As I approached the west side of Camping World Stadium in Orlando last weekend, it sort of hit me.

“Oh, that’s right. Florida-Miami is a much bigger deal than Kentucky-Penn State.”

The atmosphere surrounding the stadium was a wee bit different from what I saw at the Citrus Bowl 7.5 months earlier. Traffic was nearly at a standstill, and perhaps a combination of a triple-digit heat index with the renewal of an in-state rivalry just added to the hostility in the air.

So sadly, I wasn’t surprised when I heard about Florida’s band director getting attacked by a Miami fan after the game.

If you haven’t heard the story right now, here’s what we know from the police report (via USA Today).

Allegedly, a woman tried pushing her way through the Florida marching band after the game. While doing so, she “battered” several members of the band, which prompted band director John “Jay” Wilkins to try and stop her. A Miami fan then “grabbed (Wilkins) around the neck from behind and thrown to the ground, striking the back of his head on the pavement.”

Wilkins avoided any serious injuries and returned to work. He didn’t press charges, though he wanted the incident reported.

Yikes.

Fair or not, those Miami fan stereotypes aren’t exactly washed away with an incident like that. That’s the world we live in.

After probably at least 5-6 hours of being outside in 90-plus degree weather — including some sort of pregame tailgate — it wouldn’t be surprising if a fan of a losing team got short-tempered. We’ve all been there. And truth be told, even just getting from the media elevator to the press conferences was a clogged mess that tested my patience.

But throwing a band director to the ground for not letting a random fan plow through the marching band? Different story, obviously.

And look. Who knows if the situation had been any different if the woman was trying to plow through the Miami band instead of Florida’s. Or better yet, who knows if the situation had been any different if Miami had won and not suffered a mistake-riddled loss to the in-state rival.

In a perfect world, that wouldn’t have entered the mind of someone trying to get out of a stadium. Instead, a fan of a team who lost 11 of its past 18 games had a bad moment.

Perhaps it was wishful thinking to believe Miami and Florida could meet and there wouldn’t be any postgame assaults.

A Bama fan’s hard stance against a fall wedding

I’ve talked about fall weddings before with #ItMightMeanTooMuch. A lot.

In fact, I even took the unpopular stance that fall weddings weren’t the worst things and that there are actually benefits to not torturing yourself for 3.5 hours on a given Saturday.

Brett Myers has a different stance. A much different stance.

If you couldn’t tell from his handle @bamafan7, Brett bleeds Crimson. He’s super engaging with myself and my SDS Podcast co-host Chris Marler, and he’s provided us with some #ItMightMeanTooMuch stories before.

So it comes as no surprise that Brett made this declaration about a fall wedding that he’s invited to:

My favorite part of that is after talking about it with his wife, he said “Just FYI it will only take one time of either of you or someone else asking me to put my phone away out of respect to the bride and groom and their families before I stand up, collect my things and go sit in the car for the rest of the night. I promise you I will watch this game and I don’t care one bit what anyone things of me.”

Dang, Brett. Tell me how you really feel.

I can just picture Brett sitting there with his headphones in — because Airpods are more discrete than a monstrous pair of Beats — and in steps the bride to walk down the aisle. Everyone rises and Brett is still sitting there, completely oblivious of the incoming bride. It’s nothing but an harp playing as the bride enters when suddenly, Brett loses it.

“Tua, Jerry Jeudy was double covered! You can’t throw that ball!”

Brett’s wife looks at him and goes, “yeah, you need to leave now.” Brett then begrudgingly stomps out but instead of taking the outside route, Brett just marches right down the aisle and unknowingly bumps into the bride’s shoulder as he walks out muttering expletives at his phone.

The bride is visibly upset, not because she was bumped into. Rather, she says to Brett, “Score? Brett, what’s the score?” The problem is that Brett has his headphones in so instead of hearing the bride, all he can hear is Gary Danielson ranting about forcing throws into double coverage.

And that’s how you upset a bride on a fall Saturday in the South.