Death Valley’s charm: A UGA fan’s first experience at LSU is like no other

The LSU flag flies high as you enter the city of Baton Rouge. As you arrive in the parking lot you see the rows of cars and RVs. You approach the stadium, passing the tailgates as friendly trash talk is hurled at you by those dressed in purple and gold.

Fifteen minutes before kickoff and finally you arrive at your seat. The crowd is already going crazy as a group of National Guard members parachute into the stadium wearing LSU gloves.

The National Anthem is played. The teams rush the field. Rodrigo Blakenship lines the ball up to kick off for the Bulldogs.

The cup in your hand begins to vibrate from the noise. The screen shows a meter with the decibels of sound in the stadium. It reads over 105. Louder than a Boeing 737. Your ears start to ring.

Welcome to Death Valley.

I went with a group of three friends. Two that sat up in the 600 level to get a view from high in the stadium and two down in the field level section to get a feel for the different atmospheres in the stadium.

This was my first time taking a road trip for a Georgia game, but I’ve been inside some of sports wildest moments and venues over the years.

I was there when Mercer toppled Duke in the NCAA tournament. I was in attendance for UGA’s home opener this year. I was running up the 18th fairway in East Lake a couple weeks ago when Tiger Woods captured his 80th victory. Saturday at the LSU vs. Georgia game was the loudest environment I’ve ever been in and it’s not close.

Our seats were about 10 rows from the field behind the Georgia bench. The row was mostly Bulldog fans, but all around us were Tiger fans. Typically, when you think of SEC football fans, you don’t expect them to be too nice to the rival schools fans. However, we quickly made friends with the LSU fans around us.

Throughout the game we made observations and discussed who the best players were for each side. Shared our mutual dislike for other SEC schools such as Florida, which had knocked off LSU the week before.

Before the start of the fourth quarter the entire stadium sang a song about the state of Louisiana. Somehow despite all the early activities in the day to impair them the fans didn’t miss a word or a beat. There was never a moment where they weren’t chanting until Georgia scored its first touchdown.

At that point the stadium went silent except for the Georgia fans who made finally made their voices heard screaming “UGA” in unison. This gave the LSU faithful new life as they refused to be out chanted at home.

As the battle wore on it was apparent that Georgia was going to lose its first game of the season. The Tiger fans began to sing the words to their banned song “Neck” to any song that the band would play. I won’t repeat the words here but again these fans were simply on another level.

We finally headed for the exits. It was over a seven hour drive to support the Bulldogs win or lose. Our heads hung a little lower as so many fans from others team have before because it turned out to be the latter.

We hopped in the car and drove an hour and half away to Bourbon Street saying a goodbye to Baton Rouge and an until next time to Death Valley.

This story was originally published October 14, 2018 at 3:08 PM.