A friend and I completed our goal of checking off seeing Ole Miss play in every SEC venue for 2022 (12 complete, Georgia and USCe left) with a long, interesting, and victorious trip to Texas A&M. Here are some things that happened to us during our experience.
1. The trip is about 10 hours from Tupelo. Once you get off I-20, you make about 10 turns on different state roads. It started raining on us about Marshall, TX. About 20 miles from our hotel in Huntsville, which is about 50 miles from College Station, a deer decided to attack our vehicle. My friend saw the deer coming at us while driving on State Hwy 7. As I said, it was raining so I did not dare to slam on my brakes, as I might not be here to write this if I had. Instead, I clutched the wheel with both hands and tried to accelerate past it before he got across to us. I was almost successful, but he clipped my truck on the driver's side rear quarter panel and my bumper. He was at least an 8-point, and pretty healthy, so the quarter panel and bumper are destroyed. Luckily, due to where he hit, the airbags did not deploy and there was no major damage to my truck, so the trip continued. We were both very thankful that The Lord was watching over us on that one.
2. College Station just kind of appears out of nowhere on the Texas Prairie. It looks like all of the buildings in the town have been built in the last 20 years. We ate some pretty dang good Texas barbeque brisket on the way to the game. We got there in time to get a good parking spot within a half mile of the stadium for $20. That was the last thing that was reasonably priced. We saw the Corps of Cadets and the ATM band march in. Both were particularly impressive. The halftime show was probably the 2nd most enjoyable part of the trip, after winning the game of course. What their band does is really spectacular, even to this military guy.
3. The stadium is modern and massive, but not particularly loud. It juts out somewhat like ours, which allows noise to escape. Plenty of room in the concourses and I didn't have to wait to go to the bathroom. I made 2 trips to the concession stand, and both times I was in and out in just a few minutes. It was obvious that the stadium had been built recently and did not have some of the design issues that older stadiums like Neyland or Vanderbilt stadiums had. The only complaint I have is the ramps, while very spacious, were absolutely jammed at the end of the game, and half of the crowd had left early, which probably meant that there was a bottleneck at the exit.
4. Our crowd was not as large as I was hoping for. Section 131 was largely full of Ole Miss people, but that was about it. I would say a generous number would be 3,000. We sat in 242, which is right above 131. We were on the 10th row, and I never heard the Ole Miss crowd or band once. That is to my point about the noise escaping easily. There was one couple of Ole Miss fans from Houston in the row behind us, and the Aggie fans all around were very courteous and hospitable. Some of their traditions lend somewhat to the cultish label, but they are into them and participate uniformly. The Aggies around us are not fans of their AD. I expressed our happiness that he was an Aggie now. The ones I talked to were generally resigned to the fact that CJF is going to have to stay and hopeful that they can get it turned around. I told them I saw no reason why they couldn't, given all the available resources.
5. On the ride home after the game we listened to a radio show based out of Houston. One of the guys was pretty level-headed, the other was off the rails about ATM. A caller asked a question about CJF being forced to hire a true OC and give up play calling after this season. The caller plugged an OC in the PAC-12, UCLA's I think. Anyway, the level-headed host made a comment about the OC having the luxury of playing in the PAC-12, not the SECW. The hothead then popped off that maybe ATM should just join the PAC-12, so at least they wouldn't have to lose to Ole Miss anymore. The level-headed guy then chimes in, "or Mississippi State". Just another example of what other schools in general, Texas A&M in this case, think about Ole Miss, MSU, and the entire state of Mississippi for that matter. They are above us, we are beneath them. That is their mindset. Not all, but as a general idea, yea, that is what they think. Made the ride back to the hotel even sweeter. All in all, good trip. My buddy and I agreed that if we ever go back, we will fly. Game observations coming tomorrow. That is all.
1. The trip is about 10 hours from Tupelo. Once you get off I-20, you make about 10 turns on different state roads. It started raining on us about Marshall, TX. About 20 miles from our hotel in Huntsville, which is about 50 miles from College Station, a deer decided to attack our vehicle. My friend saw the deer coming at us while driving on State Hwy 7. As I said, it was raining so I did not dare to slam on my brakes, as I might not be here to write this if I had. Instead, I clutched the wheel with both hands and tried to accelerate past it before he got across to us. I was almost successful, but he clipped my truck on the driver's side rear quarter panel and my bumper. He was at least an 8-point, and pretty healthy, so the quarter panel and bumper are destroyed. Luckily, due to where he hit, the airbags did not deploy and there was no major damage to my truck, so the trip continued. We were both very thankful that The Lord was watching over us on that one.
2. College Station just kind of appears out of nowhere on the Texas Prairie. It looks like all of the buildings in the town have been built in the last 20 years. We ate some pretty dang good Texas barbeque brisket on the way to the game. We got there in time to get a good parking spot within a half mile of the stadium for $20. That was the last thing that was reasonably priced. We saw the Corps of Cadets and the ATM band march in. Both were particularly impressive. The halftime show was probably the 2nd most enjoyable part of the trip, after winning the game of course. What their band does is really spectacular, even to this military guy.
3. The stadium is modern and massive, but not particularly loud. It juts out somewhat like ours, which allows noise to escape. Plenty of room in the concourses and I didn't have to wait to go to the bathroom. I made 2 trips to the concession stand, and both times I was in and out in just a few minutes. It was obvious that the stadium had been built recently and did not have some of the design issues that older stadiums like Neyland or Vanderbilt stadiums had. The only complaint I have is the ramps, while very spacious, were absolutely jammed at the end of the game, and half of the crowd had left early, which probably meant that there was a bottleneck at the exit.
4. Our crowd was not as large as I was hoping for. Section 131 was largely full of Ole Miss people, but that was about it. I would say a generous number would be 3,000. We sat in 242, which is right above 131. We were on the 10th row, and I never heard the Ole Miss crowd or band once. That is to my point about the noise escaping easily. There was one couple of Ole Miss fans from Houston in the row behind us, and the Aggie fans all around were very courteous and hospitable. Some of their traditions lend somewhat to the cultish label, but they are into them and participate uniformly. The Aggies around us are not fans of their AD. I expressed our happiness that he was an Aggie now. The ones I talked to were generally resigned to the fact that CJF is going to have to stay and hopeful that they can get it turned around. I told them I saw no reason why they couldn't, given all the available resources.
5. On the ride home after the game we listened to a radio show based out of Houston. One of the guys was pretty level-headed, the other was off the rails about ATM. A caller asked a question about CJF being forced to hire a true OC and give up play calling after this season. The caller plugged an OC in the PAC-12, UCLA's I think. Anyway, the level-headed host made a comment about the OC having the luxury of playing in the PAC-12, not the SECW. The hothead then popped off that maybe ATM should just join the PAC-12, so at least they wouldn't have to lose to Ole Miss anymore. The level-headed guy then chimes in, "or Mississippi State". Just another example of what other schools in general, Texas A&M in this case, think about Ole Miss, MSU, and the entire state of Mississippi for that matter. They are above us, we are beneath them. That is their mindset. Not all, but as a general idea, yea, that is what they think. Made the ride back to the hotel even sweeter. All in all, good trip. My buddy and I agreed that if we ever go back, we will fly. Game observations coming tomorrow. That is all.
