LSU needs win to keep this a rivalry

Published 10:22 am Thursday, November 5, 2015

Well, what do you know? Here we are at the start of November, and once again LSU-Alabama looms as the game of the year.

Imagine that.

Maybe not the Game of the Century. Not sure it qualifies for capital letters this time since Alabama has a loss coming in.

Also, unlike the deliciously overhyped 2011 game, there are other teams beyond the SEC’s borders still attracting legitimate interest.

But, for the SEC-centrists, this is about as good as it gets for pregame build-up and anticipation.

Like every year, it seems, it comes down to LSU-Alabama.

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So why not declare it an official heated, hated rivalry?

As we’ve noted over the years, LSU is wide open for a top rival.

The 20-year experiment with Arkansas produced a lot of thrills and chills, certainly enough exciting, close games and upsets for a bona fide rivalry.

But it never really got much traction, least ways that fan bases could obsess over one another 24/7, 12 months a year. 

I always blamed The Boot, perhaps the silliest rivalry trophy ever conjured up (by Arkansas, not LSU, you’ll be relieved to know). Besides, there’s something about Arkansas that’s just hard to hate even on a part-time basis.

Texas A&M has been appointed “next up” among available suitors for LSU, and the Aggies are conveniently single and also in the market, having gleefully parted ways with the nearby Longhorns. 

We shall see. It’s early in that particular hate-ship yet.

Alabama?

The Tennessee-Alabama rivalry, the protection thereof at least, is the reason the SEC keeps permanent cross-division opponents. It is also the reason it took the world’s most powerful NASA-style computers whirring nonstop for two giga-years to come up with a semi-workable schedule rotation for the league.

No one outside either state is quite sure why and, at any rate, Bama-Tennessee seems to have been losing some of its luster for years, really ever since the SEC split into divisions (1992 season).

And, of course, Alabama will always hate Auburn most and foremost. But that’s a rivalry and hatred so off the charts it almost begs for the Tide to have a scheduling Plan B, a backup rival. Maybe invent a new word that goes beyond rivalry for Auburn.

There are, in fact, a lot of viable options for both LSU and Alabama on this front.

Every SEC game among teams with winning records seems to cry out for a “showdown” label.

But, with apologies to Tennessee and its famed Third Saturday in October, the SEC season always seems to keep coming back to the First Saturday in November.

And LSU-Alabama.

Yeah, it’s big again — this is the seventh time in 11 years that both teams are in the top 10 for the affair, the fifth of the last six meetings.

“This has turned out to be a great rivalry,” said Alabama coach Nick Saban, who, as you may be aware, once coached at LSU. “I think it’s a great rivalry because of the quality of the programs.”

Bama complains that every team seems to schedule an open date the week before playing the Tide. LSU is no different.

It’s worth noting, though, that Alabama always saves its open date for the week before the LSU game.

That’s the surest tip-off that teams are thinking about each other and planning in advance.

So why not just go ahead and declare it a Big Rivalry? How does that work, anyway? Is there paperwork that needs to be filed with the NCAA? Is there a waiting period? Does ESPN have to approve it? Surely, Nike has some say so.

It’s been a good one, always capable of moving the national needle.

More than that, you know you’ll see good, hard, honest football.

There’s not much threat of a Saints-Giants, Big 12-style Ping Pong match breaking out.

The scoreboard won’t be littered with Monopoly money.

It keeps producing great games. 

It’s also, save one Honey Badger-related incident in the 2011 classic, been cleanly played.

The fans may hate each other. But the teams, the coaches and players, seem to have a real and healthy respect for each other.

Bama fans even seem to think more of Les Miles than many LSU fans. They don’t really trust him; they consider him a threat to St. Nick, which is the highest compliment they can pay.

There’s only one problem.

At some point, Miles and LSU need to win another one. The Tigers have lost four straight to AlaSaban. 

With the notable exception of the Rematch (Dud) of the Century for the 2011 BCS national championship, the other three have been consecutive great games.

LSU led two of them (2012, 2014) inside the final minute. Even the heavily favored Tide’s 38-17 win in 2013 was a little misleading. By their standards, it was a relative shootout, back and forth, for three full quarters.

So, unlike some teams, LSU knows it can play with the Tide straight up. LSU has done that even some years when it wasn’t supposed to.

That’s not the question. Yeah, the finishes need some work.

But forget the style points, the whys, the wherefores or the woulda-coulda-shouldas.

Mainly, LSU and Miles just need to find a way to win this game again.

Then the Tigers can file the proper paperwork.