ClayNation Dixieland Delight College Football Tour: Auburn at Mississippi State

No one has any idea where Starkville, Miss., is. In the days leading up to the second stop of the DDT, here were the different ways people suggested I should get there from Nashville, Tenn.: Through Atlanta, through Birmingham, through Memphis and via something called the Natchez Trace Parkway. The latter sounded like an entirely made-up road, similar to the circuitous trail Ponce de Leon traced when he went in search of the Fountain of Youth. For some reason, I pictured Spanish doubloons occasionally sprinkled along the route and believed, if the road existed, that many people were still scalped in transit.

Plainly, these suggested paths to Starkville could not all be correct. So I outsourced the directions to my friend Shaw who was one of four big-city GW grads I had persuaded to accompany me to the Auburn-Mississippi State game. I did this because Shaw is a mathematician and it was my belief that his mastery of various theorems, stratagems, maxims, and Lost arcana would get us there efficiently.

Shaw called me later that night from Washington, D.C., and said that from my address, Google Maps said Starkville was 330 miles away and would take six hours and 19 minutes. This was roughly three hours more than I had told him the drive would be when I convinced him to come, but his primary point was not to deride me for shortening the trip to ensure he came but to discuss how complicated the directions were.

Not convinced that these first directions were correct, Shaw then searched Yahoo, which said it was 320.4 miles to Starkville from Nashville and would take six hours and 30 minutes. Finally, Mapquest said Starkville was 331 miles away and would take five hours and 19 minutes. So we decided to save time and follow Mapquest's directions and make a shorter trip by driving more miles.

1. Beginning at 5:45 p.m. on Friday, my friends Cliff, Shekhar, Shaw and Krishna arrive in Nashville. They came from San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and Albuquerque, N.M., respectively. They all share a common lifelong dream of wanting to visit the state of Mississippi. OK ... maybe not.

2. We can't leave for Starkville until Krishna arrives at 9:45 p.m. on Friday evening. This is roughly four hours before Lincoln Financial's telecast kicks off in the middle of the morning. Krishna cannot come earlier because he is a doctor and, "My patients are more important than SEC football games, Clay." In this he is, of course, entirely wrong.

The DDT2 crew: Clay, Shaw, Krishna, Shekhar and Cliff.

3. We're on the road at exactly 9:45 p.m. and Krishna immediately requests a stop. "I couldn't bring my contact solution because they thought it was a bomb," he says. Krishna is also hungry. I refuse to stop.

4. After much whining about how he will be unable to see in the morning and that he is hungry, Krishna finally prevails upon me to stop in Pulaski, Tenn. No one else is aware that Pulaski is the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan. So I inform everyone. Krishna is undeterred, "I'm going to have to wait a long time at McDonald's then," he says.

5. Shortly thereafter, we cross into Alabama. Everyone visiting says that they have never been to Alabama before. Except Shekhar. For a couple of minutes, Shekhar is conspicuously silent. Then he says, "I went to Space Camp in seventh grade at Huntsville." This entertains the car for the next 45 minutes. We learn that, according to Krishna, "Indians all wanted to go to Space Camp," and that, according to Shekhar, "Space Camp was cool because you got to climb up and walk around in planes that other people didn't get to." And he did this for 10 days.

Also, Shekhar did not get a spacesuit, but one kid in his group came all the way from Japan with his own spacesuit and was the coolest kid in Space Camp. "Everybody was real jealous," Shekhar said. Based on his voice, it sounded like Shekhar is still jealous.

6. We arrive in Mississippi some time after midnight and roll the windows down. It is cool and comfortable in the September night. During this time, there is a party going on in downtown Starkville. The band Sister Hazel is playing a free concert and several readers said I had to be there. Unfortunately, I couldn't.

So I had reader Jason Hockaday e-mail me about the scene: "Once we got to The District (which is where all the bars are and this is where the stages are set up) we ran into a wall of people. I had no idea there was going to be that many people in the streets that night ... we came to the top of a hill and I looked down the road to my left and saw nothing but a sea of people. I'm from the Mississippi Gulf Coast so the only thing I can compare this huge party to is Mardi Gras. It looked like Fat Tuesday in Biloxi ... The concert was great."

Starkville irony. (Photo/Chris Shaw)

7. A group vote decides my plan of proceeding directly to the tailgate at 2 in the morning is a bad idea. So instead we spend the next two hours driving around in Mississippi trying to find a hotel. We end up at a Best Western in Aberdeen. Coincidentally, I have also been to Aberdeen, Scotland. Surprisingly, Aberdeen, Scotland and Aberdeen, Miss., bear few similarities. At 4 a.m., we go to bed.

8. At 8:30 a.m., we get up. I feel like I've just survived a decapitation from the guillotine. Incidentally, lots of readers sent me their own opinions about whether a person could see for a fraction of a second after being guillotined. Reader Marty Hardin even sent me this link to Wikipedia which suggests that my guillotine pondering is an open scientific question. Scroll down and check it out in the section entitled: "Living Heads." Pretty creepy. Consider this an early Halloween present from ClayNation.

9. Arrival in Starkville just before 10 a.m. There is literally nowhere that is off limits for parking. People are pulled off to the shoulder of the highway as far as we can see, parking underneath highway overpasses, on sidewalks and scrunching into any space they can find. It's like Mexico City in rural Mississippi.

10. We park on the side of the highway and walk to Davis Wade Stadium. I hear my first cowbell. The sky is overcast and the temperature is not bad. This is a relief. When I was 10, I came to another September game at Mississippi State with my dad. The most prominent memory I have is that the crowd cheered the loudest in our section when the baking sun mercifully slid behind the light tower and brought shade to our section. It's still the only time I've ever heard a light tower cheered.

Five of the 432 shades of khaki are shown here. (Photo/Chris Shaw)

11. We arrive in The Junction (the name of the tailgating area at MSU) and watch the Mississippi State band march into the stadium. Many State fans are wearing stickers that say, "Beat Auburn." Members of the State band wear matching maroon polos and khaki shorts of varying hues and styles. This brings home the fact that there are approximately 432 different shades of khaki. Each is represented in the band. Couldn't the school spring for shorts as well.

12. The guys playing the cymbals walk by us. Do the cymbal guys get band scholarships too? If so, isn't this the greatest scam ever? Or could someone legitimately be a better cymbal player than someone else? The group is uncertain.

Even the First Baptist Church tailgates in Starkville. (Photo/Chris Shaw)

13. We make the rounds meeting Mississippi State fans. The Junction is a flat expanse of open fields that abuts Davis Wade Stadium. There is almost a military precision to the orderly row of tents and revelry. The general mood is tamped down by the early start of the game. It seems less like there is about to be a football game played and more like you're about to attend an outdoor party with tons of your friends. I hear no pregame radio call-in shows or other game-related sounds. The mood is friendly and social but not football crazy.

14. We head to the Internet Bulldog Boosters Club where I am to meet Sonya Baird. Sonya was one of the first MSU people to e-mail me and let me know that people actually graduated from her school. Upon our arrival, Sonya becomes the first of many to completely welcome us. "Help yourselves to whatever," she says and begins to introduce us to many members of the IBBC.

15. I talk with Kevin Kalinowski about the controversy surrounding the cowbell. The NCAA allows "artificial noisemakers," but the SEC has banned them. This provokes undying consternation among the MSU faithful. First there is the legal argument of what officially constitutes an artificial noisemaker. "I mean a zipper could be an artificial noisemaker," Kalinowski says.

Clay and cowbell-smuggling expert Kevin Kalinowski. (Photo/Chris Shaw)

16. Then there is the sheer anger over feeling singled out by the SEC. Kalinowski explains that State fans react to this indignity by smuggling in cowbells. Asked how, Kalinowski responds, "I put mine in the front of my pants." I nod. "They don't pat in certain areas," he says by way of further explanation. "At least not here. I've heard they do at visiting stadiums."

17. I talk with Rich Baird about life in Starkville. He's a State fan and professor, who has lived in a variety of Southern locales. "I love it here," he says. "Starkville is a good place to live. I've lived [in] other places in the SEC, like Georgia, but I like it here best of all." I ask him what he thought of Athens. "Let me just say I'm living here for a reason," Baird says.

Clay and the Internet Bulldog Boosters Club. (Photo/Chris Shaw)

18. People at State hate Ole Miss. I knew this, but time and again, snide remarks about Ole Miss are made. Conversely, no one seems to bear any particular animus toward today's opponent, Auburn. One man says, "My favorite shirt I've seen today says, 'You can't spell dumb without UM.'"

19. We head to the Barnes & Noble bookstore, which is about 50 yards from Davis Wade Stadium. The bookstore is packed, although no one seems to be buying books. On the far wall, a flat-screen television plays College GameDay. I'm going to go out on a limb and say this is the only Barnes & Noble playing College GameDay in the country.

Krishna and Clay ride Starkville's only escalator. (Photo/Chris Shaw)

20. Everyone rides the escalator to the second floor of the bookstore. When we come back down, we have traversed the only escalator in Starkville.

21. I buy a maroon cowbell for $25. This seems like an outlandish price for a cowbell. Particularly for someone, like me, who has no cows. On the positive side, the handle on my cowbell is soft plastic and has ridges for a better grip. I think that perhaps I got the deluxe cowbell version. The lady checking me out asks whether I want a receipt. I say that I do. She nods, "You don't want to be the first person caught for stealing a cowbell," she says. This is a very true statement.

22. We walk outside and I practice ringing the cowbell. Surprisingly, ringing a cowbell requires little practice. All around me cowbells are ringing and people smile and nod in our direction.

23. It is possible that there is not a single mean person in all of Starkville. Earlier, when we met one of the members of the IBBC, he told us to feel comfortable about walking up to any tailgate we saw and ask for a taste of their food. We didn't try this, but I have zero doubt that if we had, not only would we have gotten food and drink, but also a 20-minute conversation about whatever we wanted to talk about.

People were very jealous of my cowbell's handle. (Photo/Chris Shaw)

24. We buy $35 seats from the ticket office, as the game is not sold out. Cliff points out that my cowbell cost almost as much as my seat. He is correct, but you cannot rustle cattle with a football ticket.

25. The Lincoln Financial production van is parked outside the stadium. For some reason, I was expecting them to have the equivalent of an Amish buggy with a large roost for the carrier pigeons and maybe a butter churn. This is a mild disappointment.

26. I talk with Ken Conerly, who informs me that his relative was Charlie Conerly who played football for Ole Miss in the 1940s and later spent 14 seasons with the New York Giants. He talks about Charlie's career and the fact that he played at State's biggest rival. Conerly goes on for some length while I write. Then he looks down at me and says, "You can't print that. My family will kill me." Maybe blood is thicker than SEC football rivalries after all.

27. There are lots of Auburn fans. As Conerly says, "When your team is No. 4 in the country, people come watch them." Shaw is standing beside us. "How far do Auburn people come?" Shaw asks. Conerly looks at Shaw askance. "They come from everywhere," he says. Shaw had meant where was Auburn's campus, but the point is well taken. On SEC game days, fans make pilgrimages from every possible direction. The fan base is literally from everywhere.

Cowbell? What cowbell? (Photo/Chris Shaw)

28. I hide my cowbell inside the front of my pants to better smuggle it inside. It has gotten warmer and the sun is now out. ClayNation Canon No. 568: "Cool cowbells feel pretty nice in your pants on hot days." Kalinowski is correct ... I am not patted down. Clearly the gate checkers at State are sympathetic to the cowbell arrival.

29. We discuss whether or not my cowbell smuggling will be added to my FBI file. Consensus is yes.

30. Inside the stadium, cowbells ring in every direction. It is 30 minutes before the start of the game and we take our seats. Last week, I said if you were 30 minutes early to an SEC game you were late. This week ... not so much. There are bunches of empty seats as the stadium clock ticks down the final 20 minutes before kickoff. The MSU student section is barely half-full by kickoff.

31. There are lots of Auburn fans in attendance. The orange color of the Auburn fans mixes with the maroon of State throughout the stadium. I have witnessed zero hostility between the two fan bases. Perhaps this is because most of State's fans have already accepted that they will lose to Auburn. And most of Auburn's fans have not even considered that they might lose to State.

The view from our seat fifteen minutes before kickoff.

32. Davis Wade Stadium seats 55,082 and each end zone is open. The stadium is the second-oldest in the country and our seats are in Section A, the lower bowl, 28 rows up from the field. There are many open seats around us and Shekhar turns to me and says, "These are pretty good seats." He's right.

33. The cheerleaders and the MSU bulldog race onto the field to the lyrics of Bad to the Bone. This is an uncomfortable double entendre.

34. The MSU team enters the field accompanied by the clanging of cow bells. Dry ice climbs into the sunshine around the sprinting team. Hasn't the dry ice trend been going on for long enough? Is anyone really impressed by this anymore? What is dry ice even supposed to signify? I ask Shaw. "I think maybe they are just trying to recapture the timeless feeling of Wrestlemania II."

35. The MSU bulldog is not leashed. This is impressive training. I've never seen an SEC dog mascot without a leash before. Good for State. Now if only they could work on the offense.

36. State coach Sylvester Croom strides onto the field and walks past us. Croom has a large wristband with the offensive plays written on them. Presumably, some of them are forward passes.

Absence of Mello Yello is duly noted. (Photo/Chris Shaw)

37. First trip to the concession stand. This might be a gripe that is completely my own, but why don't Southern stadiums that are selling Coke and Sprite also have Mello Yello? I mean, if you're going to sell Powerade to people who are sitting and watching other people exercise, you could at least have Mello Yello.

38. Auburn sets about a deliberate and straightforward pummeling of State. There is nothing particularly fancy about the way Auburn is winning, but their dominance of the game is not in doubt by the time the first quarter is over.

39. Two plays that sum up State's efforts: For a moment, MSU appears to have life after narrowly preventing a Tiger touchdown by recovering an Auburn fumble at their own 1. But then, three plays later, State fumbles and Auburn retakes possession where they had originally lost the ball. Auburn scores to take a 14-0 lead. Then, as the first half winds to a close, Auburn attempts a 50-yard field goal. The kick is five yards short and flitters harmlessly to the turf. But Auburn has not gotten the play off in time. So Auburn is backed up five yards for a delay of game penalty. Auburn's kicker then drills a 55-yard field goal. Ouch. It's 17-0 at the half.

40. During the first half, we see injured MSU quarterback Michael Henig walking along the sideline with his arm in a sling. Anyone who watched State's opener against South Carolina saw Henig's emotional reaction to his injury. For the entire second half, his eyes were red-rimmed and his desire to play was palpable. For me, this summed up in a single image why college football is better than pro football. Your average NFL quarterback would have been grinning and slapping fives with his teammates. Even with the injury, his paycheck wasn't going to bounce. Henig looked like he was willing to play with one arm. You can't fake passion and college kids have it in spades.

41. Auburn scores on the first drive of the second half to make the score 24-0. All around me the ringing of the cowbells fades like crickets nearing dawn. The exodus of State fans begins. A few sporadic cheers begin to rise from the Auburn fans who are moving down from the upper deck.

An understated Auburn van. (Photo/Chris Shaw)

42. Auburn scores again just before the third quarter ends to make the score 31-0. State fans begin to leave en masse. There is still a quarter remaining, but already the State fans are returning to the Junction. After a time, we follow these fans outside.

43. There are few downcast eyes or people who seem genuinely troubled by the result. The State fans are inured to the pain of football loss. Already the strident ringing of cowbells has begun anew. Only this ringing has nothing to do with football.