Despite past, LSU on par with Bama
Growing up in the 1970s, there were three things I knew: my parents loved me, they gave me a last name virtually no one could pronounce, and Alabama would always beat LSU.
To me, the Crimson Tide was like the Soviet Union: monolithic, ominous, frightening. I once had a history textbook that contained a drawing of a wave of Communist soldiers marching menacingly across the globe. They probably marched under a hammer and sickle flag, but I could have sworn it was a script “A.”
New Year’s Day meant fireworks at midnight, black eyed peas and cabbage for lunch, and knowing it was the start of another year that would end in an LSU loss to Alabama.
The Tide would take its Wishbone offense every November and run the Tigers through with it. LSU could win its seven or eight or nine games, but it would never quite ascend to Alabama’s lofty championship high ground.
I never really thought Bear Bryant was God, but as one of his players said, I figured there was a good chance that’s what he looked like.
That’s why the Tigers’ 20-10 win over the Bear and Bama in 1982 remains one of the most vivid memories of my teenage years. We went to the Ryan Airport to watch the team’s charter land, standing on a police car that when everyone got off had four flat tires and a caved in roof, hood and trunk lid (I hope the statute of limitations has run out on that one).
That loss pushed Bryant into retirement, and soon into the grave. I guess he figured if he couldn’t beat LSU every year anymore, what was the point of going on? It was a seminal moment, a game that showed Alabama was human, not a bunch of engine blocks with arms and legs attached.
Since then LSU has had some losing seasons, but a lot of winning ones. And it has played Alabama toe-to-toe. Since 1982, LSU leads the series with Bama 15-14-1, but is 9-3 against the Crimson Tide since 2000.
The first national championship I ever covered was Alabama’s win over Miami in the 1993 Sugar Bowl. LSU went 2-9 that season. That’s why when 11 years later I watched the Tigers bounce out onto that same turf to battle Oklahoma for the national title, it seemed surreal.
Next Monday, the Tigers and Tide will lock up with another national title at stake, fighting for a crystal football prize so beautiful Indiana Jones would have tried to steal it.
My brain patterns tell me Alabama should win. It’s the natural order.
It’s the way things have always been and always will be.
But recent history reminds me that things change.
Alabama isn’t a monolith, it’s a team, a team that LSU measures up with very well.
In other words, it’s not the LSU-Bama rivalry I grew up with. It’s a real rivalry, a game of equals.
The sun hasn’t set on Alabama’s empire. It now simply has to share the spotlight.