Trip to Auburn

I went to the Auburn game on Saturday. The day started out with incredible weather, a beautiful day for what I thought would be an MSU victory.

After skipping lunch for the early kickoff I decided to get some concessions, as I got to the end of the aisle everyone was stopped to watch the eagle fly. I looked up and, bam, the Auburn eagle nailed the glass on a luxury box…it looked like it’s next move was to land somewhere but it changed directions and almost landed in the crowd not far from the MSU band. Finally, it made it’s way back to the trainer on the 50-yard line. I thought, ‘this is going to be our day, the eagle couldn’t even make the correct flight’.

Usually football stadiums are loudest at night, so I wasn’t expecting Jordan-Hare to be as loud as it was. I’ve been to that stadium probably 20 times in my life, that is one of the loudest crowds I’ve ever heard there. They really got behind the team and made it into a hostile environment for Mississippi State.

At halftime, I really felt like we had them right where we wanted them. I thought we’d be able to run all over their defensive line (which we kind of did) and pull out a sound win (which we didn’t). As loud as the crowd was, you could hear a pin drop when State did something good (I was sitting in an Auburn section). The last 10 minutes of the game were gut-wrenching to watch in person. If I went into the game thinking it was a toss-up, or Auburn was favored it wouldn’t have been so bad. But thinking we should win the game going in, it was a tough pill to swallow when Relf was stopped at the goal line. I was dejected as I watched Auburn celebrate like I never have before when beating State. There’s a burn on my face from the sun that will remind me of this game for the next few days.

Walking out of the stadium we ran into Vick Ballard’s parents. They looked pretty shocked. I was too, it took the walk back to the car before I was ready to talk again.

After the Cam Newton saga, I expected the Auburn fans to be a little more sour towards us than usual. But they weren’t. I never heard anything bad about State, or Dan Mullen (since most believe he alerted the press about the story). I sat among them at the game, and I went to a BBQ after the game with them, but no one said anything spiteful, or were they glad to get revenge on MSU. So I will hand it to the Auburn fans I came in contact with, it made losing the game not sting so bad.