Tailgate Review - The "TJ is Tennesseean for c***head" Edition

From the Exaclibur's 18th floor in Tower 1, I bring you: The Tennessee recap.

Knoxville Thoughts:

- Left Brad and Ambers ~11 a.m. CT. Stopped just inside the Georgia state line to get gasoline. Spent some time visiting with Alex Dudchock, who was taking his son to Knoxville on a recruiting trip. His son is one of the top tight end prospects in the country from Oak Mountain High School.

- Kept in constant contact with Paul Crane, who was keeping us up to speed on parking availability near him. Paul earns tailgater of the week for his efforts (even though there was no formal tailgate).

- Amber further climbed All Auburn, All Orange, All Facebook, All Kirk's ladder of favorite people for successfully navigating us to the Steak N Shake in Chattanooga. (It didn't pull up on the GPS.)

- Parked just below the church, but it is good enough knowing that their youth group got the money for the parking

- Knoxville is easily one of my top three favorite places in the SEC. It is a crying shame we have to wait five years in between trips there.

- The church folks were very helpful. They pointed out a nice shortcut to us to knock down walking time to the stadium to a mere eight minutes. Now, it was a treacherous shortcut, but a shortcut nonetheless.

- Saw Hillary Nowland in the parking lot when I was walking with Paul to get his sweatshirt. She is one of the nicest people I worked with at media relations. I am glad she is still around in the athletic department.

- Tiger Walk deserves it's own blog. Wow. I'd say there were between 5-6,000 people easy, and it was very loud still with an hour to go prior to the team arriving.

- TJ, the overzealous security guard, is a jerkface. He also deserves a blog to himself, but I will refrain.

- Whoever on the Bunker said that they don't know how to tailgate in Knoxville is full of it. I saw two of the coolest things: a checkerboard cornhole set and the ultimate tailgate trailer. It had a flatscreen, surround sound AND a beer tap mounted to the window flap.

- When you are looking for will call, people to trust are the folks in the green UT shirts. They were all great. Do not trust TJ's fellow security guards.

- Saw Frank and Kathy outside their gate following Tiger Walk. Got fired up with them for a minute before heading to our gate and our seats.

- The improvements made since I was last there in 2006 have really enhanced Neyland Stadium. The concourses are all spacious and the brick facade surrounding the playing field and sidelines is excellent.

- Our seats were almost directly behind where Andrew and I sat in 2004. Lots of good memories.

- Haber, who gave us the tickets, showed up about five minutes before kickoff. He left at halftime.

- There was a 9-year-old kid sitting next to me. It was his first UT game in person. He was a great kid, and his parents thanked us for being gracious winners.

- I promised him that he would see the Vols win a whole lot more than they lose in his lifetime. He got excited whn I told him I used to work in the athletic department and I got to watch games from the sidelines.

- The folks around us were great. However, Mr. War Chicken behind me got more annoying as the night went on. He was also more inebriated as ye night went on. Go figure.

- The University of Tennessee should change it's name to The University of Eric Berry and Lane Kiffin. They are in EVERY in-stadium ad, including a disturbing rap video aptly entitled "Eric Berry."

- I never felt like we would lose the game, and we played our most complete game of the year. Chris Todd has been unbelievable this year. If Franklin had gone about the QB competiton the same way as Gus...wait, never mind. Gus for Heisman.

- The Pride of the Southland Band playing War Eagle during pregame was a very nice touch. All Auburn, All Orange, All Facebook, All Kirk still clamors for Auburn to pipe in the band throughout the stadium so all of us can hear them. Neyland just enhanced his desire.

- Following the game, we met back up with Brad and Amber then began the journey back to the Sequioya. We took the less treacherous route.

- For having so many people in town, traffic flowed pretty well all the way out the interstate.

- We stopped at Shoney's for their breakfast buffet after 75 split from 40.

- We got back to Brad and Amber's around 3 a.m.

(Note: this blog was written aboard the friendly skies of Delta's non-stop flight from Memphis to LAS VEGAS via iPhone. I apologize for any typos I may miss.)

Do What We Do. War Eagle. See you in Arkansas.

Chris