Magnolia & Main

Week 9: USC vs Tennessee

Want to know what I love?

Night games!

Especially when they're in Columbia. What's not to love about being able to sleep in, get your long run completed, and have time to lounge around a little bit before it's time to head out to tailgate? The lot we tailgate in doesn't open until 5 hours before game time so since it was a 7:15pm kickoff, we didn't start our tailgate until 2pm.

Want to know what's not a good idea? Running 7.5 miles prior to a 5 hour tailgate and a night game.

Anyway, back to the tailgate. And football.

And amazing food.

{Not pictured: the delicious Boston Butt that slow cooked for 11 hours in our oven overnight. It was soooo good... just forgot to snap a picture of it.}

Cornhole games.

Quality time with the husband and with our friends.

& plenty of my favorite local beer: River Rat American Kolsch Story.

But seriously. How cool are these new River Rat cans? They just started canning their beers and I'm 100% on board with it because it makes enjoying their beer at a tailgate {& on glass-free beaches!} much easier.

Then it was time to get into the stadium, get to our seats, and watch as Carolina took on Tennessee.

... actually, it was game time for more than one team and yes, I was that person who was obsessively stalking WatchESPN/Twitter to see how my Tigers were faring against the Seminoles down in Tallahassee.

Meanwhile, back in Columbia, crazy things were happening on the field. USC was playing well and they never trailed to Tennessee. They ended up beating Tennessee and y'all, I think that the student section was a little excited. You're not allowed to go onto the field after games at SEC stadiums but looking at the celebration below, I'm surprised nobody did.

Want to know who else was excited? This guy.

We hustled back out to our tailgate after the game to get the TV set up to watch the final quarter of the Clemson/FSU game. While we were walking out of the stadium, FSU took the lead 21-20. We heard lots of loud cheers as we got back into our parking lot and Patrick just looked at me and was like "You know that everyone in this parking lot is watching your game, right? If they're cheering, it probably isn't good for you."

It wasn't. FSU had scored another TD to make it 28-20.

If you want to know stress, watch your team squander a 14 lead on the road against their biggest division opponent with their undefeated season & national title hopes on the line. Oh, and watch it in the middle of enemy territory surrounded by fans of your rival's school. I don't advise it. But it really was a lot of fun jumping up and down and celebrating when Clemson came out with a W!

We may not have gotten home until like 2am but y'all, Saturday was worth it. Both my team and my husband's team won. We had a blast. We spent most of Sunday recovering.

Totally worth it.

Happy Monday {& Halloween}!