We are already up to week 2 of Auburn football and this week Southern Miss came into town to play. It was one of those day games that starts at 11:30am, and mostly played in the most brutal heat that an Alabama summer can produce. This is what we got today, with a twist, buckets of rain fell in the 4th quarter to add to the misery fun of this football Saturday.
The heat (as expected) was so incredible that Deborah and I just stood in the concession area under the overhang for the entire game. Surprisingly, we and a number of other people with the same idea, were pleasantly comfortable (besides our legs standing on concrete for 4 hours), and weren’t about to give up our prime shade real estate.
From our vantage point by the walking ramps, we counted at least 20 people brought to the medial services stations on stretchers due to (what we assumed to be) heat exhaustion including one person that had passed out totally at the entry gates to the stadium. It must have been 20-30 degrees cooler in the shade where we were. In the end, Auburn beat Southern Miss 27-13 and we survived the heat. Next week Auburn is away at Mississippi State then back at home for two very hard SEC conference games.
I chose these four images from game day that were my favorite. You can view the entire gallery of today’s game at Auburn vs Southern Miss gallery. It was pretty incredible to see the band members wearing these wool uniforms in this heat. Standing next to them in this photo (and several others in the gallery) they must have each lost 10 pounds just at this game alone. The first image is an Auburn icon, the VW camper bus, then the players taking the field and the Auburn cheeleaders. Looking forward to the next home game, which will be at night, yeah.