It is hard to believe that the 2011 college football season has almost come to an end. Fortunately, there is one more game left before the Bowl Madness begins. This Saturday, LSU and UGA will square off in the Georgia Dome to decide the SEC Champion. I am not one to comment on what will happen on the field inside the Georgia dome, but outside the Georgia Dome is another matter.
Saturday evenings in the fall are a special time. If you are an LSU fan, you know that it is a tradition for all home games in Tiger Stadium to have an evening kickoff. This gives you plenty of time to cook all of your tailgating food!
This past weekend, I was in Clemson, SC, for the Auburn at Clemson game. While the result on the field didn’t go Auburn’s way, there was no shortage of great tailgating from Auburn fans before the game. When I first arrived at the game, this group of Auburn fans pulled up right next to me.
Seeing how they brought their tailgating on the road, it reminded me of tailgating at Auburn during the 2010 season. Read more…
Every school has a color palette that they identify as their own, but very few schools have a pattern. I am sure that if you have ever been to a gameday in Tuscaloosa, or have had Bama come to your stadium, you know what I am talking about. It’s hard to spend time around Alabama fans and not notice their love of the black and white houndstooth pattern.
Fan’s wear the pattern to honor their great coach Paul “Bear” Bryant, and it has become synonymous with Crimson Tide Football. If you’re a Bama fan, you probably have multiple pieces of houndstooth in your closet right now.
Love it or loathe it, the houndstooth pattern is an iconic part of gameday in the SEC. When I was in Tuscaloosa for gameday, I played a little game and tried to see how many different forms I could find the pattern in. Read more…
Look at the sea of orange outside Neyland stadium. This is what game day in Knoxville looks like.
That orange you see isn’t just any orange, it is #f77f00 in the hexadecimal color system, but let’s just stick with Tennessee or Vol Orange.
Whether you love it or hate it, every SEC fan has an opinion on Tennessee’s trademark color.
Opponents say it is way too bright or just plain awful looking. Vol fans disagree and will cover themselves from head to toe.
Haven’t made up your mind ? Take a look at these pictures from the Alabama at Tennessee game last season. Read more…
Alabama has done it twice, LSU has done it once. After this weekend, Georgia has joined the list of SEC teams who have played in the Chick-fil-a kickoff game. All of these teams and their fan bases have made the trip to Atlanta. Rather than spending your first game of the season playing a Div 1AA opponent, teams in the Chick-fil-a kickoff play a top 25 team to start of the season. While the result on the field wasn’t what Georgia fans were looking for, everything that UGA fans did in the parking lots before hand was a W in my book.
With the Georgia Dome’s tailgating lots opening 13 hours before kickoff, there was plenty of time for Dawg fans to tailgate. While Athens might only be an hour and a half from Atlanta, tailgating at the Georgia Dome is very different from what you will find outside Sanford Stadium. With the Georgia Dome having an urban setting, there are plenty of asphalt and gravel lots for you to set your tailgate up in. Here is what gameday outside the Dome looked like. Read more…
It’s almost that time. With Labor Day weekend approaching, summer is ending and COLLEGE FOOTBALL SEASON is about to begin.
With college football comes tailgating.
I have been to many great tailgates across the country, and as a whole the SEC does tailgating the best. Tailgating is all about great food, passionate fans, and time honored traditions. Whether you are a Tiger (LSU or Auburn), Gator, Gamecock, or Wildcat, all SEC fans do game day tailgating in their own unique way.
To celebrate the new football tailgating season, I wanted to share with you my 5 favorite things about tailgating in the SEC.
This 10 acre green space looks like this on Friday afternoon:
Overnight, it is transformed into one of the largest parties you have ever been to. Girls in sundresses, guys in suits, and cocktails in hands, game day at The Grove in Oxford is an experience unlike any other.
Like Cinderella, at midnight the tailgate disappears, but will return again for the next home game.
It is tradition for SEC fans to cheer on their players as they walk into the stadium. About 2 and a half hours prior to kick off, fans will line up and wait for their team to arrive. Every school has their own form of this player procession, but the size and scope of Auburn’s is one you just have to see.
I have been to many walks, but the Tiger Walk’s atmosphere is like non other.
Only in the SEC would you find a group of tailgaters that have formed a navy. On Saturdays in the fall, this tailgating navy of several hundred boats gathers on the Tennessee river outside Neyland Stadium.
You will find boats of all size tied to one another. The larger ships stay tied up for the entire 3 months of the football season. With the largest boatgating scene in the country, the VOL Navy in Knoxville is something you have to see.
This contest between SEC East rivals Florida and Georgia takes place during the last week of October each season in Jacksonville, FL. The tailgating that happens when these two teams travel to a neutral site is legendary.
Every possible place you can park a car has a tailgate at it (this includes under overpasses and medians of the highway) After a visit for yourself, you will understand why it has been given the nickname “The World’s Largest Cocktail Party.”
There is tailgating food and then there is LSU’s tailgating food. The meals that are cooked up under the purple and gold tents outside Tiger Stadium on Saturdays are what every tailgate should aspire to be like. Crab, pork, alligator, frog, chicken, beef, shrimp, there is nothing that LSU fans won’t put their cajun spin on.
Even Alabama, Ole Miss, and Auburn fans would agree that the food found on gameday in Baton Rouge is special. Only in Baton Rouge, does a 2:30 kickoff require a 4:15am arrival.
Chances are you have experienced one or several of these great SEC traditions. If you haven’t, I suggest you hit the road this season and watch your school when they travel to away games. With the combination of great SEC football and passionate fans, you can’t go wrong spending a Saturday at an SEC campus.
As I continue my travels from tailgate to tailgate this fall, I look forward to seeing…
UGA in Atlanta on 9/3
Auburn at Clemson on 9/17
LSU at West Virginia on 9/24
Alabama at Florida on 10/1
Mississippi St at Kentucky on 10/29
and ending my season at South Carolina on 11/26
I look forward to seeing what other SEC traditions are out there. I don’t know who will win the game, all I know is that when tailgating in the SEC, there are no losers.
Taylor Mathis is a photographer and passionate football fan. Visit his blog, Taylor Tailgates, to see more of his tailgating photos and information as well as follow his travels this coming football season.
