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