SEC Championship Adventure

With my beloved Alabama making it to the SEC Championship for the first time since 1999, I felt an obligation to try and go to the game. Unfortunately, tickets were unbelievably priced - with you know, this being the TRUE National Championship game (every Southern football fan knows it's true!). And as much as I love my team and wanted to go to the game I had trouble spending almost 2 car payments on a ticket. But I thought I would head to Atlanta anyway, stay with my good friend Sal, and we would try and scalp tickets the day of. Good plan right? For any other game it might have been. But not this one. Saturday morning we get ready: Sal and me in our Alabama attire and her roommate Jules in her Gator gear. Yes, we were a divided household. (Betsy, you remember being a divided household right?!). Anyway, after stopping off at Einstein's for some breakfast and then what seemed like forever of a ride on the Marta, we arrive downtown. We kindly asked some nice looking people if we could see their REAL tickets so we knew what we were on the prowl for. Thank goodness we did! There were SO many people selling fake tickets. And they just didn't get it when we were like "Nope, sorry, the hologram is wrong." We'd get a "Whatcha mean??" Anyway, those nice people saved us some cash! So we literally just walk around the block multiple times trying to find tickets. During this trek, we ran into some very literal "Jesus Freaks" who give all Christians a bad name. I can't even go into the craziness they were shouting. But needless to say, the cops had to get involved. Like I said, bad name. I mean, Jesus' whole message is to not judge others. But I won't get into scripture in this post. Moving on. When we found ligitimate tickets, they were still selling for $350 or more. I know my Northern friends are like "WTF?!? Why would you ever pay that for a ticket???" Well, like I said earlier, this was no ordinary game people. For all intensive purposes it WAS the National Championship. We Southerners take our football very, VERY, seriously.

Anyway, it's getting close to kickoff and still no tickets. At this point we are getting sad and frustrated. But like all good fans, we figure that prices have to go down after kickoff right? Right??? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Ten minutes after kickoff people were still selling their tickets for $400. I was in shock...and awe actually. And then, as quickly as they were there, all the scalpers were gone. And we were left on the sidewalk next to a very crowded bar wondering what to do. As we are making this decision, we barely see that Florida scores a TD from the bar TVs. Well this was not going to do. We had to find someplace to watch the game! So we head into the CNN Center. They have big TVs everywhere .... they MUST be playing the game, right? THEY WERE PLAYING FREAKING CNN!!!!!!!! Who the hell cares about CNN when you've got arguably the two best teams in the nation playing like 1,000 feet away??? I was literally in shock. This is something I would expect up North. But down here? In the South? It was blasphemy I tell you. Well luckily there was a nice little Mexican restaurant/bar inside the CNN Center and we pushed our way through and found an area by the bar behind these two very nice Florida fans and we had a perfect viewline of the TV. So it all worked out. As sad as I was to not make it inside the Dome, I still had very good seats for it on TV. And we had a blast....maybe a little too much fun. But what happens in Atlanta, shall stay in Atanta .....

Moving on to the game. I know, we lost. I'm very sad and a tad disappointed. But, in the grand scheme of things I can not be mad at my boys. I am VERY proud in fact. I will list my reasons below:

1. No one expected Alabama to be this good this year. Saban was still supposed to need at least 1, if not 2, more years to get Alabama up to this level.

2. We were undefeated in the regular season.

3. We made it to the SEC Championship Game.

4. We were ranked #1 in the BCS poll for 5 weeks in a row (before that we were #2 for 5 weeks in the AP Poll and BCS). We started the season barely in the top 25 - ranked #24.

5. Bitch all you want that we didn't play anyone good this year, but when we played and beat our opponents, several of them were ranked: Clemson #9; Georgia #3; LSU #16. Plus, let's not forget that we beat Ole Miss who turned out to be a very good team (Hell, they beat Florida!) and in general, no matter the rankings, you can never "expect" a win in the SEC. It's just too good of a conference. I mean, look at good ole' Vandy! To all of those ACC fans out there who like to point out that this year the ACC technically was a better conference than the SEC, I have one thing to tell you: No one cares how many times you beat Duke! One year means nothing. Go count how many National Championships the SEC has won and then come talk to me.

6. Even after the SEC loss, Alabama and Florida are on equal ground: both 1 loss teams. We lost to the AP ranked #2 team (BCS #4) in the SEC Championship Game - Florida lost to Ole Miss. Please, I do not want any Gator out there claiming they are "so much better" than Alabama. It just ain't so.

7. Shoulder-backing off of the last one, we barely lost to Florida. They did not come out and score 40+ points over us like every other team they've played. In fact, Alabama had it won until the 4th quarter. A few mistakes cost us - because Florida is a team you can't make mistakes on or they capitalize. But until then, they did not have us beat. In fact, in the SEC game Florida TRAILED for the first time since September 27. I'd say that's saying something for how Alabama played.

8. We held Florida to a field goal when they were in the 5 yard line. Has any other team done that this year? No. If Florida is within 10 yards of the goal line, they get a TD. But not against Alabama.

Ok, I guess I'm done. But I just want to reiterate the fact that Alabama kicked some major ass this year and I am proud.

Just one last thing: New Orleans, you better watch out, because the Tide is rolling in!

ROLL TIDE!