From the stands of Kyle Field: "Dude, we just beat 'Bama"
(Photo by Sam Craft / AP Photo via theadvocate)
With the sun setting slowly, the beers pouring quickly, and the fans arriving in hoards; it was a perfect recipe for college football in College Station. I was lucky enough to attend one of the craziest college football upsets in recent history as the unranked, two-loss Texas A&M Aggies took down no. 1 Alabama in front of a sellout crowd.
Rather than recapping the game like you could find anywhere else on the internet, I want to take you through my experience as an outsider in Aggieland from the moment tailgates got started to the moment thousands of fans stormed the field.
If you have read any of my previous work, chances are you would know I’m a TCU student and have “bled purple” my entire life, as they say. With that being said, a primetime SEC game at Kyle Field is something I could have only imagined before this past weekend.
The atmosphere was unbelievable, almost indescribable. People commonly joke about Texas A&M having a cult-like feel, and it’s 100% true for all the right reasons. As I began walking to the pregame tailgates, I could hardly help myself from just looking around in awe at just how many people were out and about hours before kickoff.
I couldn’t tell you how many tailgating sections there were, but it seemed like the maroon canopies went on for miles. Greek life, alumni, hell even kids playing with foam footballs in the grass fields; no matter your affiliation everyone seemed like one massive family.
As an incognito Horned Frog, that family-feel was somewhat intimidating, but all it took was a temporary maroon polo for the Aggies to adopt me as their own. At the end of the day, as long as I wasn’t wearing crimson and white they could care less.
Considering the size of the campus, I guarantee everyone has a vastly different pre-game experience, but mine included an abundance of free drinks underneath the scorching Texas sun. In other words, a recipe for a great time.
How exactly these free drinks came to be? I have no idea. A kind southern lady told me to scan this code for unlimited free alcohol, and when you're offered such a deal, you’d be a madman to refuse.
After one, two, three, maybe six or seven - our group took off for the long and anticipation-filled walk over to the stadium.
Everyone knew what was about to happen. The number one ranked team was in town, the Aggies had lost two straight and were down to a struggling second-string quarterback. A blowout was just over the horizon, but the students and fans around me seemed to be in some sort of drunken state of hype, belief, and hope.
Hindsight is 20/20, but prior to kickoff I’m not sure anyone in their right mind would have confidently said the Aggies would win this game. That didn’t matter. I was in utter disbelief at the size of the stadium and how quickly that son of a bitch filled up. I know SEC football is supposed to be “bigger and better,” but my goodness.
Throughout my walk up to the student section, I was introduced to the concept of whooping, or whatever they call it down in Aggieland. Randomly throughout the stadium, people would bang a simple pattern against a piece of metal, to which everyone in the area would scream “WHOOP” in response.
Weird at first, but I ended up loving it by the time I left.
I might be a slight nerd for college football and big-time stadiums in general, but when I first walked out of the tunnels out in view of the field, my jaw dropped. The stadium was so massive that it didn’t feel real. I couldn’t help but just look around in awe at the amount of people in the crowd and how the hell they fit so many seats into one building.
The other side of the stadium looked photoshopped, it was madness. I’ve always been a sucker for sold-out crowds, but this time was special. I felt like a kid in a candy shop just looking around at all the fans waving their towels around and screaming at the top of their lungs for their team.
I was so caught up in the atmosphere and simply how crazy the optics of this game were that I nearly forgot about the game itself. Of course everyone is going to be up and excited to play the no. 1 team in the country, but I honestly didn’t expect that to last.
The Crimson Tide were 18-point favorites in the eyes of Vegas and based on the Aggies prior performances, the odds certainly weren’t in their favor. I don’t know if it was the crowd, the game plan, or maybe Zach Calzada just woke up feeling like a champion that day; but A&M opened the game with a chip on their shoulder.
After a 17-7 first quarter in favor of the Aggies, the stadium was so loud I wouldn’t be shocked if a small earthquake was registered on campus. Literally every somewhat positive play for A&M led to a roar from the stands, it was nuts. I know a 2-yard run is a positive play, but the Aggies were cheering for everything as if it was the biggest play of the game.
Granted, some of this intensity is attributed to playing ‘Bama, but other fan bases need to take note.
Even as an enemy-in-disguise, everyone in the stands acted as if we had been best friends for years. There were constant high fives, random hugs, and an array of untranscribable screams all throughout the student section.
There was this feeling throughout the entire game that something special was going to happen. I did my best to remind everyone that this is Alabama we were talking about and that they could mount a comeback at any given moment, but the crowd was so in awe at the fact they held a lead they didn’t care.
Reality struck for the crowd when late in the 4th quarter, Alabama took a 38-31 lead after delivering a gnarly blow to quarterback Zach Calzada. For the first time of the night, the crowd felt silent, and that “well, shit” thought process started to kick in. No matter the score, no matter the situation, Aggie fans live up to the expectation of staying standing and staying loud until the final whistle.
Before the next A&M drive got started, a roar emerged from the crowd, screaming “Calzada, Calzada, Calzada” in support of their battered up QB. I wouldn’t be surprised if Disney were looking into buying the rights for this story by now, but what a day it was for Calzada.
After leading the Aggies to two straight losses and having “Calzada sucks” written in chalk in various places around campus, the backup came through in the clutch against the most storied program in all of college football. Calzada walked back on that field with a few minutes left on the clock and a vengeance. This was his game to win.
Even with the insane atmosphere and roar of the crowd, I found myself doubting any chance that the Crimson Tide would actually lose to an unranked opponent; it didn’t seem possible. The next few minutes were a blur.
Everything went the Aggies way, and the student section was quite literally jumping with joy every opportunity they had. After tying things up at 38 a piece, A&M got the ball back with the hopes of setting up a game winning field goal.
With each yard gained, every fans’ hopes were becoming closer and closer to a reality. After some surprisingly perfect play calling by Jimbo Fisher, the Aggies were set up for a short 28-yard field goal to win as time expired.
I’ll never forget the feeling leading up to the kick. After hours of nonstop chants and cheering, Kyle Field went completely silent. Half of the students had already gone down in anticipation of the field storming that was about to ensue, but for those that stayed to watch the moment it seemed as if all time stopped and everything was in slow motion.
I looked around and saw fans leaning over onto their knees, praying to the sky, closing their eyes as if they couldn’t bear to watch. Everything stopped for a moment as I thought to myself, “is this really about to happen?”
Is the undefeated unanimous no. 1 Alabama about to lose to unranked Texas A&M? The same “Bama with a 100-game win streak over unranked opponents dating back to 2007? The same ‘Bama that had a nation-best 19-game win streak entering the ballgame?
I hardly had time to soak in the moment before the whistle blew, the ball was snapped, and the kick went up. As the kick went through the uprights, the entire stadium threw their hands up in the loudest roar of the night.
The next few minutes were complete chaos. Before I even had a chance to leave my seat, thousands of people were already running out on the field to celebrate with their team. As the adrenaline was running, my buddy and I booked it with one goal in mind: get on that damn field.
We had no idea where we were going, so we followed the hoard of students all-out sprinting their way up and down stairs trying to find the quickest path onto the field. By the time we finally arrived, there were at least 20,000+ fans filling up every square inch of that football field. I have seen a lot of field stormings in my day, but nothing like this.
The stadium didn’t clear out for at least a half hour or so after that game-winning kick, but as fans made their way out the post-game “WHOOPS” were even more prevalent than before kickoff. Everyone was “whooping” their way from Kyle Field on over to Northgate.
If you’re unfamiliar with Northgate, it’s essentially an oasis of college bars all packed into one convenient location right by campus. This wasn’t my first rodeo out on the town, but my goodness there was an absurd amount of people determined to get drunk (myself included).
The lines were astronomically long, but no one cared. Literally nothing could ruin the vibe after beating Alabama. Every other minute a random stranger in a maroon polo would come up to us stating “Dude, we just beat fucking ‘Bama!” It was surreal.
I was still having a hard time processing what we had all just witnessed. This wasn’t just any run of the mill home win for A&M, this was fucking ‘Bama.
Everyone had a drink in their hand and a smile from ear to ear, nobody wanted the night to end.
The walk back from the bars was full of random “Fuck Nick Saban” chants and even more high fives. The vibes were immaculate.
Waking up the next day, that surreal feeling was still there and is still there to this day. That celebratory phrase kept ringing in my head over and over as my one night as an Aggie replayed in my head:
“Dude, we just beat ‘Bama.”