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Texas A & M Vs. Clemson
AGGIES GIG ‘EM TIGERS
By Tyson "Tevin" E. Campbell D7tailgate.com Staff Reporter
College Station, TX - If you don’t understand what the title of this article means – you aren’t alone. Unless you’re from Texas or some hick from Dunkirk you probably have no clue what “gig ‘em” means and furthermore have no idea why 80+ thousand people had this slogan across their backs on Saturday night. I mean really – “gig ‘em” – sounds like they should call themselves the Faggies. Whatever the hell it means – they did it repeatedly to the dear ol’ Clemson football team with no Vaseline in front of a national T.V. audience……if you count TBS as being a national T.V. audience. Wait a minute - I’m way ahead of myself, let me back up.
First of all Texas is hot….and flat. I mean really hot and really flat. Saying Texas isn’t hot and flat is like saying Elkton doesn’t produce weather monitoring – website creating dorks. It’s just not true. Second of all, Texas A&M does a big college football weekend a lot different from their ACC counterparts. Here is a run down on the weekend to give you some perspective:
Friday
I was getting really excited about a big college football weekend at a big time college football school. I mean we’re not talking about Delaware or Maryland – we’re talking about Texas A&M….Bear Bryant…..The 12th Man…..Yell Practice..…The Aggies. We flew into Houston and after buying a 10 dollar pair of orange sunglasses at the Mall and seeing multiple Clemson fans in the greater Houston area – we were off to College Station with a glimmer of hope that we weren’t the only ones who dropped a grand to come watch the Tigers stomp ass. Excitement level (So you Terp fans can understand 5 – tearing goalposts down after big win against Eastern Michigan; 1 – phone conversation with Wevodau) is steady at 3.5 and rising. Then we get to the campus and the EL goes through the floor. First – no traffic, no R.V.’s, and twice we got asked who A&M was playing……are you serious?!? Where are the fans for crying out loud!? It was like the Maryland campus pre-2001. O.K. – it is early Friday afternoon – we’ll let them slide. At around 5 pm we head to the happening section of town called North Gate. Plenty of bars to choose from so we head for the “famous” Dixie Chicken - A&M’s version of The Station (RIP). We walk through the door and it’s like a Clemson home game and I’m at Tiger Town Tavern. Orange everywhere and the place is packed. A&M fans are few are far between. We start in with the pitchers ($6 per – decent size, not those little fat ones). By 8 pm the place is wall to wall and the A&M fans have beefed up their numbers. Ratio is close to 1-1. By 10:30 pm we’re shit-faced, out the door, and looking for something to eat. By 11 pm I’ve housed a hot-dog and a bag of Cheetoes and I’m sleeping. The final count of the night:
10 Pitchers of Miller Lite $100 Dollars in the hole 50 Clemson Chants (1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4) 49 Renditions of A&M’s Fight Song 1 Stranger’s phone number in cell phone 0 Female’s phone number in cell phone
Not too bad. The EL topped out at 4. I know we were supposed to attend “Yell Practice” but when you’re ripping pitchers for 6 bucks a piece surrounded by Clemson fans, you don’t get off the bus. All-in-all it was a good night – minus “T-bird’s” number in my cell phone.
Saturday
Early to bed – early to rise….that’s what I always say. The hang-over is pretty fierce considering the cheap draft beer and the fact that the Cheetoes didn’t soak up jack. Around 10 am, I crawl out of bed and open the shades expecting the streets to be filled with people, RV’s, flags, balloons, face paint, etc. What do I get????? Some fat sweaty guy sitting in the shade. I mean even if I was at a Maryland game I’d a been two homebrews, 3 shotguns, 1 burnt flag in the hole right now – knee deep in a flip-cup game on some cheap homemade table. Something’s got to be wrong…right???? Wrong……I mean right……anywho – the fact remained that these people don’t even get going until noon. Sad – but it is still a long way to 7 pm EST so we’ll just go with it. While the taxi (old, dirty mini-van with three little kids in the back) driver (old lady) was driving us to the Clemson Tailgate we noticed that the campus was still without spirit – without flare and I’m about to get Wevodau on the phone to spice things up – EL stagnant at 2. The Clemson Tailgate was 600 strong and held in the corner of an OPEN FIELD. Yeah, that’s right, an open field. Now for MD’ers who haven’t experience real college football down south, there’s no such thing as an open field on game day. That space would have been used to stuff 30 RV’s, 60 trucks, 40 buckets of Hardee’s fried chicken, and multiple fat guys with their hats on backwards screaming “Wooo!”. It was surprising to say the least – not one A&M tailgate within sight. The one we did see was near the dorms we had to sneak into to go to the bathroom……and that wasn’t really a tailgate – more of a family barbeque on Memorial day. No loud obnoxious people playing high school drinking games – nothing. Needless to say it took a lot of Miller Lite Cans to get over this reality (18 to be exact). EL at 3 and increasing thanks to good ol’ alcohol.
Saturday Night
A&M doesn’t tailgate because they save all energy for game time. As we walked to our seats that a sherpa would struggle to find we were in a sea of maroon. A very calm, polite sea of maroon. No cheering – no yelling – no cursing – just walking to their seats. Once a top our perch in the last row Kyle Field has to offer, we saw something amazing. 80,000 people all in maroon – half students – all standing and cheering in unison. No wonder they need the practice the night before – it was truly impressive. Now the pregame entrance was cool – very military like with the stadium quiet and ready – drums going in the background……then the cannon goes off and all hell breaks loose. It sends chills down your spine. I mean, it’s not the 25 most exciting moments in college football (read – Clemson) but it’s not rubbing a metal turtle and running out through smoke (cough – weak, cough - ripoff). It was impressive.
Well the Tigers must have been plenty impressed because they went ahead and shit the bed. This of course helped increase the intensity and the fan’s involvement was like no other. They stood the entire game and cheered in unison – several different cheers by the way. When Clemson was on offense they were as loud as they could be, imagine Cameron Indoor when Steve Blake is bringing up the ball and instead of jumping up and down – their waving white towels……now times that by a thousand and continue it through the entire game – impressive.
When the nightmare was over we followed the sea of maroon toward North Gate through the student housing section of campus – EL a solid 1. The trip took 15 minutes and they were as nice as they were quiet. Not one comment about Clemson’s horrible team – not one comment about my weight problem – not one piece of fried food thrown in our direction. Try to pull that little stunt in College Park or Columbia and I’d have a speech impediment. Oh and it’s not just that – once in the bar we never paid for a beer. Every person in a maroon shirt wanted to buy us a beer and ask us if we enjoyed ourselves………..it was culture shock from the spit-on-you/embarrass-you campuses that crowd the east coast and it pushed the EL to 2. And get THIS – if you are too drunk or just need a ride home like we did at 2 am on Sunday morning, just ask a person in a bright yellow shirt to take you home and they will…….for FREE – EL just jumped to 2.5. It’s some program they have set up that will drive ALL drunks home for free. By the way, it was a nice comfortable ride. Those people were amazing. The final count of the day was:
18 Miller Lite Cans 6 Pitchers of Free Miller Lite $40 Dollars in the hole (on corn dog and late night pizza) 3 Broken chairs at tailgate 1 Embarrassing Clemson loss 5,000+ Depressed Clemson fans 1 Ruined Clemson season 1 Free ride home
Well, there are more important things in life – like women’s soccer and men’s golf (2003 Nat. Champs). It was a good time all around and I would suggest to anyone that they should travel down to Texas and experience some good food and some great people. Gig ‘em! |