Editor’s note: Please welcome Chelsea Harris to the Football Time family. She is a former Vol cheerleader and is a current student at UT who is pursuing a journalism and electronic media degree. Chelsea will be interning with us this semester. You’ll be able to hear her weekly on Football Time on TSR and read her regular posts here. Her first assignment was to chronicle her trip to “The Swamp” last weekend. You can find it below! Enjoy!

This past weekend I rolled on down to Gainesville for a little Florida-Tennessee rivalry. For the most part my trip was incredibly successful. It started off with lunch at “The Swamp” where I did in fact convince my family that our experience was not complete unless we “chomped” down on some of their famous Gator tail tacos. However, from experience being a Tennessee cheerleader in Gainesville two years ago I picked up on the hatred that some Gator fans have for us Tennesseans.

Although their hospitality was second to none and their food was tremendous it definitely was their passion and obsession for Florida football that warms my heart. Though, if you are like me and have a bleeding heart of orange and white for the Vols, it was necessary you had some tunnel vision. Constantly having to ignore those crazy Gator fans with their Gator signs, chants, and bumper stickers and focus on the food experience and the football.

Tennessee fans arrived to Ben Hill Griffin Stadium “hype” for the big Orange and White. They were filled with over powering excitement as the football team ran out on the field singing Rocky Top, ready to watch this exciting football game. Florida fans did not have much to say to us Tennessee fans until we had our first turnover… then Florida fans started trash talking. An old man leaned up behind us and informed us that we “should have never got rid of that ole Phillip Fulmer.” It took a Gator touchdown for him to lean back and inform us that Peyton Manning in fact never beat the Florida Gators. I understand this is a rivalry game but come on that was practically 20 years ago. And oh, have you seen Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos lately?

The game was a blast despite the loss and I will forever be a “Vol for Life.” So its safe to say that I was proud to pack up my things and make the drive back to Tennessee with the feeling in my heart that Neyland Stadium and being a Vol fan surpasses Ben Hill Griffin Stadium and being a Florida Gator fan any day!