My late Columbia rundown:
- Ten of us rented a house about five minutes or so from the stadium.
- We spent part of Friday night at a truck stop/Quaker Steak and Lube/bowling alley. Weirdest thing I've ever seen but we had fun nonetheless.
- Second part of Friday night was spent at Tin Roof and a Waffle House where two of the waitresses almost came to blows. Kanarra wasn't having none of it!
- We had a parking pass and tailgated by the stadium and the SC fans couldn't have been nicer. It was a pure sh*tshow from a tailgating standpoint and a great time was had by all. Bourbon and beers flowing, jello shots being passed around to everyone.
- SC mom probably in her late 40s, tailgating next to us came over and wanted to join in on the shotgunning of beers. She tried to fix the can herself even though we offered to set her up, but she "knew what she was doing." Sure enough beer goes spewing everywhere like when Scott Howard bit into the can of beer in Teen Wolf. Well, she looks at me and her face is covered in beer foam and she says, "Ah, I'm used to it."
Great times!
- My biggest complaint was trying to get into the stadium. We headed over about a half hour before kick and it was just mayhem. I've never seen something so unorganized. There was no semblance of lines forming anywhere, no bag checks, etc. Sure it gets a little jammed usually when everyone is heading in at the same time but I've been to almost all SEC stadiums and never seen anything like what I saw at SC. A&M last year was a breeze and had even more people. I feared for older folks and kids that they may get trampled on with the mass of people. Just constant pushing and shoving from behind and as nice as our SC tailgate friends were, the SC fans in this mob were just as awful. We almost got into a fight because of the shoving. The university really needs to figure out a better way to handle that before someone gets seriously injured.
- All in all I enjoyed my visit and had a great time other than the outcome of the game and trying to get into the game. I had heard SC fans were awful, but I also know that there's good and bad in all fan bases. We experienced both and I'd say the good outweighed the bad.