There is a fine line between success and failure in both sports and life.
The fabric of this thin line is all too often made up of the small details everyone seems to overlook.
Minute details comprise the pillars of championship teams but also create the hairline fractures that topple dynasties.
Legendary coach John Wooden often said “little things make the big things happen,” and it was this attention to detail that propelled his UCLA basketball team to 10 NCAA championships.
At the arrival of football season, there’s always one “big thing” that’s on the minds of every LSU football fan.
They call that thing beating Alabama.
The Alabama game has become the make-or-break of every LSU football season, and unfortunately for the LSU faithful, their football seasons break more than the campus wifi.
The Crimson Tide have defeated the Tigers in eight of the past 10 games, and you can chalk one more in favor of Alabama if the Tigers focus on the results of their games rather than on the details of their performance.
Take LSU’s first two games for example.
In game one against BYU, the Tigers were penalized 10 times for 86 yards and missed a field goal. In game two against Chattanooga, LSU committed 11 penalties for 74 yards and missed two field goals.
Call me crazy, but I don’t usually like putting a car in reverse if I’m trying to go forward.
If you say I’m nitpicking a team that’s off to an impressive start after only two weeks of play, you’re exactly right.
But if you haven’t noticed yet, coach Nick Saban has built a football juggernaut at Alabama on the foundation of nitpicking and the pursuit of perfection.
It’s even been reported that Saban has 15-minute meetings with his coaching staff to discuss all the possible outcomes of the opening coin toss.
Think about that. This man puts more time into thinking about a binary heads or tails outcome than a high school girl trying to create a witty Instagram post.
Meanwhile in Baton Rouge, the small details seem to slip by the fan base.
Some Tiger fans will miss the mistakes made by the team because the offense is averaging 456 yards of total offense and has outscored its opponents 72-10.
Some fans will miss the mistakes because they leave the game at halftime to go bar hopping.
Whatever the case may be, small details are never a priority for fans until their teams start to lose games.
Then, it becomes armchair quarterback season.
The good news is the football program is being coached by professionals and not the fickle fan base.
Coach Ed Orgeron expressed his concern with the team’s mistakes, and there seems to be clear recognition that the sloppy play needs to be fixed urgently.
Although we’re only two weeks into the college football season, the trip to Starkville will usher in the beginning of conference play, and the competition only gets stronger from here.
If LSU’s coaching staff makes the mistake of placing more focus on the final scores rather than the small details, the Tigers will once again be a speed bump on the Crimson Tide’s drive to another national championship game appearance.
