I fly like paper, get high like planes
If you catch me at the border I got visas in my name
If you come around here, I make ’em all day
I get one down in a second if you wait
Sometimes I think sitting on trains
Every stop I get to I’m clocking that game
Everyone’s a winner, we’re making our fame
Bonafide hustler making my name
Pirate skulls and bones
Sticks and stones and weed and bongs
Running when we hit ’em
Lethal poison through their system
No one on the corner has swagger like us
Hit me on my Burner prepaid wireless
We pack and deliver like UPS trucks
Already going hell just pumping that gas
Four months ago, when somebody borrowed a lyric from M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” to advertise their season-opening house party at Vanderbilt, the idea that the Commodores had anything to offer this season seemed laughable at best. The stars were poorly aligned in conference – Ole Miss and Georgia on the road, a brutal Mississippi State defense (Sly Croom coming off coach of the year), Auburn coming to town, and Kentucky not really suggesting pushover. In the non-conference, at Wake Forest looked tough. Nobody looked at the schedule and saw more than three or four wins.
Nobody saw 5-0.
And then, it just all went to hell, so badly and so inexplicably – slipping away against MSU, falling apart against Duke – and you wonder if you’re really going to piss away the best start since World War II. And then one more win, there’s Big Six, and then two more losses, and suddenly you’re sweating out even getting a bowl bid before trying to make the best of playing in your hometown. And it turns out that playing at home is the best thing you could have hoped for, because your home fans are there for you in force.
They finally did again what they’d done in the first place: perfect football. No turnovers. No penalties. Nothing to beat yourself. When you can play like that, you can play anybody tough even if you can’t deliver a single offensive touchdown. And you can usually turn out just enough to win, beat your third ranked opponent of the season, beat your fifth bowl team of the season, deliver a winning record for the first time since 1982.
They don’t call it a hard six for nothing…but you’d much rather just throw the seven.