You could make the case that Nick Saban is the most successful coach in LSU history.
During his time with the program, the now-legendary head coach won two SEC championships, one national title and kicked off the golden age of LSU football, an era that has seen multiple head coaches add SEC and national championships to their resumes and currently has a first-year head coach in position to do the same.
However, what if I told you that it all began with a demoralizing loss to a program that was only in its ninth year of existence?
That’s right, LSU lost to UAB on Sept. 23, 2000, a team that had only started playing football in 1991. It was unforgivable then, but if that happened today the reaction would be vastly different.
The end of the 20th century was not kind to the Tiger faithful. In terms of decade win totals, the 1990s were the program’s worst since the 1920s and to make matters worse, they had also provided fans with hope heading into the 1998 season, a season that did not live up to expectations to say the least.
After finishing 1996 and 1997 with a combined win total of 19, an LSU team that had retained much of its offensive core and defensive starters came into the 1998 season ranked No. 9 in the country, its highest preseason ranking since 1989.
Ironically, those seasons were identically disappointing. After starting 1998 with a 3-0 record and climbing to No. 6 in the AP Top-25, the Tigers would drop a close one to No. 12 Georgia before losing six of its next seven to finish the season 4-7.
Of those seven losses, five were decided by one score, demoralizing fans but at least keeping them invested in the action. An offense that featured a star running back in Kevin Faulk and a decent quarterback in Herb Tyler almost cracked the top-25 in points per game, and their defense wasn’t horrible, though it did give up over 35 points in four contests.
That season even featured a 41-6 blowout of No. 24 Mississippi State, a near-perfect game that had fans hopeful it had regained its footing, temporarily reattaining a winning record at 4-3 before dropping the next four.
Though that season was gut wrenching, it at least had something going for it. The next would be where the Tigers hit rock bottom, not attributing nearly as many positives as the one that preceded it. The few positives it scraped out of Head Coach Gerry DiNardo had pieced together as if late for a dinner party were a few near-upsets on their way to an eight-game losing streak.
Starting Quarterback Josh Booty, who replaced three-year starter Herb Tyler, was horrific, flipping Tyler’s 1998 touchdown-to-interception ratio of 18-7 and adding an interception, completing less than 50% of his passes and manning the helm for one of the worst offenses in college football that season. This time the offense was the clear weak point, as the defense managed to give up a modest 23.5 points per game, good enough to land them inside the top-50 in the category.
After LSU’s last loss of the season to Houston, where the Tigers contributed seven points and five turnovers, DiNardo was fired, and the program was left in a dark place. Even as its eventual savior entered the ring, fans wondered if the despair that had piled up in the 80s and 90s would ever end.
Enter 2000, the start of the 21st century and the continuation of the rise of Saban. After winning warm-up games against Western Carolina and Houston to start the season, Saban would drop the first SEC game of his career by three scores, which was an improvement considering their last matchup against the eventual SEC West champions was a 41-7 blowout.
It had a perceived get-right game against UAB, but little did it know the Blazers at that point were more than that, despite it being just their fifth season in the FBS.
Their first matchup with a Power Five opponent came against Kansas in 1994, who blew out the Blazers 72-0. Just four seasons later, they lost to Jayhawks by just two points, displaying considerable improvements with each new team that took the field.
After spending its first few seasons as an Independent, UAB logged its first season as a member of Conference USA in 1999. Though it didn’t improve much compared to its previous records from a win-loss standpoint that season, its first FBS conference record was a winning one and it carried out its first ranked win in its short history over No. 18 East Carolina.
It also pulled off a three-score win over Houston, the same team that beat LSU later that season. Though they didn’t know it at the time, the Blazer squad that would take the field in 2000 would be the best of its first era (1991-2013).
In what was supposed to be a joyous homecoming game for Tiger fans, one that saw the team bounce back from its prior loss, they instead witnessed a disaster. A game that was the pure definition of a slug fest, with neither team having much success on offense while the defenses did everything they could to keep that from costing them.
If you watched the most recent game against Arkansas, that’s a prime comparison. Those games even ended in the exact same score.
UAB amassed a meager 178 offensive yards by the time the clock hit zero, which was trumped by LSU’s 263. The only problem was that the Tigers couldn’t hold onto the ball. LSU fumbled a total of five times, with two of those being recovered by the opposition. Josh Booty would add four interceptions, with two of those being particularly costly.
After tying the game with a field goal early in the fourth quarter, the Tigers somehow had a chance to finish this ugly game off without it blemishing their record. Instead, it opted to completely throw the game away like an irresponsible citizen throwing away a piece of litter.
Booty would throw his third interception of the night, which landed the Blazers on the LSU 48-yard line with just over two minutes left to play. But the Tiger defense held firm, forcing a punt with just 33 seconds to play.
Despite receiving the ball deep in its own territory with the offense struggling to do much of anything throughout the entire game, the coaching staff opted to try to win it in regulation, calling a pass play on first down. That would go about as well as you would expect, as Booty managed to connect with another UAB defender, who returned it to the LSU 17-yard line with 25 seconds remaining.
The Blazers would set themselves up for an easy, 32-yard field goal, making it as time expired and sealing this game as a moment in history. A moment LSU fans have mostly forgotten about due to the success that followed.
UAB would finish the season 7-4, its highest win total in its history at the time, but it would struggle in the years that followed. The team appeared in just one bowl game before the program was temporarily shut down in 2015, and that didn’t even come in 2000.
On the other hand, Saban wouldn’t let his newly acquired fan base hate him for long, as the Tigers looked completely transformed just a week later, securing an improbable upset over No. 11 Tennessee before winning five of the next seven to finish 8-4 on the season. They concluded it with a convincing 28-14 victory over No. 15 Georgia Tech in the Peach Bowl before becoming one of the most successful football programs of the 21st century.
When you hit rock bottom, the only way to go is up. The LSU football team has encompassed that mindset on multiple occasions, none more rewarding than the time a first-year head coach lost to a program less than a decade old. None yet at least.
Grant Chachere contributed to this article
