SEC Tour: Auburn vs LSU

[DCTiger 0]

This piece is great. If you are short on time, start with number 27.

My favorite line is: "Auburn's fans are much more conservative than their coach, which is truly a football rarity. "

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ClayNation Dixieland Delight College Football Tour: LSU at Auburn

Sep. 18, 2006

By Clay Travis

SPiN Columnist

Tell Clay your opinion!

The last time I was involved in rolling a tree with toilet paper, I was riding in a car that took two bullets from a Vietnam veteran -- one on the back rear panel just beneath the window and the other in the wheel well that narrowly missed the tire.

That was in 1997, when several friends and I decided to roll the cheerleading captain's house while she had the entire cheerleading team over for a sleepover. Then, I almost died after a neighbor decided that despite the cheerleader's entire yard being covered in toilet paper, we were robbers deserving of death. So he put two slugs into our car.

Since that moment, I have not touched a toilet paper roll outside of the bathroom. On Sept. 16, in the immediate aftermath of Auburn's 7-3 win over LSU, I was just one of thousands of spectators as stream after stream of toilet paper rose into the coming darkness of an Alabama evening and nestled themselves in the branches of the trees overhanging Toomer's Corner. I suppose this was a legitimate case of toilet paper redemption for me, but before all that could happen, I had to make my way to Auburn for the LSU game.

1. I arrive Friday afternoon in Birmingham, Ala., where I meet Sam Hutchison, an 85-year-old Auburn alum with macular degeneration. He happens to live next door to my aunt and has distinguished himself over the years by, among other things, becoming physically ill whenever Auburn loses. I spend the better part of two hours talking with him about Auburn.

2. Hutchison initially arrived at Auburn in 1938 as a 17-year-old. In 1938, Hutchison said Auburn only had 3,000 students and that 2,700 of them were men. He said the school was a great place for those 300 women. "One girl had never had a date in my high school and she got to Auburn and she didn't want to leave. All the boys were after her. I got home for Thanksgiving and her parents came over to me and said, 'Why is our daughter not coming home this year?' It was because she loved it. We all loved it."

Auburn fan Sam Hutchison in his game position and lucky hat. (Photo/Clay Travis)

Unfortunately for Hutchison, he had to leave after a year because his family could no longer afford the tuition. In 1946, after serving in WWII, Hutchison returned to a vastly expanded Auburn and graduated on the G.I. Bill. He met his wife here and was married in Auburn. "The fraternity across the street thought our wedding was a house party and they ended up coming over and having a great time."

3. That evening, he and his bride traveled to Atlanta, which coincidentally, was the same weekend as an Auburn-Georgia Tech game. "All night long, yahoos were running up and down the hotel halls screaming and yelling at the top of their lungs. See, we were a country school and when we got to the big city ..." He paused. "Let me just say it was wild," he said. Later, a Georgia Tech friend of his said, "We may have won the game, but y'all won the party."

4. Hutchison has not missed an Auburn game on television in decades. But now he has severe macular degeneration so he can barely see. So he has purchased a 53-inch television and sits at an angle so he can use his peripheral vision. He sits on a stool within a foot of the screen. "If I don't sit as close as possible, I can't see what's going on." Then, "I take no calls during the game," Hutchison says, "If the house catches on fire, I tell people to call the fire department and leave me alone."

5. "I wear my Auburn hat for superstitious reasons. If things start going bad, I'll switch the hat on or off. I get to moving a lot. Then my wife says, 'Sam, you can't play the game, those boys are the ones playing it.'" I ask Sam how he sees the Auburn-LSU game coming out: "I hate to say it, but LSU will win," he says. When Sam puts on his Auburn cap, he removes it from the top of the Bible where it had been sitting.

6. Later Friday, with my friend Kelly, we go out in Birmingham's Lakeview district and immediately are overcome by the number of grown men who have short hair with long bangs. We're talking serious bangs. Bangs that hang down across the forehead and seem to be several inches thick. Long, waving bangs that appear to have been constructed with infinite care and approximately 14 different hair products. I've never seen this hairstyle anywhere else. It's as if Alabama men have really cold foreheads they have to protect.

Finally, Kelly and I decide that these forehead monstrosities need a name, so we christen them 'Bama Bangs. Whatever you call them, they have to go. Seriously, who are these women who like men with bangs longer than their own? Later that night, Kelly will say, "These 'Bama Bangs are the kind of thing that will end up really cool in Eastern Europe in like 10 years. Until then if you see some guy with bangs like this, there is a 100 percent chance he is from Alabama."

More understated Auburn vans. (Photo/Clay Travis)

7. On Saturday morning, I take 280 from Birmingham on the advice of numerous Auburn grads. "Whatever you do, don't take the interstate toward Montgomery," says my law school friend Shanlever. 280 is the perfect choice. Not least because Alabama seems to suspend all restrictions on speeding on football game days. Everyone is going at least 80 mph.

8. At one point, I'm stopped at a red light alongside a menacing man with a tattoo and forearms the size of a pygmy. The man is driving a Ford F-150 with oversized wheels. If a death match suddenly erupted on 280, this man would be the favorite. As soon as the light changes, he floors it. As his truck fully passes me, I see an Auburn tiger tail attached to the rear of his truck bouncing in the wind. Yep, even the most fearsome men in Alabama are willing to pin Auburn Tiger tails to the rear of their trucks.

9. I arrive in Auburn and am immediately caught behind a train which is crossing through the center of town. Cars are stopped as far as I can see. This might be the most cursed train in Alabama history.

Inflated Tigers are all the rage. (Photo/Clay Travis)

10. The entire city of Auburn is one gigantic tailgate. Several sorority girls are sitting in the open bed of a pickup truck with a sign that says, "Honk and make us drink." Everyone is honking. I honk and the girls drink. These girls are one of approximately 14,000 different tailgates currently proceeding in Auburn. The entire town is a roiling mass of pregame festivities.

11. Shortly thereafter, I meet my friend Shanlever, who directs me to the Beta house where we manage to squeeze my car onto their front lawn. Shanlever gives me a tour of the Beta house, which is gargantuan. Ultimately, we pause in front of a hand-written poster board weather forecast. "They've got the pledges doing the weather forecast. Awesome," he says, nodding.

12. Later, as we cross the intramural fields in the direction of Shanlever's tailgate, a current fraternity member in front of us is walking with his mother and father. "I gave this stupid pledge six bucks to bring me a chicken biscuit and instead he ended up puking on my door," the upperclassman says. The father nods his head remorsefully. The mother is unaffected. Welcome to Auburn, where even parents understand griping about pledges.

13. Shanlever leads me to his tailgate, where he explains to me that he has decided he can't handle the karmic danger of allowing me to wear his Bo Jackson Auburn baseball throwback jersey. "I'm just not going to do it," he says. Instead, he hands me a vintage Auburn T-shirt with peeling paint that appears to have survived more seasons than I have. "This will be perfect," he says.

Shanlever with Clay, holding a corn dog and wearing a vintage Auburn T-shirt with a peeling tiger. (Photo/Clay Travis)

14. I have a corndog for the first time since second grade. I am starving and, to be honest, I feel like I blamed the corn dog for making me throw up back when I got the flu in Mrs. Harper's second grade class at Goodlettsville Elementary. It wasn't the corn dog's fault. After 20 years, I figure it's time to stop blaming the wrong party. The corndog burns the roof of my mouth on the first bite.

15. Shanlever aids me in finding a $50 ticket through his friend, Bo Kerr, who is affiliated with the Birmingham Bowl game, and I head to the Auburn Alumni Tailgate to meet my law school friend Amy Jordan, the granddaughter of Shug Jordan of Jordan-Hare Stadium fame. Unfortunately, I get lost and end up taking several bad photographs of Auburn's band and cheerleaders. It is altogether possible that I am the worst photographer on Earth. Enjoy.

16. Everywhere you go on Auburn's campus, people greet one other by saying, "War Eagle!" When someone says War Eagle to you, you are obligated to respond "War Eagle!" in kind. It is that crazy. Occasionally, while in my Auburn T-shirt, people I don't know see me and scream, "War Eagle." After a time, I feel like I've got the talismanic key to the kingdom. ClayNation Canon No. 569: You can do anything after smiling and saying "War Eagle" in Auburn on game day.

17. Amy finds me and leads me to the tailgate, where I begin talking to her father, Ralph Jordan, who will be president of the Auburn Alumni Association beginning in October. Ralph moved to Auburn when he was three, in 1951, and did not leave until after he had received a master's degree in 1975.

Before we begin talking, he points to a bird which is among several being held inside the Auburn alumni tent. "That's a turkey vulture," he says. "Not a golden eagle. Just wanted to make sure you knew." Later, my wife will see me pictured with a turkey vulture and say, "Why in the world were there vultures in the Auburn alumni tent?" Now that she mentions it, that was a good question, but somehow it didn't strike me as odd that there were birds in the alumni tent while I was there. I have no idea. Of course this didn't stop me from getting my picture taken with the turkey vulture.

18. Jordan says, "My dad lettered in three sports at Auburn and basketball was his first love. He coached Auburn in basketball, too. He's still the only coach to have won a SEC championship in both basketball and football." Shug Jordan (so nicknamed because of his affinity for sugar cane as a child) was a 150-pound center on Auburn's football team. His son tells me this meant Jordan "didn't take too kindly to the 'too small' talk from anyone."

It is possible Clay Travis is the worst photographer on the planet. (Photo/Clay Travis)

19. I ask him what the toughest thing about living in Auburn during those years was. "We loved it, but, I think, losing the games everyone expected you to win was the toughest. Here today, Auburn and LSU are playing and everyone knows we're playing a great team. If we lose, so be it, people can handle that. But losing to someone like Southern Miss," Jordan pauses, "well, that's tough. Today, no matter what happens, the crowd is going to walk out with their heads held high."

20. His daughter Amy graduated from Vanderbilt with me and we discuss how that made it easier for him that Auburn doesn't have a law school. I tell Jordan about my father refusing to sign the tuition checks for my sister when she attended Vanderbilt undergrad. Jordan nods appreciatively.

Then I ask Jordan what would happen if Amy ended up marrying an Alabama graduate. He grimaces. "I tell her all the time now that she's working in Birmingham she's going to be meeting lots of Alabama grads and that she better not bring one of them home. It would be tough. Hopefully he'd have something really going for him besides that. I tell her Ole Miss, South Carolina, Tennessee, just please not Alabama ... And I'd take it much better than my mother would. She's 93 and a South Carolina grad, so she likes other SEC schools. But she absolutely cannot stomach Alabama."

21. Jordan talks about how glad he is to see the fields of the SEC return to their natural grass surface. "My dad hated artificial turf. He thought it was terrible for the game. Neyland Stadium was one of the first places to get the artificial turf and my dad used to make a show out of stubbing a cigarette into the ground just to show what he thought of it. He'd be glad to see it gone. He was right."

Clay, Amy and Ralph Jordan. (Photo/Clay Travis)

22. Asked what he believes aided his father in coaching the most, Jordan responds rapidly, "Daddy was the first person in his family to go to college and after college, he fought in World War II. He was in North Africa, then Sicily, then Normandy and finally they shipped him over to Okinawa. He hardly talked about World War II, but it helped him keep the game in perspective. It's something he and his generation had, that perspective, that maybe we later generations don't have as much."

23. I ask him what his dad would think about the current spectacle surrounding us on the Auburn campus and about the current state of college football. "He'd love the pageantry of the game, but the sport is so much more commercial than when he left and television has overwhelmed the game. Football is a cash cow and you have to go after the money." He also said, "Dad would have favored a playoff system and he would be in favor of the academic requirements. Players leaving without a degree would have really bothered him." Then, "He also would have favored giving money to student-athletes instead of making money off their backs. It would clean things up a lot."

24. I ask him about Auburn's future: "We'll probably expand to over 100,000 seats in my lifetime at the stadium (Jordan-Hare currently seats 87,451) but we want to be smart about it and make sure people don't end up sitting in their cars until Monday morning in traffic. Not just expansion for expansion's sake. We could sell that many seats now because we're a generational school. Personally, I'm a third generation Auburn grad." Jordan pauses, "But unlike our friends across the state, we don't bask in the past, we're focusing on the future." Zinger for Mr. Jordan, Auburn alumni president-elect. "Be sure to get inside in time to see the eagle," he says.

25. At this point, I should give credit to Charles and Alex Wellman. I didn't make their tailgate, but they went through the trouble of bringing a memorial Buzz Aldrin action figure for my Space Camp traveling friend Shekhar and a Mello Yello for me. The drink would have been much appreciated as Auburn also failed to offer it inside Jordan-Hare.

26. As I walk up the aisle to enter the stadium, a drunken man behind me screams, "I think we're going to kill LSU. I've got that Tennessee feeling." I cringe. Auburn has destroyed my Vols the past several times they have played. This fan is the only person I hear all day who does not expect this game to come down to the final minutes. I arrive in my seat in the south end zone. The seats are steel bleachers with no backs and the sun is fierce. It's got to be well above 90. Everyone is sweating. It is 25 minutes until kickoff and the stadium is full.

27. Everyone stands as the eagle begins the descent to the center of the stadium. As it circles the stadium, the eagle swings out over different sections of the stadium and the crowd roars in accompaniment. It almost seems as if the eagle is literally floating on the full-throated roars of the Auburn fans. Then the eagle lands near midfield and the crowd is engulfed in cheers. When I ask Shanlever where the War Eagle tradition is derived from, he responds, "Scholars differ."

28. For the next 17 minutes before the game starts, no one sits down.

Bo Jackson on the wall outside Jordan-Hare Stadium. (Photo/Clay Travis)

29. Bo Jackson is shown on the Jumbotron and the crowd erupts. Among them, I'm sure, is my friend Shanlever, who is clad in his Bo Jackson jersey. Based on what I saw, no one is more popular at Auburn than Bo. I wonder how much of this with the younger generation has to do with Bo Jackson being perhaps the greatest video game athlete of all time.

30. One thing I've noticed: Hardly any Auburn fans pronounce the "r" in Auburn. When the crowd chants, you can actually hear, "Aw-buhn." Pretty neat. Unfortunately, the Auburn football team enters to a billowing clad of either dry ice or manufactured fog. Somewhere, Hacksaw Jim Duggan is jealous.

31. LSU quarterback JaMarcus Russell takes the field. He is roughly the size of a house. I'll say this for JaMarcus: Per capita, the women wearing his LSU jersey in the stadium today are the hottest jersey wearers I've ever seen. It's like a Paris runway on Donahue Drive. Later, Russell throws a 65-yard bomb with touch. In addition to having the hottest fans, JaMarcus might have the strongest arm in college football.

32. The LSU fans are to my left. Their entire front row stands and rests their legs on the edge of the seating bowl. They look like purple-clad warriors about to storm the ramparts.

33. At the end of the first quarter, there is no score and Auburn has yet to get a first down. Hardly anyone around me is surprised.

34. Auburn quarterback Brandon Cox goes down midway through the second quarter and suddenly it is so quiet, it almost seems as if you can hear the tremulous jingle of Mardi Gras beads shifting among the LSU faithful. Then suddenly, from the Auburn student section, a chant of, "Brandon ... .Brandon ... Brandon," begins. Seconds later, Cox is up and sprinting off the field. The crowd erupts in one glorious exhale.

35. Two plays later, Auburn's kicker hits the upright from 32 yards. I can hear the echo even in my seat. A man behind me says, "Awww hell, it's like last year all over again." Last year, Auburn missed five field goals at LSU during their loss.

36. LSU kicks a field goal after Russell fumbles forward. It's 3-0 at the half. On the concourse outside, I watch an Auburn woman with a hotdog trying to work a broken mustard container. She turns to me and shrugs, "It's working about as well as our offense," she says.

37. In the second half, Auburn drives to the goal line where, Cox seeks to quiet the crowd. As his arms move up and down in an effort to bring on silence, he resembles nothing if not an eagle in flight. Moments later, he takes the snap and scores himself. 7-3 Auburn. All around me is bedlam.

38. My wife, the Michigan grad, texts me to say that Michigan is leading Notre Dame 34-14. I write back, "Good for UM." Ten seconds later she responds, "It's U of M." When the Notre Dame score is announced in Jordan-Hare, the crowd madly cheers. No one in Auburn has forgotten what the difference is between being No. 3 and No. 2.

The view from Clay's seat. (Photo/Clay Travis)

39. On the field, the sun has sunken behind parts of the stadium. The Auburn sideline is now entirely in the shade while the LSU team continues to bake in the sunshine. Sometimes the home-field advantage is about more than the crowd's noise. The entire AU defense is in the shade underneath the cool zone fans.

40. Late in the fourth quarter, Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville proves he has actual balls of steel by going for it from his own 42. All around me, fans are going crazy. "Punt the damn ball," one man yells. Here in Auburn, the crowd doesn't care how they win as long as they win. Style points are for other locales.

41. Auburn converts the fourth down. The crowd sighs as one. Then, crazily, Tuberville channels Super Tecmo Bowl and runs the flea flicker on third-and-1. Yep, the flea flicker. Even more amazingly, LSU has managed to double cover the receivers and does not bite on the fake. It's almost as if LSU expects the flea flicker in this situation. Later, at the postgame tailgate, I will mention the flea flicker to Shanlever. "The flea flicker," he says, volume increasing as he speaks. "We ran the flea flicker," he says again. "I thought we just went play-action." Let me just say this, I have never heard any pass play castigated so angrily by any fans than I have Tuberville's flea flicker. Mercifully, Tuberville punts on fourth down. Auburn's fans are much more conservative than their coach, which is truly a football rarity.

42. Auburn fan O'Neal Shaw sits beside me for the entire game. He is a great seat companion who truly understands the game. At one point, he turns to me and says, "If these two teams played 100 times, one team would win 51 and the other would win 49." He is right. Rarely have I seen more evenly matched teams. I don't want to hear anything about these teams having bad offenses. Both would score 40 or more on most teams (and have already done so this year). Each team's defense is really just that spectacular.

43. On the next to last fourth down of the game for LSU, this is the crowd's reaction in one minute. The LSU pass falls incomplete near the goal line:

Absolute ecstasy. I can barely hear anything. My ears are literally ringing.

Someone notices a flag in my section (that side of the field is farthest from us), the sound collapses upon itself. Indignant questions are raised. The entire section is one large interrogatory.

The pass interference penalty is waved off and once again the crowd explodes.

This is the full expanse of football life in a single minute.

A new generation finds toilet paper redemption. (Photo/Clay Travis)

44. The student section sings along to Living on a Prayer. Auburn punts again.

45. Then, inexplicably, Auburn seems to forget that the east sideline is in play. Three times in a row, Russell throws darts to his receiver. Suddenly, this game between equals is somehow even more equal.

46. It's fourth down once again, this time with only 2.5 seconds left, and even though I don't particularly have a rooting interest, my own heart is in my throat. Then, Auburn makes the tackle in bounds at their own five. The LSU player is tackled in one of the last vestiges of sunlight on the field. All around me the stadium becomes jubilation incarnate. Grown men hug other grown men, streamers from shakers cartwheel through the humid air, and a shouting that ends three hours of tension cascades through Jordan-Hare. Aw-buhn has won.

47. In a crushing tide of humanity, I'm off in the direction of Toomer's Corner. When I arrive, the trees are already covered in so much toilet paper it almost seems as if winter has arrived on the Plains. Already, the next generation of Auburn undergrads is painting the town white and at long last, I've found my own toilet paper redemption.

On to Fayetteville ...

[Nay4AU 2]

This piece is great. If you are short on time, start with number 27.

My favorite line is: "Auburn's fans are much more conservative than their coach, which is truly a football rarity. "

Link

ClayNation Dixieland Delight College Football Tour: LSU at Auburn

Sep. 18, 2006

By Clay Travis

SPiN Columnist

Tell Clay your opinion!

The last time I was involved in rolling a tree with toilet paper, I was riding in a car that took two bullets from a Vietnam veteran -- one on the back rear panel just beneath the window and the other in the wheel well that narrowly missed the tire.

That was in 1997, when several friends and I decided to roll the cheerleading captain's house while she had the entire cheerleading team over for a sleepover. Then, I almost died after a neighbor decided that despite the cheerleader's entire yard being covered in toilet paper, we were robbers deserving of death. So he put two slugs into our car.

Since that moment, I have not touched a toilet paper roll outside of the bathroom. On Sept. 16, in the immediate aftermath of Auburn's 7-3 win over LSU, I was just one of thousands of spectators as stream after stream of toilet paper rose into the coming darkness of an Alabama evening and nestled themselves in the branches of the trees overhanging Toomer's Corner. I suppose this was a legitimate case of toilet paper redemption for me, but before all that could happen, I had to make my way to Auburn for the LSU game.

1. I arrive Friday afternoon in Birmingham, Ala., where I meet Sam Hutchison, an 85-year-old Auburn alum with macular degeneration. He happens to live next door to my aunt and has distinguished himself over the years by, among other things, becoming physically ill whenever Auburn loses. I spend the better part of two hours talking with him about Auburn.

2. Hutchison initially arrived at Auburn in 1938 as a 17-year-old. In 1938, Hutchison said Auburn only had 3,000 students and that 2,700 of them were men. He said the school was a great place for those 300 women. "One girl had never had a date in my high school and she got to Auburn and she didn't want to leave. All the boys were after her. I got home for Thanksgiving and her parents came over to me and said, 'Why is our daughter not coming home this year?' It was because she loved it. We all loved it."

Auburn fan Sam Hutchison in his game position and lucky hat. (Photo/Clay Travis)

Unfortunately for Hutchison, he had to leave after a year because his family could no longer afford the tuition. In 1946, after serving in WWII, Hutchison returned to a vastly expanded Auburn and graduated on the G.I. Bill. He met his wife here and was married in Auburn. "The fraternity across the street thought our wedding was a house party and they ended up coming over and having a great time."

3. That evening, he and his bride traveled to Atlanta, which coincidentally, was the same weekend as an Auburn-Georgia Tech game. "All night long, yahoos were running up and down the hotel halls screaming and yelling at the top of their lungs. See, we were a country school and when we got to the big city ..." He paused. "Let me just say it was wild," he said. Later, a Georgia Tech friend of his said, "We may have won the game, but y'all won the party."

4. Hutchison has not missed an Auburn game on television in decades. But now he has severe macular degeneration so he can barely see. So he has purchased a 53-inch television and sits at an angle so he can use his peripheral vision. He sits on a stool within a foot of the screen. "If I don't sit as close as possible, I can't see what's going on." Then, "I take no calls during the game," Hutchison says, "If the house catches on fire, I tell people to call the fire department and leave me alone."

5. "I wear my Auburn hat for superstitious reasons. If things start going bad, I'll switch the hat on or off. I get to moving a lot. Then my wife says, 'Sam, you can't play the game, those boys are the ones playing it.'" I ask Sam how he sees the Auburn-LSU game coming out: "I hate to say it, but LSU will win," he says. When Sam puts on his Auburn cap, he removes it from the top of the Bible where it had been sitting.

6. Later Friday, with my friend Kelly, we go out in Birmingham's Lakeview district and immediately are overcome by the number of grown men who have short hair with long bangs. We're talking serious bangs. Bangs that hang down across the forehead and seem to be several inches thick. Long, waving bangs that appear to have been constructed with infinite care and approximately 14 different hair products. I've never seen this hairstyle anywhere else. It's as if Alabama men have really cold foreheads they have to protect.

Finally, Kelly and I decide that these forehead monstrosities need a name, so we christen them 'Bama Bangs. Whatever you call them, they have to go. Seriously, who are these women who like men with bangs longer than their own? Later that night, Kelly will say, "These 'Bama Bangs are the kind of thing that will end up really cool in Eastern Europe in like 10 years. Until then if you see some guy with bangs like this, there is a 100 percent chance he is from Alabama."

More understated Auburn vans. (Photo/Clay Travis)

7. On Saturday morning, I take 280 from Birmingham on the advice of numerous Auburn grads. "Whatever you do, don't take the interstate toward Montgomery," says my law school friend Shanlever. 280 is the perfect choice. Not least because Alabama seems to suspend all restrictions on speeding on football game days. Everyone is going at least 80 mph.

8. At one point, I'm stopped at a red light alongside a menacing man with a tattoo and forearms the size of a pygmy. The man is driving a Ford F-150 with oversized wheels. If a death match suddenly erupted on 280, this man would be the favorite. As soon as the light changes, he floors it. As his truck fully passes me, I see an Auburn tiger tail attached to the rear of his truck bouncing in the wind. Yep, even the most fearsome men in Alabama are willing to pin Auburn Tiger tails to the rear of their trucks.

9. I arrive in Auburn and am immediately caught behind a train which is crossing through the center of town. Cars are stopped as far as I can see. This might be the most cursed train in Alabama history.

Inflated Tigers are all the rage. (Photo/Clay Travis)

10. The entire city of Auburn is one gigantic tailgate. Several sorority girls are sitting in the open bed of a pickup truck with a sign that says, "Honk and make us drink." Everyone is honking. I honk and the girls drink. These girls are one of approximately 14,000 different tailgates currently proceeding in Auburn. The entire town is a roiling mass of pregame festivities.

11. Shortly thereafter, I meet my friend Shanlever, who directs me to the Beta house where we manage to squeeze my car onto their front lawn. Shanlever gives me a tour of the Beta house, which is gargantuan. Ultimately, we pause in front of a hand-written poster board weather forecast. "They've got the pledges doing the weather forecast. Awesome," he says, nodding.

12. Later, as we cross the intramural fields in the direction of Shanlever's tailgate, a current fraternity member in front of us is walking with his mother and father. "I gave this stupid pledge six bucks to bring me a chicken biscuit and instead he ended up puking on my door," the upperclassman says. The father nods his head remorsefully. The mother is unaffected. Welcome to Auburn, where even parents understand griping about pledges.

13. Shanlever leads me to his tailgate, where he explains to me that he has decided he can't handle the karmic danger of allowing me to wear his Bo Jackson Auburn baseball throwback jersey. "I'm just not going to do it," he says. Instead, he hands me a vintage Auburn T-shirt with peeling paint that appears to have survived more seasons than I have. "This will be perfect," he says.

Shanlever with Clay, holding a corn dog and wearing a vintage Auburn T-shirt with a peeling tiger. (Photo/Clay Travis)

14. I have a corndog for the first time since second grade. I am starving and, to be honest, I feel like I blamed the corn dog for making me throw up back when I got the flu in Mrs. Harper's second grade class at Goodlettsville Elementary. It wasn't the corn dog's fault. After 20 years, I figure it's time to stop blaming the wrong party. The corndog burns the roof of my mouth on the first bite.

15. Shanlever aids me in finding a $50 ticket through his friend, Bo Kerr, who is affiliated with the Birmingham Bowl game, and I head to the Auburn Alumni Tailgate to meet my law school friend Amy Jordan, the granddaughter of Shug Jordan of Jordan-Hare Stadium fame. Unfortunately, I get lost and end up taking several bad photographs of Auburn's band and cheerleaders. It is altogether possible that I am the worst photographer on Earth. Enjoy.

16. Everywhere you go on Auburn's campus, people greet one other by saying, "War Eagle!" When someone says War Eagle to you, you are obligated to respond "War Eagle!" in kind. It is that crazy. Occasionally, while in my Auburn T-shirt, people I don't know see me and scream, "War Eagle." After a time, I feel like I've got the talismanic key to the kingdom. ClayNation Canon No. 569: You can do anything after smiling and saying "War Eagle" in Auburn on game day.

17. Amy finds me and leads me to the tailgate, where I begin talking to her father, Ralph Jordan, who will be president of the Auburn Alumni Association beginning in October. Ralph moved to Auburn when he was three, in 1951, and did not leave until after he had received a master's degree in 1975.

Before we begin talking, he points to a bird which is among several being held inside the Auburn alumni tent. "That's a turkey vulture," he says. "Not a golden eagle. Just wanted to make sure you knew." Later, my wife will see me pictured with a turkey vulture and say, "Why in the world were there vultures in the Auburn alumni tent?" Now that she mentions it, that was a good question, but somehow it didn't strike me as odd that there were birds in the alumni tent while I was there. I have no idea. Of course this didn't stop me from getting my picture taken with the turkey vulture.

18. Jordan says, "My dad lettered in three sports at Auburn and basketball was his first love. He coached Auburn in basketball, too. He's still the only coach to have won a SEC championship in both basketball and football." Shug Jordan (so nicknamed because of his affinity for sugar cane as a child) was a 150-pound center on Auburn's football team. His son tells me this meant Jordan "didn't take too kindly to the 'too small' talk from anyone."

It is possible Clay Travis is the worst photographer on the planet. (Photo/Clay Travis)

19. I ask him what the toughest thing about living in Auburn during those years was. "We loved it, but, I think, losing the games everyone expected you to win was the toughest. Here today, Auburn and LSU are playing and everyone knows we're playing a great team. If we lose, so be it, people can handle that. But losing to someone like Southern Miss," Jordan pauses, "well, that's tough. Today, no matter what happens, the crowd is going to walk out with their heads held high."

20. His daughter Amy graduated from Vanderbilt with me and we discuss how that made it easier for him that Auburn doesn't have a law school. I tell Jordan about my father refusing to sign the tuition checks for my sister when she attended Vanderbilt undergrad. Jordan nods appreciatively.

Then I ask Jordan what would happen if Amy ended up marrying an Alabama graduate. He grimaces. "I tell her all the time now that she's working in Birmingham she's going to be meeting lots of Alabama grads and that she better not bring one of them home. It would be tough. Hopefully he'd have something really going for him besides that. I tell her Ole Miss, South Carolina, Tennessee, just please not Alabama ... And I'd take it much better than my mother would. She's 93 and a South Carolina grad, so she likes other SEC schools. But she absolutely cannot stomach Alabama."

21. Jordan talks about how glad he is to see the fields of the SEC return to their natural grass surface. "My dad hated artificial turf. He thought it was terrible for the game. Neyland Stadium was one of the first places to get the artificial turf and my dad used to make a show out of stubbing a cigarette into the ground just to show what he thought of it. He'd be glad to see it gone. He was right."

Clay, Amy and Ralph Jordan. (Photo/Clay Travis)

22. Asked what he believes aided his father in coaching the most, Jordan responds rapidly, "Daddy was the first person in his family to go to college and after college, he fought in World War II. He was in North Africa, then Sicily, then Normandy and finally they shipped him over to Okinawa. He hardly talked about World War II, but it helped him keep the game in perspective. It's something he and his generation had, that perspective, that maybe we later generations don't have as much."

23. I ask him what his dad would think about the current spectacle surrounding us on the Auburn campus and about the current state of college football. "He'd love the pageantry of the game, but the sport is so much more commercial than when he left and television has overwhelmed the game. Football is a cash cow and you have to go after the money." He also said, "Dad would have favored a playoff system and he would be in favor of the academic requirements. Players leaving without a degree would have really bothered him." Then, "He also would have favored giving money to student-athletes instead of making money off their backs. It would clean things up a lot."

24. I ask him about Auburn's future: "We'll probably expand to over 100,000 seats in my lifetime at the stadium (Jordan-Hare currently seats 87,451) but we want to be smart about it and make sure people don't end up sitting in their cars until Monday morning in traffic. Not just expansion for expansion's sake. We could sell that many seats now because we're a generational school. Personally, I'm a third generation Auburn grad." Jordan pauses, "But unlike our friends across the state, we don't bask in the past, we're focusing on the future." Zinger for Mr. Jordan, Auburn alumni president-elect. "Be sure to get inside in time to see the eagle," he says.

25. At this point, I should give credit to Charles and Alex Wellman. I didn't make their tailgate, but they went through the trouble of bringing a memorial Buzz Aldrin action figure for my Space Camp traveling friend Shekhar and a Mello Yello for me. The drink would have been much appreciated as Auburn also failed to offer it inside Jordan-Hare.

26. As I walk up the aisle to enter the stadium, a drunken man behind me screams, "I think we're going to kill LSU. I've got that Tennessee feeling." I cringe. Auburn has destroyed my Vols the past several times they have played. This fan is the only person I hear all day who does not expect this game to come down to the final minutes. I arrive in my seat in the south end zone. The seats are steel bleachers with no backs and the sun is fierce. It's got to be well above 90. Everyone is sweating. It is 25 minutes until kickoff and the stadium is full.

27. Everyone stands as the eagle begins the descent to the center of the stadium. As it circles the stadium, the eagle swings out over different sections of the stadium and the crowd roars in accompaniment. It almost seems as if the eagle is literally floating on the full-throated roars of the Auburn fans. Then the eagle lands near midfield and the crowd is engulfed in cheers. When I ask Shanlever where the War Eagle tradition is derived from, he responds, "Scholars differ."

28. For the next 17 minutes before the game starts, no one sits down.

Bo Jackson on the wall outside Jordan-Hare Stadium. (Photo/Clay Travis)

29. Bo Jackson is shown on the Jumbotron and the crowd erupts. Among them, I'm sure, is my friend Shanlever, who is clad in his Bo Jackson jersey. Based on what I saw, no one is more popular at Auburn than Bo. I wonder how much of this with the younger generation has to do with Bo Jackson being perhaps the greatest video game athlete of all time.

30. One thing I've noticed: Hardly any Auburn fans pronounce the "r" in Auburn. When the crowd chants, you can actually hear, "Aw-buhn." Pretty neat. Unfortunately, the Auburn football team enters to a billowing clad of either dry ice or manufactured fog. Somewhere, Hacksaw Jim Duggan is jealous.

31. LSU quarterback JaMarcus Russell takes the field. He is roughly the size of a house. I'll say this for JaMarcus: Per capita, the women wearing his LSU jersey in the stadium today are the hottest jersey wearers I've ever seen. It's like a Paris runway on Donahue Drive. Later, Russell throws a 65-yard bomb with touch. In addition to having the hottest fans, JaMarcus might have the strongest arm in college football.

32. The LSU fans are to my left. Their entire front row stands and rests their legs on the edge of the seating bowl. They look like purple-clad warriors about to storm the ramparts.

33. At the end of the first quarter, there is no score and Auburn has yet to get a first down. Hardly anyone around me is surprised.

34. Auburn quarterback Brandon Cox goes down midway through the second quarter and suddenly it is so quiet, it almost seems as if you can hear the tremulous jingle of Mardi Gras beads shifting among the LSU faithful. Then suddenly, from the Auburn student section, a chant of, "Brandon ... .Brandon ... Brandon," begins. Seconds later, Cox is up and sprinting off the field. The crowd erupts in one glorious exhale.

35. Two plays later, Auburn's kicker hits the upright from 32 yards. I can hear the echo even in my seat. A man behind me says, "Awww hell, it's like last year all over again." Last year, Auburn missed five field goals at LSU during their loss.

36. LSU kicks a field goal after Russell fumbles forward. It's 3-0 at the half. On the concourse outside, I watch an Auburn woman with a hotdog trying to work a broken mustard container. She turns to me and shrugs, "It's working about as well as our offense," she says.

37. In the second half, Auburn drives to the goal line where, Cox seeks to quiet the crowd. As his arms move up and down in an effort to bring on silence, he resembles nothing if not an eagle in flight. Moments later, he takes the snap and scores himself. 7-3 Auburn. All around me is bedlam.

38. My wife, the Michigan grad, texts me to say that Michigan is leading Notre Dame 34-14. I write back, "Good for UM." Ten seconds later she responds, "It's U of M." When the Notre Dame score is announced in Jordan-Hare, the crowd madly cheers. No one in Auburn has forgotten what the difference is between being No. 3 and No. 2.

The view from Clay's seat. (Photo/Clay Travis)

39. On the field, the sun has sunken behind parts of the stadium. The Auburn sideline is now entirely in the shade while the LSU team continues to bake in the sunshine. Sometimes the home-field advantage is about more than the crowd's noise. The entire AU defense is in the shade underneath the cool zone fans.

40. Late in the fourth quarter, Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville proves he has actual balls of steel by going for it from his own 42. All around me, fans are going crazy. "Punt the damn ball," one man yells. Here in Auburn, the crowd doesn't care how they win as long as they win. Style points are for other locales.

41. Auburn converts the fourth down. The crowd sighs as one. Then, crazily, Tuberville channels Super Tecmo Bowl and runs the flea flicker on third-and-1. Yep, the flea flicker. Even more amazingly, LSU has managed to double cover the receivers and does not bite on the fake. It's almost as if LSU expects the flea flicker in this situation. Later, at the postgame tailgate, I will mention the flea flicker to Shanlever. "The flea flicker," he says, volume increasing as he speaks. "We ran the flea flicker," he says again. "I thought we just went play-action." Let me just say this, I have never heard any pass play castigated so angrily by any fans than I have Tuberville's flea flicker. Mercifully, Tuberville punts on fourth down. Auburn's fans are much more conservative than their coach, which is truly a football rarity.

42. Auburn fan O'Neal Shaw sits beside me for the entire game. He is a great seat companion who truly understands the game. At one point, he turns to me and says, "If these two teams played 100 times, one team would win 51 and the other would win 49." He is right. Rarely have I seen more evenly matched teams. I don't want to hear anything about these teams having bad offenses. Both would score 40 or more on most teams (and have already done so this year). Each team's defense is really just that spectacular.

43. On the next to last fourth down of the game for LSU, this is the crowd's reaction in one minute. The LSU pass falls incomplete near the goal line:

Absolute ecstasy. I can barely hear anything. My ears are literally ringing.

Someone notices a flag in my section (that side of the field is farthest from us), the sound collapses upon itself. Indignant questions are raised. The entire section is one large interrogatory.

The pass interference penalty is waved off and once again the crowd explodes.

This is the full expanse of football life in a single minute.

A new generation finds toilet paper redemption. (Photo/Clay Travis)

44. The student section sings along to Living on a Prayer. Auburn punts again.

45. Then, inexplicably, Auburn seems to forget that the east sideline is in play. Three times in a row, Russell throws darts to his receiver. Suddenly, this game between equals is somehow even more equal.

46. It's fourth down once again, this time with only 2.5 seconds left, and even though I don't particularly have a rooting interest, my own heart is in my throat. Then, Auburn makes the tackle in bounds at their own five. The LSU player is tackled in one of the last vestiges of sunlight on the field. All around me the stadium becomes jubilation incarnate. Grown men hug other grown men, streamers from shakers cartwheel through the humid air, and a shouting that ends three hours of tension cascades through Jordan-Hare. Aw-buhn has won.

47. In a crushing tide of humanity, I'm off in the direction of Toomer's Corner. When I arrive, the trees are already covered in so much toilet paper it almost seems as if winter has arrived on the Plains. Already, the next generation of Auburn undergrads is painting the town white and at long last, I've found my own toilet paper redemption.

On to Fayetteville ...

I liked the article too but I think he was trying to take a couple of shots at Auburn and the state of Alabama.

6. Later Friday, with my friend Kelly, we go out in Birmingham's Lakeview district and immediately are overcome by the number of grown men who have short hair with long bangs. We're talking serious bangs. Bangs that hang down across the forehead and seem to be several inches thick. Long, waving bangs that appear to have been constructed with infinite care and approximately 14 different hair products. I've never seen this hairstyle anywhere else. It's as if Alabama men have really cold foreheads they have to protect.

Finally, Kelly and I decide that these forehead monstrosities need a name, so we christen them 'Bama Bangs. Whatever you call them, they have to go. Seriously, who are these women who like men with bangs longer than their own? Later that night, Kelly will say, "These 'Bama Bangs are the kind of thing that will end up really cool in Eastern Europe in like 10 years. Until then if you see some guy with bangs like this, there is a 100 percent chance he is from Alabama."

I do not hang out in B'ham but it's hard for me to believe there's a hairstyle unique to B'ham. Seems to me he’s playing off the mullet stereotype. Short hair with long bangs? Sounds like a reverse mullet to me.

8. At one point, I'm stopped at a red light alongside a menacing man with a tattoo and forearms the size of a pygmy. The man is driving a Ford F-150 with oversized wheels. If a death match suddenly erupted on 280, this man would be the favorite. As soon as the light changes, he floors it. As his truck fully passes me, I see an Auburn tiger tail attached to the rear of his truck bouncing in the wind. Yep, even the most fearsome men in Alabama are willing to pin Auburn Tiger tails to the rear of their trucks.

Here he seems to be referring to the stereotype of rednecks in their big trucks ripping up and down the roads.

30. One thing I've noticed: Hardly any Auburn fans pronounce the "r" in Auburn. When the crowd chants, you can actually hear, "Aw-buhn." Pretty neat. Unfortunately, the Auburn football team enters to a billowing clad of either dry ice or manufactured fog. Somewhere, Hacksaw Jim Duggan is jealous.

He makes it seem as if most Auburn fans have a speech impediment. (I guess someone with a speech impediment would pronounce it Aw-buhn.) I for one have never heard anyone pronounce it Aw-buhn other than a small child. Also I can clearly hear the “r” when the crowd chants.

[AURaptor 1,125]

Based on what I saw, no one is more popular at Auburn than Bo. I wonder how much of this with the younger generation has to do with Bo Jackson being perhaps the greatest video game athlete of all time.

I dunno about Bo being the GREATEST video game athlete of all time, but if he's know by the younger folks at all, I'm fine w/ that. It sure is strange to be 'the old guy' who can talk about how things were 20 yrs ago.

[AUman43 5]

An incredible article. I loved the remark by Ralph Jr. "Peanut" Jordan about Auburn being forward looking rather than living in the past.( like another school across the state.)

[DCTiger 0]

I do not hang out in B'ham but it's hard for me to believe there's a hairstyle unique to B'ham. Seems to me he’s playing off the mullet stereotype. Short hair with long bangs? Sounds like a reverse mullet to me.

I think its true. College-type guys in Georgia and Alabama have had this Beattles mop thing going for about 10 years now. You kinda see similar shaggy styles elsewhere, but more on sloppy skater-types, not well-put-together college-types.

Never thought of it as "bangs". But I think it is somewhat unique to Alabama and Georgia.