WAR EAGLE!

I am now a fan! My first College football experience was intense! I went to a small university for undergrad and grad so I missed out on all of this fun stuff! But I will certainly be making up for that now... Let's see, it was WET, crazy, thought provoking, and I really do need to emphasize the WETNESS factor. But all in all, it was a fabulous weekend and extremely exhausting!

Have any of you guys been tailgating? I really don't think I understood the meaning of it. I was thinking open back end of a SUV with chips & dip, beer, and some chairs. That's all. Man, I was in for an awakening. Tailgating is serious business people! We are talking lots of RVs, campers, tents, and some trucks and SUVs mixed in there as well. These guys get there two days before kickoff and just hanging out. Any bit of land on campus is taken up with these campers. And then come Friday afternoon after classes, the RVs take over the parking lots. (We are talking swanky RVs too) People just set up shop and eat, drink and be merry with other hard core fans.

Okay, let's kick up this image up a notch. There are tons of tents, grills, and food like you wouldn't believe. But the biggest thing that literally BLEW MY MIND was the Satellite dishes and flat panel TVs. No, I am not kidding you. They were everywhere! I still can't imagine setting up a satellite dish and a nice TV under a tent. So before kickoff, people just drink, hang out all day and watch other football games.

Here was our little tailgate. And I say little because even though to me, this is pimped out, it wasn't as pimped out as some of the setups that we saw.

Hardcore!(see the satellite dish on the left by the SUV?)
(Chris and I, pre-storm)

Here is Tiger Walk. Mass people crowd outside the stadium to cheer the players as they walk into the stadium. I couldn't get the best pictures, sorry about that. The second picture is shows the van that brings in the Eagle. We didn't get to see the Eagle fly around the stadium because of the rain and the rain delay.
Okay. The rain. We are not talking about a drizzle or even a steady rain. We are talking about a TORRENTIAL rain storm. I took this picture right before the sky literally opened up. Yeap, we got caught up in this sucker. We found out later that this storm dumped 3.75 inches in 40 minutes. There wasn't a dry inch on us. All we had was an extremely thin "trash bag" of a poncho that was only designed to hold off a drizzle.
The students just stripped down to what was legally allowed and just relished in it and sang along to Creedence Clearwater Revival "Have you ever seen the Rain". Funny right? I wasn't really laughing at the time. But it was amazing to see the shear love for their team. It was pretty impressive. Here is a you tube video a fan took on the opposite side of the stadium. About a minute in you can hear the crowd singing.



It was late when the game finally got started. I will spare your all of the actual game details. Short story- West Virgina was whipping Auburn's butt in the beginning but then Auburn got their act together, made it a game, and then won. (how was that?)

For any of you who didn't have a college football experience, I took this video for you so you can get a glimpse of the environment.



After the game we had a 2 mile walk back to the camper and then we had to wait in traffic to get out of town. We were beyond tired. The one thing we didn't do was go down into campus and see the students TP all of the trees. That is a tradition for all wins. Fingers crossed that when we go down in October, we will have the opportunity to see that.

What an AWESOME weekend!!! I can't wait to go see another game, and it would be great if it were a dry one!! I am a FAN!

WAR EAGLE!