The Deep South’s Oldest Column: Opening the Season in Awe
The Deep South’s Oldest Column is back. We’re a weary nation, but college football is our binding force…and brought us together yet again last Saturday.
By: Dr. B
Started last season, “The Deep South’s Oldest Column” is a weekly feature from Biscuits & SEC. Each week during the season, B&S contributor Dr. B will examine an SEC topic from a cultural perspective. There will be examinations of the conference we love and why we love it. Stories of the role models who passed on the love of football in the South. Fun will be poked at other conferences - and often at ourselves. There will be introspection, life lessons, tales of big wins, crushing losses, history, tear-jerkers, joy...and the ties that bind us together.
Let me bring you down “Memory Lane” to a time of great hope, earnest celebration, and a time where despite the hardships and tragedies of the world, for at least a few days, all seemed right in the world once again. Sounds great, doesn’t it? I lived through those days and I can honestly say they were great indeed. Let me bring you back to...last week.
You see, if you can remember way back to last Wednesday, September 1st, it was the official start to the college football season. Coming off a pandemic year where most teams were just happy to have a season, scenes of mostly empty stadiums, cardboard cutouts, and echoes of pre-recorded fight songs being blasted through loudspeakers at long last seemed like a thing of the past. Starting last Wednesday, we saw stadiums that were filled, tailgates resumed in a “business as usual” manner, and our beloved College GameDay show that officially starts each college football Saturday was back in earnest with rabid fan bases touting signs aplenty. We saw the return of Lee Corso to the set, and the noted absence of that huge ass desk that placed the hosts five miles apart from one another was a relief.
Thank goodness the huge ass desk is a thing of the past and Coach Corso is back with the crew. (Photo: ESPN)
Indeed, it was a full weekend of celebration, and reminded us all that the experience of college football is so much bigger than gridiron games...it transcends the norms of sport and even stretches into the spiritual, and that fact was on full display over the weekend. I simply could not get enough. It did not matter who was playing...I needed to see it and experience it all...the crowds, the bands, and the actual games almost seemed like a sideshow. I needed this, badly, and maybe you needed it too. Even though I did not particularly have a bad week leading up to the weekend, if I had, the college football slate would have served as the perfect medicine to remind me that all in the world would indeed be OK. In the middle of a hurricane, wildfires out west and a variant and sickness and so many in the midst of serious illness and depression, opening weekend reminded me that on college campuses and playing fields around the country, for at least a little while, all was indeed well.
Starting two years ago, my family began a new tradition. Each Saturday morning during the college football season, we greet one another with “It’s gameday” (my wife even has a hat that states “Gameday is the Best Day”) and set up a pseudo tailgate in the large playroom of our Virginia home. The tables go up right after Corso dons the headgear, and our Saturday cuisine is filled with our favorites...gummy strips, chips and salsa, jelly beans, soft pretzels, possibly wings and onion rings and tater tots and potato skins, foods strategically chosen to last through the 9:00 pm kickoff of the nightcap game. Our home tailgate has one staple that never changes...a Walmart cookie cake. Doesn’t matter if the cake has icing balloons or messages that shout “Happy Birthday” or “Welcome to Fall”...we need our darn cake and we will eat it as well. Our tailgate was in full force once again last Saturday.
So walk briefly down memory lane with me...the extended weekend started on Wednesday night with UAB taking out Jacksonville State, and it was good. We then moved to Thursday that gave us a glimpse of what Ohio State will have this season as they had to work to get a win over a feisty Minnesota squad. If you are lucky and could stay awake, the delayed nightcap between UCF and Boise State was super fun, and it again was good. Throw in a Friday night at Lane Stadium in Blacksburg that felt like the glory days of Hokie football with Virginia Tech upsetting Mac Brown’s top 10 UNC team, and you got the sense that week 1 was going to be very good. And as for Saturday, let’s just say that it was magnificent.
By the time my beloved Crimson Tide took on Miami mid-day, our family tailgate was in full swing and due to the fact that, once again, Bama is Bama, it was very, very good. Topping off the evening with the donnybrook of the weekend, Georgia and Clemson proved to be...well, pretty good, especially if you like defense, but it didn’t matter because both fan bases were living out each and every play like their lives depended on it, and college football was finally back in full swing. Sunday’s Florida State-Notre Dame game was outstanding on so many levels, and Ole Miss’ dominance over Louisville on Monday evening was entertaining enough. Oh, so good indeed.
There were many highlights during this stretch on an emotional level, things that reminded me of how college football is more life celebration than pure sport, that deserve special recognition. In case you missed it:
Wisconsin’s “Jump Around” reminded us of the spirit of our game and how great it is to have fans back in the stands
Virginia Tech’s now-legendary entry into Lane Stadium to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” returned in full force. Here’s hoping that the vast majority of the Hokie faithful can actually name more than one Metallica song, let alone an album or two...that would be the sign of a quality education indeed
Did Presbyterian’s quarterback actually throw 10 touchdown passes...in one game?!?!
Rutgers scored 61 points, and to clarify, not in an entire season, but in one game
Kansas fans rushed the field after beating South Dakota 17-14...good for them
Former UCF and current Florida State quarterback McKenzie Milton returned to the field for the first time in 3 years after suffering a horrific, should-have-been career-ending leg injury in November 2018, and played beautifully
Ole Miss played defense...for a half
Alabama...my goodness
Not really celebratory, yet a quick note to say that it was not a good weekend for “Smart Kid” schools, as Vanderbilt, Duke, and Stanford all looked sub-par (on the field only...in life, they are fine, thank you very much)
Unless you are a Miami or Clemson fan, I am not sure we could have asked for a better weekend. It was celebratory, stretched for what seemed to be forever, and was a much-needed sigh of relief for a weary nation. It was also a wonderful reminder that college football is plain and simply more than a game, as it is an awe-inspiring experience meant to be enjoyed by all. And once again, it was good...oh so good.
Dr. B has lived and taught throughout the South, attending The University of Alabama and earning a Ph.D. from The University of Georgia. He has come to know and love the people and rich traditions of the SEC and its rabid fan bases.