SEC football: 15 instances where it just meant more

In my 15 years as a fan of SEC football, these moments just meant a little more than the others.

I remember my first time being inside of an SEC football stadium, alright…

T’was my freshman year at UGA. The Dawgs were the No. 1 team in the land. Matthew Stafford was the quarterback, Knowshon Moreno was the running back and Mark Richt was the coach. This team was coming off a stellar 2007 campaign with serious national title aspirations. Fate would have it, getting half of my face sunburnt at Sanford was pretty interesting foreshadowing, I’d say.

Born as the son of two transplants, you don’t know what you don’t know. I didn’t understand the Bulldog thing until I was 18. The academics, being in-state and 100 percent Downtown Athens brought me to The Classic City. Over time, this absolutely wacky sport I love so much became part of my being. It went from a seasonal weekend passion to the lifeblood of how I pay my bills now.

Since 2008, I have seen some things, good, bad and downright ugly. These 15 instances stood out to me as moments in my SEC football fan where I was like, “Well, I guess this couldn’t have happened anywhere else…” Per usual, these have very little to do with what happened on the field, but rather when the clock wasn’t running and people had some things to say about when it did.

Behold! 15 instances where SEC football just kind of meant more to me over the last 15 seasons.

SEC football: 15 instances where it just meant more in the last 15 years or so

15. Joe Burrow celebrates Senior Day as Joe Burreaux coming out of the Tiger Stadium tunnel

Over the last 15 years, I have been truly blessed to watch two of the greatest single quarterback seasons in college football history in my conference I hold so dearly. What Cam Newton did at Auburn in 2010 was the stuff of legend. That team had no business winning a national title, but it did. Then, there is the story of Joe Burrow, the 2019 LSU Tigers and how he became The Geauxt…

Seeing Burrow walk out of the tunnel at Tiger Stadium in a No. 9 Burreaux jersey was incredible.

While a lot of these 15 instances where it just meant more are of the petty and hilarious variety, this isn’t one of them. Part of what made that 2019 season so special for Burrow and LSU was that no one saw this coming. Burrow had to transfer out-of-state after losing the starting quarterback job at Ohio State to the late Dwayne Haskins. In two years at LSU, Burrow flourished.

He went from a sixth-round pick as a fifth-year senior, to the unquestioned No. 1 overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft. Burrow became the second Heisman Trophy winner in LSU history, helping the Tigers win their fourth national title. The offense was historic, but his impact in Louisiana was undeniable. One man from Athens, Ohio became as Baton Rouge as they come in this moment.

He had victory cigars after clobbering Clemson weeks later, but this is when he became a legend.