rocky flop, you'll always be...

"...second in the sec. good 'ole rocky flop, the rose bowl is all you'll see, the rose bowl is all you'll see!" bellowed two dawg fans into a cell phone after the game saturday night, obviously taunting a volunteer fan on the other line.

oh man. wasn't that game incredible?! here’s a recap of my experience in the tennessee stadium that holds over 108,000 (which, apparently was expanded by 15,000 seats or so some years ago with nothing more than a paintbrush).

jamie and i arrived at the cabin her family was staying in (just outside of pigeon forge) around 8 pm friday night. there were about five turns between my dorm and that cabin, we missed four of them. ha. the rain didn't make the signs any easier to see, thats the excuse i'm using. the only interesting thing that happened was a raccoon stealing jamie's little brother's ice cream while he was in the hot tub. that was pretty funny.

the next morning, it was cold and wet. not a great start, but we hit the road, headed for knoxville. i was hoping to meet up with two of my friends from camp...elizabeth, who goes to ut and laura, who was my co-counselor this summer and who i miss dearly. sadly, my phone ran out of batteries before i could get in touch with them. but we did run into andrew and luke randomly, who were searching for tickets.

we got into the stadium an hour early. our tickets were actually for the ut faculty section, in the nosebleed section, opposite corner from the georgia section. well, unlike the tight security in athens, there was absolutely no one checking tickets. so we took advantage of it. we claimed our seats right next to the redcoat band behind the endzone...four rows from the front. perfect.

my camera was the next thing to run out of batteries. why didn't i charge anything before i left??

if you watched it, you know. the game, from a bulldog perspective, was fabulous. aside from the guy in front of us who reeked terribly of b.o. (making me feel sick whenever he cheered) and being too afraid to leave our seats to go to the bathroom (if they were checking tickets now, we wouldn't be able to get back in), everything was great.

we came out of first half on top, 13-0...holding them scoreless in their own stadium. that was a great feeling. but things got a little shaky when shockley's pass was intercepted, leading to a touchdown. if they had scored again and made a field goal, we would have been behind. after shockley's fumble, i felt like i was going to pass out...things were not going good. especially since ut came back from behind in their last game for a win. at one point, they were driving down the field, sure to get a touchdown. their quarterback thrown the ball...and we intercept it in their endzone. what a save.

all was well once more when we returned a kick from their 40 yard line or so for a TOUCHDOWN!! i wish you could have seen the sadium as the uga section was going wild as he dodged one player after another...finally running it in to make the score 20-7. i almost fell on top of the people in front of me i was jumping so high. it was crazy. after we scored another touchdown, we had it in the bag. and, by the way, their last touchdown was a sympathy touchdown...not only did his knee hit the ground before he was in the endzone, but he dropped the ball, too. no cheers went out when they were given that last touchdown...their fans were long gone and had trickled out five minutes before the game had even ended. ha.

final score 27-14. nothing is sweeter than vengeance in someone else's stadium. we would have taunted their fans as they left the stadium (as they did to us), but, as i said before, they were already too embarrassed and had left before we got the chance.

its great to be a georgia bulldog!