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