The LSU secondary appears under the tunnel, surrounding the coaching staff in a circle as the players begin to sway back and forth. Their voices get louder and louder until they’re chanting at the top of their lungs.
They punctuate the chant with a resounding “Boom!”
before they break the huddle and rush onto the field, beginning pregame warmups to the roar of the crowd.
It’s the chant the LSU secondary shouts before every game, and it’s a tradition for the unit that started in 2011, when the Tigers went to the BCS National Championship Game.
“It was something that was here before I got here,” said
junior safety Jalen Mills. “They actually said they made it the national championship year. It’s just a tradition that we have with the captains of the secondary talking to everybody else, just kind of getting you ready.”
The LSU football team’s secondary has been known throughout the years for their lockdown play and numerous All-Americans, which earned the school the title “Defensive Back University.”
So far in 2014, the Tigers have held opponents to a total of 283 passing yards over three games, with opponents averaging a mere 94.3 yards per game.
While DBU is one of the team’s most prized monikers, there’s more that comes with the name than just extraordinary secondary play. Mills said it left behind a tradition of both unity and excellence, which is brought to light by the chant the unit yells out each week.
“It’s just trying to get you to over-excel,” Mills said. “To just really have your mind like, ‘Nobody is going to catch the ball on me.’ And I mean, if something does happen, we’re a unit. That’s why we make that circle. Everybody in that circle, we play for us and we play for the team.”
Mills said he believes the chant was started by former LSU defensive backs Tyrann
Mathieu and Brandon Taylor. Ever since Mills was a recruit in high school, he has been attracted to the loud and exuberant chant.
“I always saw it coming to the games and stuff. I was like, ‘Man, what are they saying in there?’” Mills said. “So when I first got in it, I was like, ‘Oh, OK, this is what I’ve been missing,’ and now I’m just happy to be a part of this.”
The chant is so important to the defensive backs and their rich tradition that they keep the words a secret among themselves, unwilling to share what is said in that huddle to anyone outside of the group out of respect for the DBU tradition.
“I can’t tell you what the chant is,” said sophomore cornerback Tre’Davious White. “It’s a team thing, so we try to keep that in house.”
While both Mills and White won’t share the contents of the chant, they both agree it hypes them up every time they step on the field.
“It gets me fired up every time,” Mills said. “There has not been a time that I don’t do it, or I was in it, that it didn’t get me fired up.”