ClayNation: A painful INT for the ages

You know when you have that sick feeling in your stomach because the worst possible thing that your quarterback can do, he has just done? Welcome to my life with the Tennessee Volunteers, 10 minutes from their first SEC championship since 1998 (which, by the way, feels like about 1898 when you have watched three losses in a row in the Georgia Dome).

Jonathan Zenon celebrates on Clay Travis' expense. (Getty Images)

From my seat in the upper deck I had an excruciatingly perfect angle for the Jonathan Zenon interception that I'm convinced is the worst single play in my life as a UT football fan. Even now, just writing about the play makes me sick to my stomach.

I can think of individual plays that were almost as painful (Jabar Gaffney's "catch" in 2000, Alabama's blocking of the field goal in 1990 that led to a 9-6 loss, Georgia's end of the half fumble return for a touchdown in 2003), but no single play in the history of my UT fandom approaches this Erik Ainge interception, in terms of both importance and awe-inspiring ineptitude.

It's a throw that your four-year starting quarterback absolutely, positively cannot make in the final SEC game of his career. And if he does by chance make a play this bad, then he absolutely, positively has to redeem this mistake by canceling it out with a later brilliant play. Honestly, I'm going to have to take a break before I can write more about the end of this game. It's still too painful.

So I'll start at the beginning, DDT-style for the SEC championship game.

1. Tardio is accompanying me on the trip to the SEC championship game because he's a Kentucky football fan and he wants to see an SEC championship game before he dies. The weekend gets off to a rough start when Tardio shows up at my old house to pick me up for the trip down and our plan to beat the Friday Nashville traffic is defeated.

2. Tardio might be the only man that hates the cold more than I do. About the time we reach Chattanooga, I realize I'm sweating in the passenger seat of his car. This is all the more surprising because I'm wearing a T-shirt, flip-flops and jeans.

"Why's it so hot in here?" I ask.

"It's cold outside," Tardio says. (According to the temperature gauge, it was a bone-chilling 58 degrees outside). To remedy this cold snap, Tardio has the temperature set, and I'm not making this up, at 84 degrees. I didn't even know you could set the heat gauge this high in a car.

3. We agree that our favorite sports talk radio guys are the ones who call and give advice to the team. Is there any less effective way to spend your time (aside from reading this column and not billing your client)? Has any coach in the history of sports ever been riding in his car and heard advice from a caller that he has actually used?

Can you turn the heat up to 84 degrees in your car? (Provided to CBSSports.com)

Yet these people persevere, year after year, tens of thousands of radio hours after tens of thousands of radio hours, giving advice to the team. I wish I had a radio show and could give an online test so that only people with IQs over 120 and people with IQs under 90 could call. I'd e-mail the results to everyone who took the test and not let them know whether they were a genius or an idiot. I wouldn't want any middle tier callers, just geniuses and idiots. This would be radio gold.

4. Our initial departure error is compounded on our first stop somewhere in Dalton, Ga. Tardio buys trail mix with M&M's. Ten minutes later, he says, "Man, I'm not getting any M&M's at all." He takes the trail mix and shakes it hard enough that the roar of the trail mix is deafening inside the car.

He tries to eat again. Ten seconds later he lets out an ear-piercing yelp, "Awww hell," he says, "I bought the one without the M&M's." Then he throws down the trail mix and spends the next 10 minutes cursing under his breath. After he's done cursing he says, "You want some of this trail mix?"

5. We're staying at the Hilton in downtown Atlanta. When we arrive, Tardio tries to valet but their parking garage is full. So we have to unload everything in the front foyer. This would be easier if Tardio bothered traveling with any sort of bag. Instead he has two armfuls of clothes. He piles his clothes in the Hilton doorway and says, "Just leave these here and go ahead and get us checked in."

The Netherlands is a great place -- right? (Getty Images)

6. I attempt to get us checked in. Our room is one of those suites with a large bar, a dinner table, two couches and the like. We get this room because I make friends with the lady at the front desk. The front desk lady is attractive and from the Netherlands. Whenever a woman is good looking and clearly foreign I compliment her country. It's a habit I can't break.

Worst of all is when the woman responds by saying, "Oh, you've been there?" And I feel compelled to say that I have because otherwise I'm just some tool who's lying about liking her country. (Note: The fact that I am, in fact, some tool lying about liking her country is not in dispute.)

So I say I've visited and then I'm obligated to ask where in the country she's from -- Rotterdam. I actually know nothing about Rotterdam. But for purposes of the conversation I say, "Rotterdam is awesome in the fall." Because once you say you love a country you have to say you love the city that person is from, too. I would have ended up loving her street and the free syringe program that reduces the incidence of HIV if the conversation had gone on long enough.

7. Upon his return from a parking garage somewhere in Atlanta, Tardio is convinced the hotel rates have been lowered because, "This is not the usual Hilton crowd." I have no idea what Tardio means by this. Last time, we stayed in a Jacksonville Red Roof Inn that sold condoms in the vending machine. When we arrived today Tardio carried in his own clothes in two arms. I ask him to explain himself. "It's just the feel," he says.

8. When we get into the room, Tardio asks how we got the suite and I say, "Because Rotterdam is lovely in the fall."

9. We go out until 4:30 a.m. I'm using this as an excuse for how we end up in the Georgia Dome 1 hour, 15 minutes before kickoff. That, and getting crossed up with Atlanta in general. Every one of my senses is dulled in Atlanta. I never know where I am, what time it is, whether something smells like corndogs or soybeans. If you gave me keys to a car and told me to go anywhere in Atlanta that I couldn't already see, there is a 100 percent chance I'd get lost. So Tardio and I are inside the Dome with over an hour to kill.

Les Miles in a suit. Weird, huh? (Getty Images)

10. Just before we enter the Georgia Dome we watch tape of Les Miles in his press conference. Admit it, when you saw Les Miles in a suit and tie, for just a minute, it was like when you saw your female gym teacher wearing a dress at graduation. You expected her to have on umbros and you expected Miles to be wearing the hat and the turtle neck. There was just something incongruous about it.

I couldn't hear Les' words but none of the LSU fans drinking before the game really seemed to care whether Miles stayed or not. There was no cheer or anything when word spread through the bar that Miles was disputing Kirk Herbstreit's claim that he was going to be Michigan's next coach. I cheered when I heard Miles was staying, though. Because I don't want my wife angry at Les Miles every Saturday for the next three years before Michigan fires him.

11. Inside the stadium, thanks to the hour I had to check things out, it becomes readily apparent that most LSU fans gave up on the season after the Arkansas loss. The Georgia Dome is 80 percent full of UT fans and the LSU "side" of the stadium is filled with lots of orange.

If there were any sports justice in the world LSU would be able to keep track of everyone who sold their SEC championship tickets and ensure these people could not buy BCS tickets. Or better yet, that they had to still buy them and LSU fans who wouldn't otherwise be able to afford to attend the game got to go instead.

12. But the LSU fans who do come are loud. And the Golden Girls didn't take the trip off. Which everyone wearing orange was relieved to see. The great thing about the Golden Girls is that you can tell they are smoking hot even from the top of the Georgia Dome. I feel like people in the Goodyear blimp are even able to argue about which Golden Girl they prefer.

13. Which reminds me of my friend J.T.'s game he plays with cheerleader selection. His rule is that no matter where you sit inside a stadium you have to pick the cheerleader you want to have sex with the most and if your seatmate disagrees you have to argue about this for the rest of the game. Even if all you can see is hair color.

14. Ryan Perrilloux is starting for LSU, which I'm not happy with. Primarily because after 12 games you knew exactly what Matt Flynn was going to give you, and that it was going to be OK, but not spectacular. Sort of like a grape dum dum sticker from elementary school, solid but not splashy.

On the other hand Perrilloux is like one of those mystery dum dum stickers that the old man with only one arm used to give all the kids on Wednesday's at Mother's Day Out. You'd wait around all day and then the one-armed man would come with a paper sack full of dum dums and you'd want watermelon or cherry and then you'd reach in there and pull out the brown wrapper with the question mark on it.

Without fail, you'd get one of the flavors you wanted or root beer. And if you got root beer no one would trade with you and your day was ruined. Root beer was like the day Robotech's Roy Fokker died. Basically what I'm getting at is: Ryan Perrilloux was like the question mark dum dum pop. And this scared me.

Roy Fokker. (Provided to CBSSports.com)

15. UT takes the opening kick and scores a touchdown. For the remainder of the half the UT offense is inept and LSU consistently drives between the 20s, but can't score any touchdowns. Otherwise successful LSU drives are derailed by intermittently brilliant Tennessee defensive plays. Meanwhile Jerrod Mayo and Jacob Hester have taken five years off each other's life span. Halftime arrives with UT leading 7-6.

16. My favorite play of the first half is when LSU's Keiland Williams loses 14 yards on a single play. He turns first-and-10 into second-and-24. I wonder what the player is thinking during the course of this play while he's breaking tackles but still running backward and trying to reverse field. Is he thinking, "Oh man, would one of you guys just please go ahead and tackle me?" Or is he thinking, "I'm about to bust this open, and break out the 'you can't see me,'" as he reverses field for the fourth time?

Every time I see a play like this, I think about how good you actually have to be to lose 14 yards on a play. For instance, if you handed off to me and told me to start running as fast as I could away from the line of scrimmage, I'd get tackled before I went 14 yards. Same thing if you threw me a pass and told me to catch it and immediately start running the wrong way. No way I'm fast enough to lose 14. But Keiland Williams is.

Ultimately this leads to LSU facing third-and-35. I wasn't watching the game but I guarantee either Verne or Gary said, "There's not a lot of play calls in the book for third-and-35." Guarantee it.

17. On the first drive of the second half the UT defensive snuff film known as Third Down is showing. On third-and-4, Perrilloux rolls right and channels JaMarcus Russell by throwing a strike about 50 yards down the field. Then, on third-and-16 Perrilloux zips a 27-yard laser to Demetrius Byrd for a touchdown. This is the kind of throw that Matt Flynn would never even think about attempting. It's 13-7 LSU and Perrilloux has convinced me he's going to be very good, potentially watermelon dum dum flavor. Assuming he doesn't get charged with another felony.

18. UT responds by driving to the LSU 13, where a pass interference call is made then picked up when the refs rule that the pass was tipped. At this point several UT fans around me come undone. In the interests of your fellow seatmates, if you ever think about the refs receiving a paycheck for making calls, don't share that thought with everyone around you. Especially when the fan builds on this hypothetical from there.

Eric Berry -- the next Deion Sanders? (Getty Images)

The fan will start screaming about where the ref is going to get paid (it's always in a back alley), how (sack full of cash), and who's paying (generally there's a suggestion that the opposing fans are paying but exactly how they know the refs or what the parameters of the buy remain unclear). There's nothing worse than having a call go against you and then having to hear someone who spent four years in third grade scream about the refs being bought. Chances are your fellow fan can't even spell buyoff. To add salt to the wounds, Daniel Lincoln misses a 30-yard field goal.

19. Then, for a six-minute period Eric Berry serves notice of why UT fans think he's the next Deion Sanders. First, he picks up a Trindon Holliday fumble (I get several texts letting me know that Verne has just extolled LSU running backs for not fumbling since 1914). Then after a UT score to take a 14-13 lead he intercepts Perrilloux.

When Eric Berry has the ball in his hands time seems to stand still. You get the feeling that Berry is moving at a different speed than everyone else. More importantly, you get the sense that Berry not only feels as if he's moving at a different speed than everyone else, he knows he is. And like Flint taught us, knowing is half the battle.

20. In the immediate moments after his interception the Georgia Dome is Berry'd in delirium. It's as loud as the dome gets all night. As loud as every third down will be for Ohio State in New Orleans during the BCS championship game. For the first time all night UT fans can legitimately taste our first SEC championship title since 1998. Everyone is standing, jumping and screaming; it's so loud that even if you're yelling you can't hear your own voice.

21. Junaid texts me: "I would have Eric Berry's child if I could."

22. After the interception, the LSU defense stiffens and Lincoln is wide right on a 51-yard field-goal attempt. UT's defense stops LSU on two consecutive possessions and with 10:57 remaining in the fourth quarter, UT takes possession of inside their 10 still leading 14-13. It's a time when quarterback legends are made in the SEC.

23. On third-and-5, Erik Ainge makes as bad a decision as he has made all season. And LSU makes him pay. I have a perfect angle for this pass. After it was thrown I feel so sick to my stomach I want to throw up. The sound drains from the Georgia Dome save the ecstatic shouting of the LSU fans at the opposite end.

What Tennessee fans didn't want to see. (Getty Images)

It's a play so monumentally awful that almost no UT fans around me can speak. It's still the same the next day at the Titans game when I try to describe the play to a friend and two UT fans passing me on the bridge see me struggling for words and say, "Just don't talk about it, man."

24. The two-point conversion is huge because it takes the field goal out of the equation and LSU leads 21-14. The two missed UT field goals are also huge at this point because if either is made LSU doesn't go for two and instead kicks the extra point.

25. Even after the single worst play in the history of my life as a UT football fan, UT twice drives deep into LSU territory and comes up with nothing. The last drive ends on another Ainge interception. This one on first down from the LSU 15. With a little over two minutes left, everyone is already thinking about whether these teams could play another OT game. Just unbelievable.

26. LSU runs out the clock for the gritty, hard-fought and incredibly physical win. There's no doubt in my mind that LSU will beat Ohio State in New Orleans and win the national championship. But it's going to be a long time before any UT fan forgets that Ainge interception. A very long time. In fact, barring Alzheimer's, most will never forget this play for the rest of their lives. I know I won't.

27. LSU fan Kerry Guidry texts Tardio and Tardio relays his message. "Perrilloux's the player of the game for LSU but Kerry thinks it should be Ainge." Ouch. But somehow fitting for the wild and wacky 2007 SEC football season.