My weekend gameday experience

Hey friends! For those of you who don't know me, my name is Callie, and I am a junior at The University of Alabama. This is my first blog post ever so, let me know what you think! I wanted to start this blog to share what goes on in my life as a college student at UA and provide a little bit of insight of my life and maybe some helpful tips along the way! Let me walk you through what I did this past weekend in T-TOWN.

Now, I am a huge sports fan, especially of Alabama sports. I have my dad to thank for my craziness and competitiveness about sports. Thank you, dad for showing me how to yell at the TV before I was even in middle school. It has definitely been one of my more helpful tools in life. One distinct memory I have of my dad and I is the 2015 CFP Championship game between Alabama and Clemson. The game was on a Monday night, and I was 11 years old and in middle school at the time. I had a bedtime of 8:00 every school night, no exceptions no matter what, until that game. That night, my dad let me stay up till midnight and watch Alabama win another National Championship. So, you could say my dad and I are pretty big football fans.

Alabama gamedays, honestly, outshine other schools in my eyes. There is always something fun and exciting to do in T-TOWN. Whether it means starting the morning off at the quad, walking down the Strip with friends, experiencing Elephant Stomp, or watching the Walk of Champions take place. Some weekends you might even get to experience SEC Nation's pre-game talks if you get the chance to attend a big game. So, if you're looking for a college gameday atmosphere, Alabama is definitely the place to go.

One thing about Alabama's fan base; everyone cheers for the football team. I mean who wouldn't want to? Unless you're playing against us and if you are, I wish you the best of luck, because Alabama rarely loses. One of our most competitive rivalry games is Tennessee. Every third weekend in October we play the Tennessee Volunteers, and yes it was a sweet, sweet revenge game this past Saturday. Last year Tennessee had taken the win over Alabama. This year, Alabama took it back.

Now, at Alabama you don't show up thirty minutes before gametime. Especially one this big. So, me and my friends got up around 8, got ready, and went into the game about 12:30 for a 2:30 game, and no, there is no such thing as getting to a football game too early. Especially when Alabama plays at home in Bryant Denny. Once the game started, I wish I could say it was a smooth sailing game and we had nothing to worry about... but it was not. The first half was pretty rough on Alabama's end. Let's just say we made Tennessee look very good and us very bad. Bama ended the first half trailing Tennessee 20-7, but if you know anything about Alabama football and Nick Saban, you know never to underestimate them. In the first half we scored once, had two turnovers, and multiple bad plays. Starting second half we scored right away, and it completely reset the tone in Bryant Denny Stadium. We had three touchdowns, one of those being a fumble return from Tennessee, and two field goals. Alabama scored 27 points in the second half, while Tennessee had none. They played Dixieland Delight in the 4th quarter, right after the fumble return TD and it was by far the best of the season. Everyone around me screamed their hearts out to our favorite tradition at home games. And I'm sure they all will agree with me on this that when we woke up the next day, our voices were gone.

Once that clock hit zero, everyone in Bryant Denny lit up their cigars and filled the air with smoke to celebrate the win. And yes, most of us lit them, attempted to smoke them, took our pic for social media and then threw them out, but it's the thought that counts right? We sang Rammer Jammer to all of our Tennessee fans and wished them safe travels back to Knoxville.

My friends and I left the game on such a high we went for some fun down on the Strip. Not too long after that we ended up back at home getting ready for sleep. We went to bed dreaming of doing the same thing to LSU in two weeks, but for now we celebrate the win against Tennessee being back in T-TOWN.

What do you usually do on the weekends? I hope I was able to give you a better insight on me and what I did for this game! Thank you for reading my first ever blog and ROLL TIDE!!