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Clemson Tailgate Wrap-Up:

            - Lot 1, College Park, MD

Tailgate Quote: 

“Welcome to the Longest Tailgate Recap in History”

            - Bob W.

Overall:

Settle in, because this recap is looking like a long one.  We had so much going on this past weekend that I don’t even know where to begin.  We had the Chic-fil-a weekend, the pumpkin carving contest, the Clemson game all rolled into one.  In addition we also broke out a brand new game called “Post football game one on one flip cup” which I have also nominated for the “Worst Idea Ever Hall of Fame” (I’m keeping my fingers crossed on hearing back from them, so far we are up against betting against the 2007 Patriots, and installing lightening rods during thunderstorms, so it is going to be tough).   

First Chic-fil-a.  What can you say about them.  Every year they pick one tailgate and deliver 6,000 chicken sandwiches, not to mention all the other stuff that comes with them.  I don’t know how much money it costs them to do it, but I’m glad they do and in exchange for enough food to feed 12, I am going to put the Chic-fil-a Cow up as our opening picture.  50 dollars worth of food for a plug on an internet site read by as many as 10 people, sounds like a good deal to me!

As everyone knows the Maryland Clemson game is always a big deal.  Many of us have friends and family “on the other side” so it is always nice to get together and drink and hang out and I must say this years Clemson-Maryland lacked a lot of hatred and animosity that we’ve seen in the past.  Maybe because both sides have given up on the year.  Well maybe not, but this was basically a playoff game with the loser all but mathematically eliminated from any shot at the BCS, so Clemson is technically still alive, but neither fan base has any illusions of grandeur.  Whatever the case it was kind of nice. 

Tailgate Highlights:

For the second year in a row, Chic-fil-a has captured the tailgate highlight.  I won’t go into the details since I just mentioned it above.  I was going to pick the pumpkin carving contest for the tailgate highlight, but that has sort of evolved into it’s own thing, so I won’t count it. 

Tailgate Lowlights:

Uh attendance maybe.  People the parking lots open at 9:30 am.  Don’t be bashful.  If I can drink for 6 hours so you can you.  I swear, I don’t know if it was the weather but it seemed like forever until someone other than J, Kristin, and I showed up….uh no offense to those two.  I’m just saying, at 9:30 on Saturday, we had exactly 12 hours of tailgating left in the year.  If you want to spend those precious hours doing something else, well that’s fine, but you’ll be sorry on November 11^th. 

Pumpkin Carving Contest:

On Saturday October 27^th we saw the return of the Annual D7 Pumpkin Carving Contest.  Third Annual to be exact.  The Pumpkin Carving contest was a great success and we had over 9 entries this year, which is pretty good considering that 3 regular pumpkin carvers were not in attendance for this years competition.  Special thanks to all the Clemson folks who participated despite knowing that who ever ended up judging the contest would more than likely have a Maryland bias.  Just remember the Pumpkin contest isn’t about winning, but having fun and enjoying the day (of course in 2005 when I actually won it, it was all about winning, but these last two years it has been only about fun).

First Place- The 2007 Pumpkin Carving Crown is returning to Calvert County this year, Jason was able to pull off the 2006 title, but Justin and Erin just barely edged him out this year to give us a new champion, yet still keep the title all in the family.  Somewhere back on the farm Mrs. Leavitt is beeming with pride that her two sons have been blessed with such a useless talent!  Justin and Erin went with the eating up the competition theme, and that is exactly what they did to the other contestants.  The tiger paw on the pumpkin being eaten was what I think the icing on the cake that pushed them over the edge.

Second Place- Taking home the 2007 Bronze medal was Jason.  Jason went with the Jesus theme which was appropriate because that is exactly what I said when I saw it all lit up.  The attention to detail was incredible.  I don’t know how long it took him to carve it, but I imagine it took a while.  In fact it probably took longer to carve it than it took my dad to finally “see” it.  I swear, he’s spent half his life trying to figure out those hidden image pictures they have at the mall (I don’t see it….Dad it’s a sailboat, it’s right there!....Are you sure….Just relax your eyes…..oh I think I see something, oh wait it’s gone….).  Regardless, Jason did a hell…..uh excuse me Jesus….a heck of a job. 

Third Place- YES!  I got third.  I was nervous and I knew the competition was going to be tough, and I am ecstatic to get third.  Sure you don’t win any prize, but still it is good to know that if two people didn’t show up I would have won!!  I must say I should be awarded bonus points since I raised my entry from seed to tailgate!  Cutting that baby open was the hardest thing I’ve ever done….sniff…sniff.

The Rest of the Pumpkins in no particular order:

J’s- I’m not sure which incident J is more disappointed in, not winning the pumpkin carving  contest or Maryland losing the football game.  I actually do know which, but I don’t want to say it out loud.  Anyway, I loved J’s pumpkin and if I was the judge, he very well may have won.  The thing that hurt J was that the competition was after dark, and his pumpkin was at its best in broad daylight.  Also if Turner would have thrown for 4 TD’s in a winning effort before the competition I think J’s pumpkin would have had a little more buzz going in.  Regardless J you should be proud. 

LeAnne’s- Lee’s pumpkin, despite being a Clemson entry actually garnered a lot of interest from some passer byers.  In fact one person said that if it wasn’t a Clemson pumpkin, they would have voted it #1.  Of course if we could have gotten a good 4^th down spot verse UVA, and the Clemson and WVU team buses both broke down, we’d be undefeated.  So the “if” only takes you so far.  Regardless Lee’s pumpkin was one of my favorites strictly from the aspect that I grew that one as well.  Now dad and I both have something in common, we both raised two things that finished 3^rd and also ran in a 9 man pumpkin carving contest.  I’m so proud I could cry!

Jen- Jen went with the witches cauldron on this one.  As someone who has spent many an hour looking up pumpkin ideas on line, I have to tip my cap to Jen.  Anytime I see one of this “back of the pumpkin” patterns I skip right over it.  My hands are way too shaky to pull that off.  Jen, just like Jason’s really needed to be lit in order to show of it’s full potential.  Plus she can also actually use her pumpkin for Halloween with out every kid on the block asking why your pumpkin is killing a kitty.  Way to kill two birds with one stone. 

Tyson’s- Ahhh memories.  Tyson’s pumpkin takes us back to a day when  winning was something new to Maryland fans, and, let’s just say some of the Terps supporters in Lot 1 were having trouble “adjusting” to the new found taste of victory.  Though I still owe him another flag, it is nice we can now all look back on it and laugh, we’ll kinda of.  Tyson should get bonus points because his pumpkin actually told a story, and for those of us old enough to remember the 2001 season, you didn’t need any explaination.  Well done (just like the old Clemson flag!).

Kara- Much like the old cave paintings they found in France, Kara’s pumpkin was short and to the point.  Tiger Paw on top, turtle turned upside down and left for long agonizing death on the bottom.  That’s not very nice Kara.  I do a pumpkin of a Maryland fan kindly giving a Tiger a nice hot bath, and this is how you pay us back!  Regardless of what the SPCA or the lady who runs the Save the Turtle charity thinks, nice job. 

Luke- You can call it being a bad uncle, but letting Tillman carve your pumpkin for you was probably a great bonding experience.  And for a two year old, that was a hell of an effort!  That kid has a future ahead of him.  One day he could be the best pumpkin carver outside of Calvert County!  Seriously though, thanks to Luke for doing a pumpkin.  I don’t think many of us would sit down and go through the effort knowing that the judges were going to be biased Maryland fans (and quite frankly po’ed Maryland fans, after the football game). 

So that wraps up the Pumpkin Carving Contest.  I would like to say that the 2008 contest is going to be a little different.  No I will still guilt everyone into spending 5 hours on a Friday night carving a pumpkin, but I think the judging has to be improved.  I liked the idea of grabbing random people, but the thing is, it is all who you grab.  I heard a lot of comments after the contest was over of someone walking by and saying, oh I would have picked that one to win.  So I’m kicking around the idea of ballots.  We’ll see.  Luckily I still have 363 days to hammer out the details.

Also for those of you who were not around, the grand prize was a white Maryland Tee-shirt with Terrapins written across it and something else.  You’ll probably see it at Justin and Erin’s wedding because it is now the nicest outfit Justin owns. 

Live from College Park Downs:

            We had 3 races on the card today at College Park Downs, which is only 2 less than what they run at Fair Hill now days (sorry Cecil County only reference there).  Oh crap, looking through my notes, I don’t really think I took any about horse racing.  I know, everyone laughs and points saying “Look at the Dork with his note pad”, but if it wasn’t for that spiral bound pad of paper, the whole recap would look like this:

            Ahhh someone won horse racing, then we played LRC, I lost, then we played flip cup and someone threw up….possibly me. 

            Then everyone would cuss for having a crappy recap!  So I can’t win.  Anyway, the first race I won, and so did Lee, my Dad, and someone else…possibly someone around where Mr. Leavitt was standing.  The second race someone won who wasn’t me, and this race won more money than the first one….Natch.  For the third race we appeased the tailgate god’s and played “The Double Up Derby”.  I most definitely did not win this one either, and whoever did, took home a decent amount.  If I had to guess, I’d say Jen and my Dad won, I also think Josh may have won, but I can’t confirm that.  Damn you note pad.

            I would like to point out though we had an interesting occurance during the Clemson Tailgates racing season.  We actually had two owners have all of their horses killed before the start of the race.  That has never happened before, and because we were so sympathetic, we still made them roll.  Now we’d have to consult the guy in Nebraska who invented this game, but I think that was the right call.  Regardless Brian and Shawn took it in stride, I on the other hand would have flipped the table over and stormed off. 

LRC:

I don’t know what it is with Shawn today, but she might as well have worn a pro-choice bumper sticker, a Confederate Flag tee-shirt, and a NRA baseball hat, with as much controversy as she was causing.  First she kills all her horses in the horse racing game and then wins the most controversial LRC game in history.  Of course she couldn’t do it the normal way, she had the only two chips on the table and then rolled CC.  I wasn’t there but she was awarded the victory and for all any of us know, that is the correct call.  Regardless Shawn took home the pot.  Interestingly enough Shawn was one of the first, if not the first person to actually know the rules to LRC coming in.  Of course she called it Lime, Rust, and Calcium, but still.  I guess experience does count for something in LRC. 

In game two Kristin won while standing next to me, so though I haven’t won an LRC game in a season and a half (not counting the Rutgers tailgate when only 4 of us were playing) at least I am no longer the angel of death I used to be. 

Punt, Pass, and Kick:

After not placing in the Pumpkin Carving Contest J probably would have killed me if I didn’t point out he won the PP&K competition.  J blew me and my entire family out of the water in the first ever Co-ed PP&K.  I also have, out of respect, to point out that I only beat my Aunt by a total of 3 parking spaces (could have been 2, but I’ll say three).  I must also point out though that I really think I have a torn rotator cuff, but all excuses aside, I manned up an put it in writing.  Good job Trish, I’m glad at least one of us in our family can throw a football!  I think my cousins Josh and Cody rounded out the top 3. 

Flip Cup Results:

First of all I must say, if you are still reading this by now you are either a trooper, or at work.  Either way thanks for hanging in there I promise to wrap this all up soon.  So now we move on to Flip Cup.  The Clemson game featured the earliest we have ever broken out the flip cup game.  We actually got a total of 6 series in before kickoff.  Some were tight, others not so much, so without further adieu lets begin.

The First Series:  The First Series saw the Old Line Flippers taking on the Free State Swingers.  The OLF’s were composed of Jason, Justin, J, Snively, Erin, Bob, and Jen.  The FSS’s were made up of Luke, Kara, Lee, Dave Mosher, Tim, Tyson, and my Dad.  This one was like a Cliff Huxtable sweater…ugly.  The OLF’s took off and never looked back.  It was 4-0 before the FFS’s anchor ever actually tasted a beer.

The Second Series: After the first debacle you’d think the Free State Swingers would have like to mix things up again, but they wanted to run it back, so we obliged.  Again the teams were Jason, Justin, J, Snively, Erin, Bob, and Jen against Luke, Kara, Lee, Dave Mosher, Tim, Tyson, and my Dad.  Same teams, same result.  Though according to my note pad I have something on here that says Tyson is a quitter.  I don’t know what that is about, but at the same time I’m not surprised to read it. 

The Third Series: Finally we decided to shake things up.  And as it turned out the third series was one of the few series were there was any real competition.  In this one we saw the East Coast Player Haters taking on the West End Street Thugs.  For the ECPH’s we had Kara, Tyson, Bob, J, Snively, and Tim.  For the WEST we had Lee, Erin, Jen, Jason, my Dad, and Justin.  This one went 6 with the WEST’s taking home the victory 4-2. 

The Forth Series: I’m not sure if I have the chronological order correct here, but we’ll say this was the 4^th.  The Forth Series featured the a rematch of ECPH vs. WEST.  This time ECPH came out on top.  It appears that at some point Luke must have replace Kara because I don’t have Luke on the ECPH roster, but I do have a note that he closed out game 6 like he was Jonathon Paplebon. 

The Fifth Series:  This one featured the TBD’s vs. the JDEB’s.  TBD’s was made up of Dave M, Tommy, Tyson, Tim, Bob 2, Bob, and my Dad.  The JDEB’s were made up of Jason, Brian, Erin, Justin, Dave, Jen, and J.  This one was not close as the JDEB’s coasted to a 4-0 decision. 

The Sixth Series: This was basically a rematch of the 5^th series, the only difference was that Weis checked in for Dave.  Other than that it was basically the same result with JWEB’s taking it in 4.  At one point my poor dad failed to get off the starting line before all of JWEB finished, but that thankfully just hastened the inevitable. 

So there you have it ya drunks.  Below are updated standings.  Enjoy.

There were actually a couple really intense one on one games after the football game was over.  They aren’t reflected here because this table is for team play only.  That and I can’t make out my notes.  But I will say some of those games were extremely impressive.  

Weather Report Card:

For the Clemson game, the D7 weather desk actually looked a little bit like they knew what they were doing.  It was gutsy to call for rain in the middle of one of the worst droughts in 5 years, but it turned out to be the right call.  Sure I missed the high by 10 points, but the low was just about spot on.  After GT and UVA, I’ll take any small victory I can muster. 

The “Save the Terrapin” Drive:

Well the Clemson tailgate was the most successful tailgate this year for the Save the Terrapin Drive and special thanks go out to everyone who participated.  We raised just over $41 this past Saturday which brings our grand total for the year to $156.25.  We are halfway to the 2006 goal, which isn’t going to happen, but still 150+ dollars is a great accomplishment.  We have one more home tailgate left to finalize our total.  We have a realistic chance at $200, and if we can hit that mark we’ll have raised $500 dollars for Terrapin Rescue efforts over the last two years.  And even if we don’t were still helping out our state reptile. 

Tailgate MVP:

This is both the smartest and easiest decision of the day.  But the Clemson game MVP goes to my wife Kristin.  Kristin helped make all the participation bags for the pumpkin carving contest, she helped me with my design and vision for my pumpkin, she drove me home, as tailed Brian and J back to Mary’s grandmothers house, and then she didn’t yell at me when I slept most of the ride home.  Then agreed to name our kid Shawn Merriman Wevodau, actually that last part may have just been a dream.  But either way, take it all in Kristin, you earned this one!

Honorable Mention (in no particular order): 

As corny as it sounds everyone else who came to the tailgate gets an honorable mention.  Everyone who made cookies (even the cookies where the turtle had 4 heads and was sprinkled in Orange and Purple).  Everyone who carved a pumpkin, everyone who played LRC, everyone who gave to the turtle fund, everyone who played horse racing, everyone who had could have done anything they possibly wanted to do on Saturday October 27, 2007 and choose to spend it in Lot 1 drinking beer, eating food, and yelling at the top of their lungs because the person next to them flipped a cup over on their first attempt.

UVA Loose Ends:

Not really relative to this tailgate, but I still wanted to bring it up.  Erin made a CD from last week featuring video of E40H and also a video of Chris trying to play flip cup out of the Crain position ala Ralph Machio in Karate Kid.  Of course he fails, but in the background you can hear someone singing “I am a man who will fight for your honor….”.  I laughed at Kristin as we were watching it, until all of a sudden it dawned on me, I WAS THE ONE SINGING!  Maybe Edward 40 Hands isn’t as easy as I said it was.  I really had no recollection of that incident.  Anyway, hopefully we can get those pictures and that video up on the web in a week or so. 

A Plea for Sanity:

It is a shame that it has come to this, but considering this an intervention.  We have ONE tailgate left this year, and it should be attended by everyone in D7.  You know who are (though you probably aren’t reading the website!).  To put the craziness into perspective I have a complied a list of those who have logged hours at tailgates this year:

My Dad- 10 Hours

BJ-7 Hours

Shannon and Mathews Friends- 6 Hours

Colby- 6 Hours

My Sister LeAnne- 5 Hours

My Grandfather- 5 Hours

My Cousins Shawn, Cody, and Josh- 5 Hours

My Aunt- 5 Hours

Derek and Sarah- 5 Hours

My sister Mary- 4 Hours

My sister Mary’s Boyfriend Matt- 4 Hours

Some dude who played flip cup with us I never got his name- 1.5 Hours

John Forest- 1 Hour??

Matt Gilmore- 0 Hours!!

Let’s stop the madness.  Get a baby sitter and show up at 2:00 pm next Saturday, drink beers with your boys and re-live the college days. MAKE IT HAPPEN.  After all, Maryland football isn’t really about Maryland Football, it’s about all of us!!   

Conclusion

I don’t know about you but I’m exhausted.  That was a lot of stuff to fit into one recap.  Anyway, the Clemson tailgate was a huge success.  The Clemson football game was a huge debacle.  I hope everyone had as much fun as I had.  Unfortunately tailgating season is winding down.  We do have one more home game, and it was just announced today that it will be at 8:00 so there is no excuse not to have everyone there for the full 6 hours.

So until then, don’t forget:

• There are no winners in one on one flip cup
• Rotator cuff tear plus football equals about 7 parking spots
• Calvert County is the pumpkin carving capital of Maryland
• The seven horse never seems to survive the Double Up Derby
• And the 2007 Tailgating season is going much better than the 2007 Football season

Now let’s go Handle the Heels!!!!!!