searched for an on-campus bookstore (and programs). The rest of the afternoon was spent mainly answering phone calls about scores from other games and observing the people around campus.



Now, for the funny story: we were walking up Razorback Road after making the turn from the Arkansas Softball Stadium when we noticed a young lady wearing the “You can’t spell SUCK without USC” shirt. I immediately called my friend Josh to tell him about the shirt. As I am telling him what it said, another guy was walking past just as I proclaimed, “You can’t spell suck without USC.” He turned around and retorted with, “Yea, well you can’t spell Arkansas without 4-7.” The most stunning part of this story, besides the fact that he had nothing on linking him to the University of Southern California, was I didn’t realize that people spelled with numbers in California now. I wonder if this is going to be a national trend soon…



Anyway, I digress. After one last trip to the car with programs in hand (they don’t disperse game day programs until three hours prior to kick apparently), we were standing around in the parking lot outside the Frank Broyles Athletic Center when the Hogs walked through the crowd into the locker room. Things got loud and anticipation grew further as each player coaxed his way through the masses into the building nestled at the bottom of the hill. It was then we realized Arkansas was going to have to use the emotions of its fans at the onset. It’s too bad that the emotions ran out in the locker room at halftime.

After noting some of the odd choices of clothing on some females (i.e. cloth trash bags that come in assorted colors such as black, red and burgundy) as well as the extremely long lines that stretched throughout the parking lot for the portable restrooms, we made our way into the stadiums and to our seats. I sat down just in time for the first players to make their way onto the field, and who should lead the first group of Hogs out of the inflatable Razorback than “injured” Darren McFadden.

McFadden was bouncing around with both the first team and second team offenses in pre-game, and as more people noticed him on the field, the excitement level grew. We made friends with some of the people sitting around us as we explained the concept of our trip. Once the field was cleared and the band made its way into their opening formations, a 30-second tribute to Paul Eels, longtime voice of the Arkansas Razorbacks, played on the jumbotron. Following the longest national anthem of all time from a 15-year-old phenom and a couple of instances where we were calling the hogs, the teams ran out and it was time for kickoff.

Another exciting moment occurred with the hit of the night following Arkansas’ touchdown drive in the waning moments of the second quarter. At halftime, Arkansas continued its tribute to Eels, who was killed in a car crash late this summer returning from a fund-raising event in Fayetteville, with the band spelling out “Paul Eels” and his trademark call of “Touchdown Arkansas!” The crowd paid one last tribute to him by yelling “Touchdown Arkansas!” three times.

Following the game, we turned left out of FHS and went south on U.S. 71B to escape the traffic jam attempting to get onto I-540 off Sixth. We met up with 540 just outside of town and never really hit a logjam the entire trip back to Little Rock.

Our observations on the two teams: Southern Cal is very beatable and will not be able to run roughshod over teams this year. I would give a great chance of beating the Trojans to three, maybe four SEC teams right now. Arkansas is going to be in for a long season, and this offense is going to limit Darren McFadden’s numbers big time. Here’s to hoping they can get things together before Alabama comes calling Sept. 23.

A few odds, ends and notes from the trip:

Favorite quote: “They’re running the veer (and she’s been drinking).” – Joshua Jackson on a telephone call Friday night during our trip to Little Rock.

Favorite misconception: That Mitch Mustain would have been able to lead Arkansas to a different deficit than Robert Johnson. Johnson was plagued by dropped passes from sure-handed receivers like Peyton Hillis and Marcus Monk all night. While Mustain is going to be quite a talent, I am not sure I would have started him either and back Houston Nutt’s decision to go with the more experienced Johnson.

Number of Near Deaths on the trip: 2.25

Words of Advice: When facing dinner at a scary McDonalds somewhere in Arkansas, it’s better to sit outside than inside because, when the bullets start flying, you can run away outside as opposed to being trapped indoors. Thanks to Robert and Jennifer Boully for those considerations.



Dee’s Oil in New Albany, Miss., is the best place to get gas out of three states along the Highway 78 throughway from Birmingham to Memphis. We filled up for $2.35/gallon Friday for the start of the trip and noticed the prices had fallen to $2.29/gallon when we came back through New Albany Monday.



Next up, the Palmetto State.

A31 – South Carolina 15, Miss. State 0
S2 – Southern Cal 50, Arkansas 14
S9 – Georgia @ South Carolina
S16 – Ole Miss @ Kentucky
S23 – Colorado @ Georgia
S30 – Alabama @ Florida
O7 – West Virginia @ Miss. State
O14 – Kentucky @ LSU
O21 – Alabama @ Tennessee
O28 – Georgia vs. Florida (Jacksonville)
N4 – Florida @ Vanderbilt
N11 – Georgia @ Auburn
N18 – Auburn @ Alabama
N24 – LSU @ Arkansas (Little Rock)
N25 – Miss. State @ Ole Miss
D2 – SEC Championship Game (Atlanta)

Thursday, August 31, 2006
South Carolina 15, Mississippi State 0
Davis Wade Stadium – Starkville, Miss.
TV: ESPN – Attendance: 50,277

STARKVILLE, Miss. – And so it begins. Welcome to the 2006 season, ladies and gentlemen. We’ve gotten one game in under our belts and look forward to the second later this weekend in Fayetteville with the Woo Pig Sooies going up against Dwayne Jarret & Co.



Several things popped out at me last night in Starkville for the season opener between the Bulldogs and my preseason Eastern Division champion South Carolina Gamecocks:

- The overall gameday atmosphere in Starkville is much improved with the newly opened “Junction” in front of the stadium. The new Barnes & Noble Bookstore behind the stadium is also a very nice addition.

- We had our first major fall of the evening early on after making the way to our seats. It wasn’t on the field but of a soft drink vendor who took a huge dive trying to climb up a couple of rows of seats to get to patrons decked out in Reggie Bush jerseys. He did, however, recover to make good on two sales despite the fall.

- I was really impressed with the signage around the field. State’s done a better job of decking the stadium out since the new upper deck opened in 2001, and I really think that they’re getting closer to a pretty good facility. Crowd support, on the other hand…



- The new clock rule is going to change a lot of game plans across the country. It’s sad to know that, on a change of possession, teams may be burning up timeouts or going straight off the sidelines to spiking the ball. It eliminates an extra down, and what happens when you’ve got 80 yards to go to score and get the ball with just over 2:30 left?

On to the game analysis: I was very impressed with State’s defense. From sideline to sideline, they’re extremely quick and the secondary played above its head with playmakers like Sidney Rice and Syvelle Newton being limited to a couple of catches. The guys up front got tremendous pressure all night and played very sound, disciplined football. Also, Quentin Culberson is a beast and had about 11ty billion tackles last night.

I was also pretty impressed with the potential (in a couple of years) of Tray Rutland at quarterback. I feel bad for Michael Henig going down for weeks in the first game, but he did nothing on offense either that gives you any kind of hope for the future in his abilities. Rutland, once he gets the offense down, will be able to add an extra threat for MSU. Don’t get down on the kid because he got very limited snaps with the first unit offense in preseason. He’s got a zip on his passes, and he can make things happen with his legs. The biggest thing is that he has to learn the offense better when he’s out there calling the plays in the huddle. I don’t believe it was his wide receivers quitting on him for four plays as much as I think it’s him calling a different play in the huddle.

Neither team did anything spectacular on offense, and I think that it definitely hurt Spurrier’s attack for Georgia that he had to pull a trick play out of his bag on national TV just to get in the end zone. However, it had to be done. Just because field goals would have won the game, he had to do something to put the nail in the coffin. I admired the call and the play design, but how many points will that cost him against UGA?



I was not as admired with that play call as I was for Croom’s challenge of the touchdown. I couldn’t tell from my seats whether or not Rice had made the catch. I seriously doubt, from the opposite sideline, Croom had any better of a viewpoint. However, he stuck up for his players and made the challenge that he had to make. He knew that his defense was doing a great job of keeping the Gamecocks out of the end zone, and it was going to take that kind of effort the rest of the night for State to have a shot. The only thing is, they could not capitalize on the momentum from the field goal.

Going for it on fourth down is the right call, but the play call was atrocious. Either line up and push straight ahead for the yard or pitch the ball to the outside with the defense surging to the middle. Calling a draw was about the worst idea ever in that situation because it just took too much time to develop. With Carolina’s fast front, it’s suicide. Even worse, the play reminded me of Auburn doing the same thing in 2003 in Baton Rouge with the exact same play call near the same spot of the field with the same down-and-distance. Did Croom steal a page from Nallsminger?

All-in-all, I’m just happy to make it back to the season and to another game. I am not so confident in my pick for South Carolina to compete in the East, much less win the thing, but I’ll reserve whole judgment until next Saturday night when we see them in Columbia. As for Mississippi State, they’re going to put the offense together for one game this year and shock someone. Hopefully, it’ll be Alabama (or West Virginia in Andrew’s best-case scenario). Regardless, I can’t wait to get back to Davis Wade Stadium on Oct. 7 to ring some cowbells and eat some Lil’ Dooey’s.

On to Fayetteville, we trek…

A31 – South Carolina 15, Miss. State 0
S2 – Southern Cal @ Arkansas
S9 – Georgia @ South Carolina
S16 – Ole Miss @ Kentucky
S23 – Colorado @ Georgia
S30 – Alabama @ Florida
O7 – West Virginia @ Miss. State
O14 – Kentucky @ LSU
O21 – Alabama @ Tennessee
O28 – Georgia vs. Florida (Jacksonville)
N4 – Florida @ Vanderbilt
N11 – Georgia @ Auburn
N18 – Auburn @ Alabama
N24 – LSU @ Arkansas (Little Rock)
N25 – Miss. State @ Ole Miss
D2 – SEC Championship Game (Atlanta)

2006 SEC Western Division Predictions

Now that the East has been handled, I'll forecast the SEC West, which should
once again come down to Auburn vs. LSU on Sept. 16.

The schedule reads perfect for an Auburn surge to the top-three of the
national rankings. All but one of the traditional rivalry games occur in
Jordan-Hare Stadium, and this is the most stable the program has seemingly
ever been. Experience at the skill positions and positive figures in
leadership roles for AU could produce a shot at the national title game on
Jan. 8. The only things standing in the way from an internal standpoint are
lack of experience at wide receiver, lack of depth in the secondary and
linebacker as well as 12-straight games in 12 weeks without a break. Just
because it is too tough for anyone to go through such a schedule, look for
Auburn to drop one game against either Georgia, LSU, South Carolina or
Arkansas. In the case of playing odds, South Carolina would be the favorite
out of these four opponents since AU has dropped only four conference home
games - and six overall - since 2000.

LSU is not far behind, if only for the fact that their schedule is
completely opposite of Auburn's with road contests at Auburn, Tennessee,
Arkansas and Florida looming. Nick Saban left this program in the best shape
it's ever been, and as shown by last year's 11-2 record, anyone can guide
this program to high win totals right now, including your's truly. How hard
is it to call the slant pass to Dewayne Bowe in the end zone, which I
believe has accounted for 90 percent of LSU's scores since 2003? It's not
really an LSU game without a Bowe touchdown catch any more. LaRon Landry,
Chevis Jackson, Glenn Dorsey and Jessie Daniels makes this defense as scary
as ever, and it'll be tough for all opponents to find points, breathing room
for the running game or time for QB's to find some kind of open target.

This game means everything and is the most important contest on both team's
2006 date books, should the Orange and Blue-clad Tigers get off to a good
start with wins over Washington State and at Mississippi State. The good
news for Auburn is that LSU will come into the game untested against
Louisiana-Lafayette and Arizona. The bad news for Auburn is that LSU will
come into the game untested against Louisiana-Lafayette and Arizona.

LSU has injury questions at running back and a quarterback carousel between
JaMarcus Russell, Matt Flynn and high school phenom Ryan Perilloux.
Regardless of his shortcomings, Russell is 14-2 as a starter and has a
couple of huge road victories to his credit during his time on the Bayou.
His penchant for the dramatic, sometimes spurred by his own judgment errors,
can give the home team a reason to be afraid in this game. However, with two
teams seemingly as evenly matched with Auburn's experience and strengths
playing to LSU's inexperience and weaknesses, it could come down to
coaching.

Auburn has the conference's best combo of coordinators in Al Borges and
newcomer Will Muschamp. The rest of the staff has remained almost entirely
intact since Tommy Tuberville arrived in November of 1998. Since Borges
claimed stake to the sidelines and the play-calling duties in 2004, AU has
been limited to under 20 points just five times in 26 contests - two times
against LSU. While the 2004 10-9 victory on the Plains was a coming out
party for Auburn, the 2006 contest holds a much different preseason aura
with the Tigers poised for a big afternoon on national television against Bo
Pellini's defense from Baton Rouge.

At the same time, Auburn has its own share of preseason injury problems as
well as the most off-the-field distractions in recent history to move past.
Normally very poised and calm during preseason drills, Tuberville has taken
a different approach this season with the heightened expectations by putting
the Tigers through several physical practices and has shown a great bit more
emotion with yelling and screaming at the group due to a lack of effort
after a scrimmage last weekend. Simply put, the Tigers (nor Tuberville) can
afford a slow start again in 2006 like 2003 when the hype was just as great.


Les Miles won 11 games in his first season, the most-ever I'm told of a head
coach in his debut season at LSU. However, it's not the fact that he won 11
games that gives me a lack of confidence in his ability to produce SEC
champions every two years like his predecessor, Nick Saban. It's how Miles
won several of those 11 that cause people, including several amongst the
rabid Tiger fan base, to question his abilities. Consider this: LSU had the
most talent in the conference at all the key positions in 2005. However, LSU
was seven missed field goals away from not even making it to Atlanta for the
SEC Championship game and played a majority of the games on their schedule
much like they performed in the Georgia Dome on Dec. 3. If they had played
every game last season just like the lowly Peach Bowl, there would be a
different meaning to "Getting Auburn'd" as they would have been 13-0 and
left out of the national title picture.

My guess is that Auburn wins in 24-10 or 27-13 fashion on Sept. 16 thanks to
a late fourth quarter TD run from Kenny Irons to put the game out of reach.
However, the score could just as easily be reversed or closer as the two
programs are seemingly as equal as they've ever been at the top of the SEC
West.

Outside of a road trip to Auburn and a home game against Southern Cal to
open its season, Arkansas has as dream of a schedule as Auburn this season
with home games against Alabama, Tennessee and LSU - all winnable games for
the Hogs in a statement year for beleaguered head coach Houston Nutt. If
Tennessee has thrown in the towel by this October contest, the Hogs will be
triumphant over the Vols while Mike Shula has only won on the road in three
SEC stadiums - Kentucky, Ole Miss and Mississippi State. People make a lot
out of a high school coach coming into call plays - which could be a huge
difference against Tennessee and LSU. However, Steve Ensminger proved that a
high school coach could still call enough good plays to beat a Joe Kines
defense in 2003.

My guess for Arkansas this year is 8-4 overall with a 5-3 SEC mark with
victories over Miss. State, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Alabama and one of three
games: Auburn, LSU or South Carolina. Nutt has proved time and time again
that if his back is against the wall, he'll come out a winner. Also look for
them to give USC a fight for three quarters.

Alabama will struggle this season but not enough to be left out of the
postseason. They should beat all four non-conference teams on their schedule
as well as Miss. State, Ole Miss and Vanderbilt. However, I think that
they'll lose the remaining five games on their SEC slate because, as I
referred to earlier, Shula has only four SEC road victories and is a
combined 1-8 against Auburn, LSU and Tennessee over his first three seasons.
Probation or not, he's only come close to pulling out victories in three of
those nine games.

For the Magnolia state, it's been a couple of seasons to forget since Ole
Miss' miracle season (which did not even include a trip to the SEC title
game but did combine losses to Texas Tech and Memphis) in 2003. The two
programs have combined for 13 wins, 11 if you do not count the annual Egg
Bowl and a mere nine against D-I opponents. On the other hand, both schools'
coaches seem to be excited about the improvement of pathetic offensive
performances in 2004 and 2005.

Mississippi State has one of the roughest roads in all of college football
through the West Virginia match-up on Oct. 7. However, starting Oct. 14, the
road becomes much easier with the three remaining tough games against
Arkansas, Alabama and Ole Miss - all three of which I give the Bulldogs a
fighting chance. If MSU can get a win in Birmingham Sept. 16 against UAB,
Sylvester Croom could realistically get his team to 5-7 - which would stir a
lot of positive emotions for State heading into 2007 when they should be
able to get back to postseason play for the first time since the turning of
the century.

Ole Miss, on the other hand, has all of their hopes and dreams for a
possible Liberty Bowl date with someone like Bowling Green on the arm, legs
and feet of Brent Schaeffer. Should the former Volunteer quarterback get
hurt, woe is Ed Orgeron. How anyone as a head coach on this level of
football can proclaim the starting quarterback job to someone who hadn't
stepped foot on campus is beyond me. Then again, not much this guy has done
as a head coach has made much sense - including hiring Noel Mazzone to
return the "Big Purple Wheel" offense back to the SEC last year. He has two
additions to the staff in Miami rejects Dan Werner and Art Kehoe which are
serious upgrades, but honestly - either of those would make a better choice
for head coach than "O."

Back to Schaeffer. I have to admit, I was sad when Auburn didn't get the kid
out of high school, and he scared the crap out of me a lot more than Erik
Ainge when we went to Neyland Stadium in 2004. While the off-the-field
antics that had him barred from Knoxville made me rethink his valuable
presence in a locker room, his on-the-field charisma is electric, and the
kid is a fantastic athlete. However, this is a lot different than playing
with all of the offensive toys that Philip Fulmer has collected over the
years at UT, and with Ben Jarvus Green-Ellis receiving the majority of
opposing defense's attention, Werner had better find Lil' Vick some targets
or a running game to give him help. Should Schaeffer get hurt, things could
go bad in a hurry as Orgeron has stated multiple times that "Brent is the
only quarterback on our roster that has SEC experience."

Look for anywhere between four and six wins for the Rebs.

Only 16 days to go until kickoff in Starkville.

As the tickets start to roll in through the mailboxes and FedEx packages, I think it's time that we release some preseason predictions. As always, these are merely predictions from an amateur.

Chris Rushing's SEC 2006 Forecast

Regular Season
SEC West
1. Auburn 7-1 SEC, 11-1 overall
2. LSU 6-2 SEC, 10-2 overall
3. Arkansas 5-3 SEC, 7-5 overall
4. Alabama 3-5 SEC, 6-6 overall
5. Miss. State 2-6 SEC, 5-7 overall
6. Ole Miss 1-5 SEC, 4-8 overall

SEC East
1. South Carolina 6-2 SEC, 9-3 overall
2. Georgia 6-2 SEC, 10-2 overall
3. Florida 5-3 SEC, 8-4 overall
4. Tennessee 5-3 SEC, 8-4 overall
5. Kentucky 2-6 SEC, 4-8 overall
6. Vanderbilt 0-8 SEC, 2-9 overall

SEC Championship Game: Auburn (12-1) over South Carolina (9-4)

Let me just state that Florida could be much better than last year's team and still end up 5-3 in the SEC, as I do think that they will be an improved team. However, a schedule that favored them last year in having Tennessee and Florida State at home as well as UGA with a disadvantage of losing Shockley is reversed somewhat this year.

As a side note, Georgia's record could be 8-0 in the conference if Joe T. or Stafford gets confidence early in the season at South Carolina on Sept. 9.

The way that I see the SEC East is this: Steve Spurrier's biggest obstacle in 2005 was confidence in Columbia. His team gained that confidence by beating Tennessee and Florida last season and coming within two points of going to Atlanta. With five swing games on his schedule (@ Alabama, @ Florida, vs. Auburn, Georgia and Tennessee): I think he can coach the Cocks to 3-2 over that span. However, if UGA gets a confident QB in a big win over USC on Sept. 9, watch out to the rest of the league as they are the most dangerous team on everyone's schedules.

History tells us that Georgia will lose a game that they are not supposed to and win one of their HUGE games (Tennessee, Florida, South Carolina). So that says that they go 2-1 over those three games. If Georgia loses to South Carolina (which I feel is a very decent possibility), they will also lose to Florida because history tells us that UF has some kind of voodoo covering that game. Hence, here is their 6-2 record.

Tennessee's season will be decided within the first three games. I don't think that they have the firepower in one game under David Cutcliffe to beat Cal. They'll handle Marshall easily and it all comes down to Florida on Sept. 16. I don't think that Philip Fulmer can lead a team back from a 1-2 record and have a good season afterward. That being said, UT could lose a lot more games (@ Arkansas, vs. Alabama, @ South Carolina and @ Georgia). I think that they'll beat Florida in a close, epic game decided by a bad call.

With the rest of the East, does it really matter?

SEC West in-depth preview to come...

Also to come will be exact seat locations once all tickets are in hand.

Until next time,
Chris & Andrew

If you would have told me that getting tickets to some of these games would be this easy, I would have laughed at you a couple of months ago. So far, we have acquired an entrance into the stadiums for 10 of 15 games, and we just passed Memorial Day.

The list of games with tickets already acquired:

A31 - South Carolina @ Mississippi State
S 2 - Southern Cal @ Arkansas
S16 - Ole Miss @ Kentucky
S23 - Colorado @ Georgia
S30 - Alabama @ Florida
O 7 - West Virginia @ Mississippi State
O14 - Kentucky @ LSU
O21 - Alabama @ Tennessee
O28 - Georgia vs. Florida
N11 - Georgia @ Auburn

Thanks to Ebay, we're in good shape. If there is anyone out there looking for a pair of Alabama/Tennessee tickets that would like to spend the afternoon with us in Knoxville, let us know.

Until the next update -

Andrew & Chris

Well, welcome to our blog site for the 2006 Tour de SEC. Speaking for Andrew and myself, I must say that I'm incredibly excited about this trip and look forward to updating everyone on our ins and outs of the traveling. We will do our best to update this blog as often as possible.

That being said, here is the schedule of games:

(As of May 6, 2006)
S 2 - Southern Cal @ Arkansas (Fayetteville, Arkansas)
S 9 - Georgia @ South Carolina (Columbia, South Carolina)
S16 - Mississippi @ Kentucky (Lexington, Kentucky)
S23 - Colorado @ Georgia (Athens, Georgia)
S30 - Alabama @ Florida (Gainesville, Florida)
O 7 - West Virginia @ Mississippi State (Starkville, Mississippi)
O14 - Kentucky @ LSU (Baton Rouge, Louisiana)
O21 - Alabama @ Tennessee (Knoxville, Tennessee)
O28 - Florida vs. Georgia (Jacksonville, Florida)
N 4 - Florida @ Vanderbilt (Nashville, Tennessee)
N11 - Georgia @ Auburn (Auburn, Alabama)
N18 - Auburn @ Alabama (Tuscaloosa, Alabama)
N25 - Mississippi State @ Mississippi (Oxford, Mississippi)
D 2 - SEC Championship Game (Atlanta, Georgia)

As you can see, we have built the trip to include 14-straight weekends of football, and we may also add in another game (South Carolina @ Mississippi State, August 31 in Starkville). It is a thorough schedule that should be a lot of fun. Check back here to our blog in the coming months for any schedule changes, updates on tickets, etc.

Thanks again for all the support and reading up on us.

Chris and Andrew