By: Kipp Branch

TheSouthernSportsEdition.com news services

My oldest daughter Alexia and one of her closest friends embarked last Thursday night on her first SEC road trip to Oxford, Mississippi. My daughter is an avid Ole Miss fan and her daddy is a lunatic Georgia fan. Back to that shortly. October is upon us and now the SEC landscape is starting to come into focus.

There is nothing better to a football fanatic than an SEC road trip with friends. It is like waking up on Christmas morning and running into the living room and seeing what Santa left under the Christmas tree.

My best SEC road trip ever was a trip I took with Scott Spence, Jamie Rowe, and Chris Zachry to Baton Rouge, Louisiana to watch UGA/LSU in 2003. I kissed my wife and girls and walked out of the door with $600 in my pocket at 10AM on a Thursday morning got in the back seat of Zachry’s truck and positioned a cooler full of beer between me and Spence and we departed for Baton Rouge and once we hit I-10 in Florida I remember stopping at just about every rest area in Florida for a bathroom break. Imagine that?

We pulled up in the Casino Grand in Biloxi that evening changed shirts in the parking lot. Walked in and Chris who we called big money at the time walked in and slapped $1500 on black and won and ended up winning about $3000 in about 15 minutes.

He turned to us all and said everything is on me until the 3K is gone. Well we played cards all night Thursday in Biloxi, went to Bourbon Street in New Orleans on Friday and loaded up and went to Red Stick on Saturday with absolutely no sleep and watched UGA lose 17-10. We bought disposable cameras to document everything on Bourbon Street, and I returned home on Sunday night with $515 still in my pocket after having the SEC road trip of my life.

My daughter had a great time in Oxford and let her daddy know via text message how much she enjoyed Ole Miss blowing out UGA last weekend about every 5-10 minutes until dad stopped responding as dad despite the score had the most relaxing, enjoyable, and fun Saturday he has had in years. A 43-0 Brunswick High win last Friday had a tiny bit to do with. Just a tiny bit…

SEC Stock Report going into October:

Alabama: Buy it all. The Tide is everything we thought they would be and more.

Texas A&M: Buy it. The Aggies have a defense. Look out SEC West

Tennessee: Buy it. The Vols are the class of the East

Ole Miss: Buy it. Ole Miss may not lose another game this year.

Arkansas: Hold on to it. We just don’t know yet about the Hogs.

Florida: Hold on to it for now. Reality check last week in Knoxville.

Georgia: Hold on to it for one more week. If UGA struggles at home with Tennessee time to dump it in 2016.

Auburn: Hold it for now. You never know with these tigers.

LSU: Dump it fast. Les gets axed before October. Dumpster fire in Red Stick folks.

Kentucky: Dump it now. Midnight Madness starts this weekend in Kentucky. Buy it all come March though.

Missouri: Dump it.

South Carolina: Dump it.

Mississippi State: This stock is worthless. Set a match to it.

Vanderbilt: This stock never has much value during football season.

I encourage everyone to make an SEC Road Trip at some point in their life. On last thought on the 2003 Baton Rouge trip.

We made a team decision to toss the disposable cameras in a dumpster behind a Burger King in Mississippi on our trek back home. Insert your favorite Las Vegas tag line here.