Outkick Road Trip: Bama-UGA
SEVEN. That's how many years I've been waiting for this home and home series. Why? Well I attended both Alabama and UGA. I'm the rare 15%'er who started at Alabama, transferred to UGA, and then the Tide started rolling so I had to get back. Absurd, I'm aware. What makes it a bigger deal is that I'm from Atlanta and I was raised spending every Saturday in Athens between the hedges. I'm the black sheep.
The only reason I was upset about the new additions to the SEC was because this series was pushed back two years. Do you know what it's like to hear UGA fans bitch for an additional two YEARS about how they're going to "redeem" the blackout....or better yet, how it wouldn't come down to a pass that they didn't bat down? Cut me a break. You're Georgia; that's your wheelhouse.
I digress. It's been well documented that some of my friends aren't the brightest, but the ones that are started GameDay Transport. What's that? Oh just a company that lines up charter buses with free drinks at boarding and final destination that drives you to and from the biggest games in the country. Brilliant.
I've already been lectured about how inappropriate my Joey Freshwater jersey is by my father. That is one of the few conversations we've had that went in one ear and out the other. My jersey is spectacular and I almost slept in it because I'm so excited. The JF jersey will now be worn to every Alabama game I attend the rest of the season, along with the hat. The one time I didn't wear the hat was to the Ole Miss game...just saying.
Deja Knight, her husband, and I make our way to Big Sky in Atlanta to meet up with 400 of our closest friends to ride down to Athens together. We're on the Alabama bus, and we know almost everyone on it. The key to Athens is recognizing that with their 80 different bars in a mile, game day is a marathon, not a sprint. Plus it's only 9:30am.
We get to Athens and head straight to Boar's Head to watch the Tide Pre-Game show with former players Baron Huber and Mike Johnson. John Parker Wilson and his bama bangs are also in attendance. We catch up, talk about how we're nervous about the game, and then I make my way to meet up with some other people. JPW's brother-in-law tells me he took every one of Clay's picks. I tell him this is quite possibly the dumbest thing I've ever heard. How did that go, by the way?
This weekend is one hell of a reunion for me. I have hometown, high school, and college friends all in the same SEC college town. Does your body hurt for me yet?
I make my way to Myers quad and then to Magnolia to see the hometown crew. There are already people throwing up, and it's 10:30am at this point. It's also monsooning outside. I decide to hang out and wait until the first quarter of the game is over, ya know, to save face if I need too. Bama's winning. UGA fans are angry. At this point I've had AT LEAST 10 people try and buy my jersey from me and I've taken probably 15 pictures. It's a hit.
No, you cannot have my jersey, but you can order an Outkick Joey Freshwater T-shirt on Outkick Gear.
I head into the game around halftime because I'm sitting in a box, I'm starving, and I'm feeling pretty confident in the outcome at this point. I should've stayed put because there was an angry UGA fan pushing people on the stairs trying to get out, and now I have a bruise worse than Dottie's in a League of Their Own.
I can't handle the UGA fans. There is no fan base in the country who bitches more than these people. Georgia is down by 21, which is UGA's largest at-home deficit since 2008 when they were losing the Blackout 31-0. I'm giddy.
Then I receive this text, as if my ego needed more inflating, but it's just so spectacular I can't stop looking at it.
The best part of the quarter and a half I stayed at the game was the variety of sad UGA faces. It was like they were just watching Bambi die on loop, and on top of it they were soaking wet. You can overhear their conversations.. "Who are we going to get if we don't have uber-Christian Mark Richt leading us to mediocrity every year?" "Mark Richt, great guy, great character, would make an incredible Athletic Director....I hear Texas needs one."
After the game you have an hour to get back to the bus before it leaves. I can't miss it because my phone has sustained water damage and won't turn on. We're in week 5, and I'm on phone #2. Once the bus arrived back in Atlanta, I head back to my parents where some nice Outkick fan called me an Uber since I didn't have a phone and he loves Clay Travis. Big thanks to that guy. I spent Sunday at 6am in the airport being the happiest hungover college football fan to ever exist.
This week I'm staying home, because clearly I need to, and going to the Red River Rivalry.
"Dynasty isn't dead yet. ROLL TIDE." - Joey Freshwater, probably.