ClayNation Dixieland Delight College Football Tour: Wrapup

Despite the stories you've heard from other fans, no SEC stadium is dangerous to visit as an opposing team fan. If you remember nothing else from the DDT, this is the lesson I'd like for you to take with you. It's a rumor that just won't die. I don't know how many times I heard, "Don't go to (insert city or stadium here), they'll punch you for doing nothing." By the time I arrived in Gainesville, I expected to see opposing team fans being roasted on a spit fire while Gators fans danced with glee. But this danger is completely an urban legend.

At worst, you are just as likely to be subject to an assault in an SEC stadium as you would be in any city with 100,000 or so people. Personally, I think you're much safer. Because in the entire time I was on the DDT, I didn't see a single fight. Not one. And I wasn't just at the stadiums. I was in bars filled with teams of opposing colors late at night, in streets filled with drunken revelers, and in alleys because the bathroom lines were too long. Not once did I see a fight, a near fight, or even one of those "we don't want to really fight so we're going to stand a few feet apart and scream at one another because there are lots of people to keep us from actually fighting" fights.

This doesn't mean danger didn't exist, but it does mean it was rare. Basically you're much more likely to get into a car accident in your hometown on a football weekend than you are to be accosted by an opposing team's fans on the road in the SEC.

This was nice to learn. When I was in college, I wanted to go to a Titans game in Philadelphia and I was told by several buddies from Philadelphia that it would be fine so long as I didn't cheer for the Titans or wear anything with Titans colors. What? That's ridiculous. And indicative of a larger issue in the city. If you aren't willing to welcome fans who are just like yourself, only clad in different colors, then there's something really wrong with your fandom. I'm proud to say that while SEC fans are the most passionate in the country, they're also, in my experience, the friendliest. Ultimately I feel comfortable saying to anyone who has ever decided not to go to an away game because they were worried about the environment in the SEC: Go.

Along with that lesson encouraging attendance, I also bring you 24 other things we learned on the DDT this fall.

1. No matter what fan base you're a part of, at least 15 percent of it sucks. Really sucks. Think Camryn Manheim in a leotard. They fulfill every stereotype anyone has about the South and illiterate rednecks. They drink heavily without becoming funnier, never say anything that makes listening to them better than complete silence, insult everyone, have no concept of terms like irony and satire, and talk loudly and more frequently than anyone in the general area. At any moment you hope that they're going to trip and fall into the path of an oncoming truck that is moving too fast to slow down. Inevitably this would be too late, however, because they have been married since they were 14 and have already spawned nine children. But, and this is key, every fan base has them. They aren't only clad in Alabama Crimson or Volunteer Orange. They aren't all from North Florida and they don't all bark like bulldogs for fun. These guys suck, and they are pretty equally distributed across the SEC. Trust me, no one is immune. Actually, Vandy might be immune.

2. If you go to an SEC stadium without a ticket, you can get in for a decent price. Period. The most I paid was $100. Now I didn't always have great seats -- in fact more often than not I had among the worst seats in the stadium -- but I had seats. So if you've been concerned about showing up without a ticket, don't be. And if you ended up not finding any for a decent price, isn't hanging out on a college campus and watching the game in a local bar with other fans infinitely better than sitting alone by yourself drinking warm Natty Light? Don't answer, that was a rhetorical question.

Amir with his Elmos in happier times. (Photo/Clay Travis)

3. The Tickle Me Elmo market wasn't that strong. Several of you questioned me about how my childless friend Amir was doing with his 25 Tickle Me Elmos after I wrote about him on the Georgia and Arkansas trips. A few of you even e-mailed me asking for Amir's e-mail address so you could buy an Elmo from him. This was, of course, the reason I got into column writing. So I could facilitate the transfer of scalped stuffed animals.

Now several people have e-mailed as Christmas approaches wanting to know how the Elmo market was going. Here are Amir's words: "In general, I made a gross miscalculation. The prices have been plummeting, and I ended up having to do the worst imaginable thing, I returned seven of them to Target. See, I thought buying 25 Elmos was embarrassing, but it turned out to be even more embarrassing to have to fill up a shopping cart and return them. People thought I had decided not to give my kids one. They're going for $50 now on eBay, and it isn't even worth my time to package them up and mail them out."

4. Don't tell your wife (or any other woman for that matter) about the changes in the way the college football clock is being run. I know it's late in the season, and this would probably have been better advice earlier, but if you haven't already discussed it with them, don't. Trust me, your college football viewing experience will be much more enjoyable. I think, because almost all significant others think the men in their lives watch too much college football, they embrace this change with a fervent passion. Somehow my wife got the idea that the games should be over in like an hour and 45 minutes. All season long my wife watched the clock like a hawk and constantly asked me, "Why aren't they running the clock?"

5. University of Georgia girls have bigger breasts thanks to the Hope Scholarship. With other southern states like Tennessee and South Carolina adopting lottery-funded scholarships, I expect this trend to spread even faster. It used to be the sentence, "Susie got a scholarship and she's getting D-cups" was a non-sequitur. Now it's a fact of life. Though, dear God, if I ever have a daughter, and upon being accepted to an SEC school with a lottery scholarship, she's going to ask me to put her college fund money toward fake breasts, strike me dead now. Please. Or at least let me know that it's going to help her date the starting quarterback.

6. If you're planning on flying into Fayetteville, Ark., you better have an expense account. Or make your reservations for next season now. Alternatively, if you're planning on driving to Fayetteville from anywhere not already inside the state of Arkansas, take my advice and request an expense account now.