Back in August, the 2025 LSU football season felt like it was finally going to mean something in the Brian Kelly era. The opener against Clemson — “Death Valley vs. Death Valley” — wasn’t just a game.
It was a statement, a chance to see two of the biggest brands in college football, two programs with national title ambitions, square off under the Saturday night lights.
LSU had a Heisman candidate at quarterback, a defense that looked reborn and a coach preaching a “1-0 mentality” that had become the program’s mantra.
For a while, it worked. The energy around campus, online and in the media was buzzing like it was 2019 all over again. The storylines wrote themselves: revenge, redemption, return to glory.
Tiger fans circled that Clemson matchup for months leading up to the game. It was a measuring stick, a springboard — the chance LSU had to prove the Tigers still belonged among the blue bloods of college football.
But now, some 10 weeks later, that win feels long-forgotten. LSU’s season, once a road to the playoffs, now looks like a dead-end road to nowhere.
That’s the cruel thing about expectations: they make the fall hurt more. A close loss to Ole Miss, a heartbreaking result at Vanderbilt and an absolute disaster at home versus Texas A&M.
What once could have been a path to greatness has now turned into a trail of casualties. The Tigers can’t play for a championship, so what’s left?
One thing: wreck somebody else’s season.
It’s hard to overstate it: beating Alabama doesn’t fix this season, but it changes the conversation. It always does. For LSU, it’s not just another rivalry; it’s a reset button.
Alabama’s in the middle of its own rebuild under new head coach Kalen DeBoer — still trying to prove life after Nick Saban isn’t a step down.
After last year’s loss in Tiger Stadium, when Alabama walked out of Baton Rouge grinning, and LSU walked off the field knowing it let one slip away. That memory still stings, and it’s fuel.
If not for the playoffs, then LSU can play to make sure someone else doesn’t either. The Tigers can still swing a hammer in the SEC — even if it’s not the one they wanted to wield back in August.
Theoretically, the Tigers have literally nothing to lose.
“We’re all in,” interim head coach Frank Wilson said.
But what does that mean?
The honest answer is this: the Tigers are all in on that dead-end road.
This train may not be going anywhere, but it can surely cause a lot of damage along the way.
When the sun finds its home in the western sky, the Tigers won’t be in Death Valley — they’ll be in the belly of the beast of the Crimson Tide.
That alone might be enough to fuel LSU to a stunning victory, but at this point, the 2025 LSU season isn’t about glory; it’s about grit. The Tigers can still define the ending, if not the outcome.
Take down a rival and upset someone’s dream, because while the season started with Clemson, it’s more likely to be remembered for what the Tigers do now — when everything else has fallen apart.
The Tigers take on the Crimson Tide at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday night in Bryant–Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
