ClayNation Dixieland Delight College Football Tour: Cal at Tennessee

When I was six years old, I went to my first University of Tennessee game. It was the opener of the 1985 season and it signified that my next-door neighbor Matt and I were finally old enough to be trusted with our dads in Neyland Stadium. I remember three things very well from this game:

• An older man behind us had an air horn that he would set off every time a big play happened for UT. I’m sure these are banned by now, but to a six-year-old, being able to push a button and double over every adult within sight was the height of first grade accomplishment.
• UT ended up being tied, 26-26 after a late UCLA touchdown. The concept of a tie was particularly deflating to my six-year-old mind because it was far more complicated than a win or a loss.
• Every time my dad, my next door neighbor’s dad Tim and everyone else around us talked about the team, they used the word "we." As in, "We can’t seem to keep our feet underneath us," or "We almost had a big play there." Around half-time, I asked my dad why everyone was using the word "we" which heretofore I’d only heard applied when you were actually involved in a pursuit. After all, I was not a team member and neither were any of the other men sitting in the lower bowl end zone of Neyland Stadium. "Because," said my dad, "this means so much to most people here, they want to make themselves a part of it." This adoption of the pronoun troubled me to no end for most of my first year of fandom. After that year, my trepidation was lost. I became a member of the "we" college football family that echoes across the geographic regions of our country. My particular "we" was the University of Tennessee. My orange-colored tribal band so initiated, I have never looked back since.

I should also mention at this point that my maternal grandfather, Richard Fox, played for General Neyland in the early 1930’s and actually lived in the dorms at Neyland Stadium. He became one of the first in a long line of Volunteer football players to play and not graduate. I’m also named after him, Richard Clay Travis (like many Southerners, I’ve always gone by my middle name) so Volunteer football is, quite literally, in my blood.

1. The DDT gets off to a rousing morning start on Saturday, Sept. 2 at 9:30 a.m. central time when we leave from Nashville, Tenn. and head 180 miles east in the direction of Knoxville and the University of Tennessee’s home-opener against California.

2. Actually, it may have started in the early morning hours of Saturday when my law school friend and UT grad, Junaid, arrived from Memphis. Almost immediately Erik Ainge became the topic of our conversation. Junaid spoke for the state of Tennessee when he said, "I just have no idea what he (Ainge) is going to do tomorrow." There was a long pause as we both contemplated what might happen. Then, he continued, "I hope we don’t have to call a timeout on our first offensive play." Yep, our offense was so bad last year we were actually debating whether we could get lined up in a proper formation before the snap. Foreboding indeed.

3. Junaid and I each drive separate cars because Junaid plans on staying with friends in Knoxville for a few days. My wife accompanies me, and before we even leave the outskirts of Nashville, Junaid and I are involved in a three-way telephone call with our friend Weatherholt who is confidently predicting a 31-14 California victory. "You’re a 5-6 football team until you serve notice otherwise," he says. My wife rolls her eyes as we carry on this three-way conversation across the state. "You do realize," she says, "that you are talking on the phone to someone you can see in your rearview mirror."

4. Eventually, our football conversation ends and I hang up much to my wife’s relief. Unfortunately for her, she now gets drawn into a conversation with me: "If you were guillotined, do you think you could see for a fraction of a second even though your head wasn’t attached to your body?" She shakes her head in my direction. "I think you could," I say, "Like when a snake gets its head cut off. Just for a fraction of a second." She sighs and then says, "No. It’s like when a computer cord gets yanked. Nothing at all." I continue discussing this question for the next 15 minutes. Riding in cars with me is great fun.

5. We attempt to find the Vanderbilt-Michigan game on the radio so my wife doesn’t have to hear more about the likely final image of guillotine victims. Even though we are only about a 100 miles outside of Nashville, the Vanderbilt game is nowhere to be found on the radio dial. "Unbelievable," says my wife, a current Vanderbilt grad student and a Michigan graduate. We do, however, manage to find approximately 15 radio stations discussing the UT-Cal game which will start in about 6 hours.

6. All around us, I-40 is like a huge Vol fandom slide ending in Knoxville. We pass car after car bedecked with Tennessee flags, Tennessee stickers and orange-clad drivers. I’ll say this: If you were heading to the game and driving less than 70 mph, I didn’t see you. I-40 East on game day is like a non-circular Daytona track.

Junaid and Clay at Fraternity Rock. (Photo/Clay Travis)

7. This is always said but it bears repeating. On game day, Neyland Stadium alone is the fifth largest city in the state of Tennessee. The entire state of Tennessee has just 5.8 million people. This is far less than the metropolitan populations of cities like New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and even Philadelphia. Yet come Saturday in Knoxville, 106,000 people are there to watch.

8. Arrival in Knoxville at a little after 1 p.m. ET. Somewhere we have crossed into the Eastern time zone, which, as a kid, always made Knoxville seem like a strange and foreign land. Everyone wore orange and their time was even different. We switch into one car and allow UT grad Junaid to lead us onto campus. Upon getting into the car, I immediately ask Junaid my guillotine question. "I think you could see for a second too," he says. My wife stews in the backseat. "You’re both fools," she says.