Are you just like all the other pessimists in Louisiana? Are you waiting for that moment when all the hype surrounding this LSU football team deflates in a horrid defeat? Do you think it is inevitable that the Tigers will choke just when they have a shot at the national title?
I can’t say I’m with you on that, but it seems to be a resounding theme among Tigers fans these days, especially those from New Orleans.
For most present-day college students who grew up as football fans in Louisiana, losing the “big one” is ingrained in our culture.
Think about it. When most of us were coming of age, the LSU football team took a nose dive from the national scene (thanks to Mike Archer, Curley Hallman and Gerry DiNardo) and the Saints … well, let’s not go there.
This generation of Louisianians have become accustomed to losing a big lead late in the fourth quarter and taking a plunge during the last four games of each season.
Not many of us can remember the early to mid ’80s when LSU was a perennial top 15 team. And not one of us (well maybe a few of us, after all this is LSU) remembers the many SEC championship teams of the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s.
But for the past 15 years, we don’t know what success tastes like with regards to football. Just when it seemed LSU would rise to the forefront on the national scene, it would lose a game to a team it was supposed to beat. Remember the 1997 loss to Ole Miss the week after the Florida win?
Even now as I’m writing this column, people in The Reveille newsroom are debating on when the Tigers will fold like a lawn chair.
What would give them any reason to think otherwise?
If you are still a Saints fan after all of their crazy, dismal history, you must be on some type of medication, like me, and you have to be well prepared for a potential LSU belly flop. It is deep-seating in our culture.
While most states place a heavy emphasis on education and business, Louisiana prides itself with placing the utmost importance on music, food and alcohol.
Hell, our slogan for tailgating at LSU is, “Win or lose we still booze!” “Let the good times roll!” “Bring Back the Magic,” err … never mind.
But I must say, something is different about this LSU football team. For every skeptic who relays to me his prophecy of the Tigers’ downfall, there are 20 who feel the Tigers will run the table. Most of that is biased opinions, but they have some evidence on their side.
All eyes, hands and beer cans point to the man in charge, Nick Saban.
Saban has brought an intellect to this usually emotionally-stimulated LSU football program.
Long gone are the days of the team that drowns itself in sorrow after getting down early in a big game. If this team’s foundation were emotion, the Tigers never could have overcome that early interception return for a touchdown in front of that hostile crowd in Oxford on Saturday. But as we saw all throughout the ’90s, if we were down in the first quarter, we were not coming back.
Remember these conversations? “Who do you think will win today?” “I don’t know, it depends on which LSU team shows up.”
Saban has brought with him a consistency which hasn’t been seen around Tigerland since the early ’70s, way before my time. During the past two seasons, it has come down to the Tigers’ last regular season game to have the rights to go to Atlanta for the SEC Championship game, and this year is no different.
The Tigers are 10-1 and in the national spotlight. They have a chance – however slim that may be – to play for the national championship. They have the talent. They have the coaching. But do they have what it takes to finally get over the proverbial hump of the south Louisiana football saga?