Monday Notebook

By JOHN P. WISE
One Great Season

ATLANTA -- It took more than two hours to get out of the parking lot and travel the eight miles up the highway to get back to my hotel after Saturday's Florida-LSU game. After eating and then working for two or three hours, I didn't get to bed until after 4 a.m., and had an 8 a.m. wake-up call. My fatigued state caused me to ignore the alarm at 7 a.m. today, but fortunately, my first commitment isn't until 5:30 p.m., so finally getting out of bed at 10:30 a.m. didn't set me back at all!

Anyway, being in Georgia this week reminds me that I forgot to share a gem from last week when I was in Berkeley for the USC-Cal game.

Surely by now you saw how Georgia lost to LSU nine days ago. The Bulldogs got a late touchdown to take the lead and send their home fans into a frenzy. I got a text message from a gal named Michelle, a Georgia fan I met in Stillwater when UGA visited Oklahoma State. It went something like this: "OMG touchdown! Yay!"

I received that message as I was on the field at Cal's Memorial Stadium, watching USC in pregame warm-ups somewhere between 3 and 4 p.m. PT. I hadn't seen a scoreboard in hours, and had no idea where the LSU-Georgia game stood. I texted Michelle back for a score update, but one never came. Despite Georgia's late score, LSU still had enough time to mount a drive of its own.

So when I checked my voice mail a couple hours later during halftime of the USC-Cal game, Michelle had left a message. It went something like this: "Mother ... Fucker." Click.

Yep, Georgia's got some passionate fans alright.

Here are some other tidbits from the last few days:

+ As I was making my way out of Tiger Stadium Saturday night, I saw a Florida fan sitting by himself near one of the exits. He had a cut on his forehead and a small bandage on his leg. I asked him what happened, and he said he got beat up by some LSU fans before the game. He said this was the third time he came to Baton Rouge, after two previous Florida losses in Death Valley. "I guess that's the price you pay to see your team finally get a win here." Poor guy.

+ I've shot games that require photographers to kneel if they're behind the end zone, but LSU was the first game I've ever worked where you had to be down regardless of where you were. Needless to say, my quads are a little sore today.

+ The atmosphere at Tiger Stadium definitely was electric. I'd heard all week how insane it was going to be, and I will certainly confirm that it was, but I don't know if it was any louder than the USC-Ohio State game in Columbus last month.

+ During my week in Baton Rouge, it took me until Thursday before I realized the host of one of the sports talk radio shows I listened to each day in the car was actually named Buddy. I just thought his callers were very friendly or that addressing one as "Buddy" was merely a casual Southern-ism or something.

+ While it wasn't surprising to hear many LSU players say during the week that they'd hoped Tebow would play -- to be the best you need to beat the best ... at its best -- it was pretty neat the way they said it. In the same breath, many of them made comments like, "He's a great guy" or "He deserves to play in a game like this." Pretty classy.