ClayNation Archive: UT-South Carolina 2007

Watching a football game at the Applebee's bar is sort of like playing secondary for the Tennessee defense. You know you're going to get burned, you're just not sure how. Several people have written in wanting to know where I was during the second half of South Carolina-UT and why I haven't commented on that game. For the record, I was at Applebee's.

The reason I haven't written anything about this was twofold: Because it was so painful to describe and because I'd already written 3k words on the Cocktail Party that same day. So I've decided to go back in time and tell you why you never, under any circumstances, want to watch a football game at Applebee's. Not that you needed to hear this from me but even still, a truer statement has never been made in this column. So here we go with my evening at Applebee's. I have alternated this night with extensive ruminations about Arkansas' Darren McFadden and his upcoming game this weekend in Knoxville.

1. If you're looking for a sports bar in Jacksonville, give up and go to Applebee's. After the Cocktail Party, by some tweak of the space-time continuum, I was able to get UT-South Carolina on the radio. We'd only missed two minutes of the game and felt so optimistic about locating a place to see the game that we spurned the friendly confines of our 19-inch television in the Red Roof Inn and the Applebee's right beside it.

For the next hour we drove around in the Jacksonville suburbs and managed to get completely lost. I have no idea how a city can be so sprawling and yet contain nothing at all. Several times we drove through huge avenues of dark roads with no other cars, saw lights ahead in the distance, and arrived to find sushi restaurants and wine stores. Yep, each one of these in trendy strip malls built, presumably, for people who must live somewhere. But appear nowhere near us. If you wonder what the world would look like if suddenly the entire human population didn't exist, go to the Jacksonville suburbs on a Saturday night.

2. Darren McFadden is going to end up with more undergrad students in his bed than Josh McNeil. Incidentally, if you're Josh McNeil, you don't call a press conference and explain away this story. You keep your mouth shut about how you got three girls into your bed and pretty soon you've got six girls in your bed at the same time. Guaranteed.

3. While we were lost on the never-ending and empty roads of Jacksonville, my friend Tardio kept saying over and over again, "I'm never getting a rental car without Garmin again." Occasionally he altered this phrasing and said, "Garmin is the greatest invention ever. You just type in sports bar and it tells you how to get there. No matter where you are. Garmin gets it done." Basically there's no greater adherent to Garmin in the world than Tardio.

4. If you type in Darren McFadden on Garmin when you're in Knoxville, these are the directions: Turn Left on Philip Fulmer Way, Proceed to 1720 Volunteer Drive, Enter Gate 21 of Neyland Stadium. Walk to checkerboard end zone ... Darren McFadden.

5. Eventually we end up at the largest outdoor mall in the western hemisphere where there's a Neiman Marcus, a Cheesecake Factory, a Maggiano's, every fancy retailer you can think of, acres of parking lot where potential customers could park if they knew this mall existed or actually lived there. And yet another Applebee's. At this point halftime is approaching and we decide to stop fighting our fate. "I hate Applebee's," Tardio says. By which he means he's never searched for it on Garmin.

6. UT defensive coordinator John Chavis bumped into Darren McFadden at SEC Media Days and said, "I just wanted to know what it felt like to touch you." Both men are still uncomfortable talking about this but if you press him, Chavis will acknowledge that he touched McFadden longer than any member of the 2006 Tennessee defense.

7. Two men can't sit beside each other on the same side of the booth at Applebee's and watch a game. This is Tardio's rule. UT is leading 14-0, so I'll sit anywhere. Tardio won't. So he sits across from me and spends the next three hours facing the opposite direction so he can see the television. Anything to keep from sharing the same side of the booth as me.

8. Darren McFadden is going to rush for 436 yards, kick Smokey in the groin, throw two touchdown passes, impregnate eight undergrads and make Houston Nutt scream 16 yee-haws into his headset. Then the second quarter is going to start.

9. Amazingly, Applebee's has flat screens. Yet, despite splurging for the flat screens, Applebee's has no HD. Or sound. We are located at the tables alongside the bar. Let me just say this, if your Saturday night plans ever include the phrase, "Hell, let's go down to Applebee's and get plastered," just stay home and drink on the doublewide's porch. It's cheaper and your smell is less noticeable.

10. Darren McFadden went for the Orange Chicken Bowl at the Fayetteville Applebee's one Thursday and now every single female undergrad at Arkansas goes back every Thursday just hoping he's going to be there.

11. Unfortunately, not everyone subscribes to my "Don't go drinking at the Applebee's" theory. Including a man clad in Georgia apparel who sits directly behind us. Immediately he begins talking about Mike Vick. Eventually this leads to his loud contention that the problem with Vick is not Vick's dog-fighting, but pit bulls in general. "They need to euthanize the race," he says, meaning dogs, I think. Then he continues along this anti-pit bull spiel for the next 10 minutes. This is the first time I've ever heard of ethnic dog cleansing. I'm beginning to think that I should just go to Applebee's every weekend and interview the people drinking there.

12. Darren McFadden has announced he's not going to do the "You Can't See Me" hand signal against the UT defense because it's redundant. Instead Houston Nutt is going to spend the entire pre-game doing this to the Arkansas AD.

13. Applebee's wait staff has the collective IQ of one side of Quincy Carter's brain. Which is to say, none. Every drink order gets reversed. Nothing on the menu is actually available. We don't get utensils. A female waiter explodes and quits her job. Meanwhile, UT takes a 21-0 lead into halftime. "I think we're going to still lose," I tell Tardio. Tardio is unimpressed with my analysis, "CBS should have had the ethnic cleansing pit bull guy do the Mike Vick legal analysis for them instead of you," he says.

14. Darren McFadden's code name for the UT defense? My Heisman.

15. The UT defense begins to implode. You knew it was coming, but still, the amazingly complete and utter breakdowns are a sight to behold. It's almost as if the UT defense has conspired to only cover the places where the South Carolina receivers aren't. I'd write more about this woeful defensive performance but unless you saw it there are no words to describe how horrible it was. The 21-0 UT lead is gone. The only good thing that happened to me during this defensive collapse was my friend Neville dropping his cell phone into a bar toilet so he had to stop sending me text messages about UT's defensive implosion.

16. Darren "Humanity Advanced" McFadden (one of his actual nicknames) has not bothered to learn any third down formations for the UT game because he doesn't believe the Arkansas offense will face third down all day.

17. Don't order steak at Applebee's. First of all, they might run out. Which they did. Secondly, the one steak they have remaining might come on your plate, be covered in liquid, and make you think your steak might have been peed on. Which it probably was. Either that or your Cro-Magnon waiter is drooling again. Also, I don't want people to think I'm some food connoisseur who is too good for Applebee's. Here are, much to my wife's chagrin, my four favorite restaurants on Earth: O'Charley's, Wendy's, Chick-Fil-A, Ryan's Family Steakhouse. Seriously.

18. When Darren McFadden heard that LF/JP was splitting their telecast this weekend he said, "That's because they still haven't heard that I tied the all-time single game SEC rushing record last weekend." Then he paused for a few minutes and said, "Come to think of it they also haven't heard that I go to Arkansas."

19. The only thing worse than watching your team win at Applebee's is watching your team lose at Applebee's. UT is now losing 24-21. The man at the bar is on a roll about his ethnic dog cleansing. What if you had a television show and it was just called Applebee's Bar Confessions? And you went around to different Applebee's bars all over the country and interviewed the people drinking there. I would watch this television show. There's no telling what stories you'd hear. We need more crazy on television. Crazy in a way other than UT's ability to somehow come back and beat South Carolina with an overtime field goal. Which was a godsend. It almost made Applebee's for a football game bearable. But just almost. Unfortunately for UT fans, nothing is going to make Darren McFadden bearable come Saturday.

Labels: claynation archive ut-south carolina 2007

Posted by Clay Travis at 8:49 AM
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