Road to Game Day: Week 4, Athens

Words by Keith Arnold, who is touring the country with his brother Phil as they invade a different college campus each Saturday during the football season. They’ll be reporting back in this space with their various adventures. You can also keep tabs on their vagabonding over at RoadtoGameDay.com. This weekend, they were in Athens for the Alabama-Georgia game.



USC? Dead. Florida? Dead. Wisconsin? Dead. Georgia? Dead. That is one seismic weekend in college football. Who would have ever thought that these four teams, all ranked in the top 10 and all (with the exception of Georgia) a large favorite, would pull a Richie Tennenbaum and completely unravel in front of our eyes?

Yet as the scores began trickling into North Campus in Athens, Phil and I started exchanging quick looks. How could a team like USC, who we watched in person dismantle Ohio State, get beat by a mediocre team with a running back the size of Webster? How could the Florida Gators and the mighty Tim Tebow, who hadn’t turned the ball over all season, go and give the ball and the game away to Ole Miss? And how could the Badgers, with a 19-0 lead at halftime, let the entirely pathetic Michigan Wolverines score 27 second-half points?

As we walked into Sanford stadium, engulfed in a mass of black, the idea dawned on us that maybe we were actually going to a funeral. And maybe we were the Grim Reaper.

Is the Road to Game Day the kiss of death for a college football team? The only similarity among the four big teams that got upset this weekend? We had them on our schedule. Ohio State got waxed in front of our eyes. ASU had their name etched on our roadmap and ended up getting punked by UNLV and Georgia. And poor Wisconsin, they probably didn’t even know we were coming, but as soon as Camp Randall went up on our road map, all of a sudden the Badgers season went up in smoke. I’m starting to think we need a session with Dr. Lou or something.

But let’s get back to Athens. And mark my words, I will. Probably every season until I’m too old to do it. Because Athens might be football heaven. You can even drop the football part. I think it might be heaven.

Thanks to our new friends, Fish and Totten, we had primo tour guides. And while they weren’t Southern Belles, both of these guys were true Southern gentlemen, and had near religious convictions when it came to Georgia football. As Phil and I followed the checklist of bars Fish prepared for us on Friday night, it was impossible to not just walk around with your jaw hanging open.

Downtown Athens was packed, and I might’ve bruised Phil’s ribs throwing elbows as girls walked by wearing micro mini-skirts or dresses that you’d see in a magazine. Having lived in Los Angeles and being around Hollywood for the last few years, I thought I had seen good-looking girls, but Georgia girls are an entirely different species. (They actually shower, too.) These girls are throwbacks, they should walk around with the NFL Films soundtrack playing. As Friday night rolled on, it seemed like they just kept coming out of the woodwork, each one prettier than the next. Yet Fish kept apologizing that it wasn’t that crazy, because everyone had to get up by 6 the next morning to tailgate. Only 14 hours before game time.

Football Saturday was a unique scene. There was a Southern civility that we had never experienced, and even though these people were main-lining Jim Beam, they all seemed to keep it together. These weren’t just tailgates, there were actually full bands playing Southern anthems and country music and crazy Georgia cheers for hours and hours on end.

Too bad the game sucked. The stadium was at capacity nearly 45 minutes before kickoff. Even at halftime, with the Dawgs down 31-doughnut, the fans stuck with it far longer than they should have (with the exception of the guy sitting behind us who got escorted out by the cops. That was awesome).

But maybe it wasn’t Georgia’s fault. Maybe we’re the Black Hand of college football. Widow-makers. Yoko Onos. God, I hope not. At least when we watch Ohio State and Wisconsin play next Saturday, one team will get a W. And if Bama ends up losing next weekend to Kentucky, we might pack up the car and leave the country.

Does Al-Qaeda have a football team?

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.