When I saw DD break on that punt return i thought we would win big. Then I see the flag thrown, and things never were the same on that day.
That was the story of the whole year. All year long there were illegal blocks on punt returns. That killed us so many times.
I have lived in Virginia for many years and have had to listen to VT fans talk about how loud their stadium is and how raucous their fans are. Anyone at the LSU-VT game last year can tell this story: the typical pre-game mayhem in the LSU parking area was at its best. Then on the way to the stadium we walked through the VT parking section. People were sitting in folding chairs eating sandwiches and deviled eggs, listening to the NASCAR race on their radios. You could have dropped an empty beer can at one end of that lot and heard it at the other. One VT woman who spotted us pointed to a box of Domino's pizza on her table and announced to us, "Now, this is REAL tail gating!" We could hardly suppress our laughter. Up in the end zone stands amidst thousands of LSU fans, of course I sat right next to a VT guy (who said with some annoyance "I'm missin' the race for this.") Nice guy, though. But when they announced that this was the largest crowd ever to see a football game in the state of Virginia he hoo-haah'd and asked me what I thouht about that. I replied that the last time we had a crowd that small in Tiger Stadium was in the rain during the Curley Hallman era. Anyone who has ever been to Tiger Stadium KNOWS there is no place like it in the country!
And another thing... thank goodness we have a college football stadium with REAL atmosphere and not one with phoney-baloney manufactured atmosphere like Commonwealth Stadium at UK. Hey, Commonwealth is a nice little stadium. Great place to "see" a game. But they have to pipe in all sorts of synthetic foolishness on their jumbotrons to try to create some sort of sensation. Unbelievably, at the beginning of the 4th quarter last year, they played a scene from "Rudy!" They played a scene from a movie about NOTRE DAME in KENTUCKY'S stadium!!! I will give them this: setting off fireworks was a nice accompaniment to "The Bluegrass Miracle." But for some REAL college football atmosphere and tradition, come to Tiger Stadium.
The Barney Fife deputies in Blacksburg saw a street party and decided it was a mob. It gave them a chance to break out the riot gear that they had never used before. Fortunately they only gave them one bullet. I can't wait until VT comes to Tiger Stadium next year. :lsug:
That sounds similar to the scene in the town square in Oxford the Friday night before the now famous LSU-Ole miss game in 2003. I do not exagerate when I say there were hundreds of students on either side of the street that night, almost in "braveheart" formation with Ole miss kids on one side and LSU fans on the other. When me and my friends pulled up my crazy buddy decided he would pull out the lsu flag and wave it in the middle. This created such a cresendo effect the cops pulled him aside and pleaded with him to put away the flag as they feared the crowd was on the verge of a riot. It was definately mayhem that probably was never seen before in this usually quiet lil oxford downtown.
