LSU doesn’t seem close to breaking ‘Bama’s hold on Tigers
Published 12:01 am Tuesday, November 6, 2018
Scooter Hobbs
BATON ROUGE — Another of Tiger Stadium’s great parties has been spoiled by the football game that was supposed to be the centerpiece.
Too bad they couldn’t all just go home after playing “Calling Baton Rouge” and call it a wrap and rollicking good time.
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More than one national writer approached me Saturday to proclaim it the most amazing stadium spectacle he’d ever born witness to.
But they do still tend to end these affairs with football games.
So let’s eavesdrop on head coach Ed Orgeron’s post mort en to the party-crashers, his press conference in the immediate aftershock of Alabama 29, LSU big fat zero. Feel free to overanalyze or read between the lines.
“I do believe we have a good football team.”
No question about it. No argument there. Especially in light of being picked to finish fifth in the SEC West. And that win over Georgia looks better every week.
“Not a great football team. I’ve always said that.”
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Probably not. But a week ago a cabal of college football’s most learned minds put their heads together, discussed it thoroughly, and proclaimed the Tigers to be the No. 3 team in all the land. Nobody hooted or threw tomatoes at them, either.
“We’re nowhere near Alabama, obviously.”
Well, there you go. We’re getting somewhere now, right? That’s really what this is all about, isn’t it? That’s the crux of matter.
Alabama. Again.
Eight straight years now — pain, suffering and frustration — the last three on Orgeron’s watch despite great hopes going in.
The Crimson Tide has become his Moby Dick, he a Cajun Ahab doggedly flailing at — what? — wind mills? He’s obsessed with it. There must be some way to crack the code.
Here’s the only optimism I can give you.
After Saban wins his seventh national championship at the end of the season, whatever lingering debate there is will be over — even Bear Bryant will pale next to Saban’s empire as the greatest ever in college football history.
In just two years, Saban will be 69, the same age that Bryant was when he retired.
Bryant looked like he was 90 at the time while Saban could still pass for 40 in some circles. But the calendar doesn’t lie.
Oddly enough, it was immediately after a 1982 loss to LSU when Bryant start grumbling aloud that maybe it was time to hang it up.
Still, it doesn’t appear that Saban or The Process is going anywhere in the next decade or so.
So after Saturday’s reality check, it’s back to the drawing board again.
“We’ve got to recruit better defensive linemen. I got to get defensive linemen like them. I’ve got to recruit better offensive linemen. Same old thing —you’ve got to beat Alabama on the line of scrimmage.”
Wait a minute. Wasn’t it just a year ago that LSU had supposedly checked that box?
The Tigers got beat 24-10 in Tuscaloosa, but it almost looked like a fair fight in the trenches. And at least they scored. Orgeron was almost giddy about it — “We’re coming.”
And blaming it on the big guys may be oversimplifying it anyway.
Where, exactly, did LSU match up with the Tide Saturday night?
Quarterback? Puh-leazzzse.
Certainly not wide receiver, not with those gazelles running around.
Running back? Not this year, a rarity for the Tigers, but true this time out.
Maybe Saban wouldn’t mind trading secondaries.
But good luck and God speed in trying to out-recruit him.
Perhaps LSU is TOO obsessed with Alabama.
One thing you notice in the Saban Era.
When SEC teams beat Alabama, it’s usually by accident, and best not overanalyzed.
You just have to quit beating your head against the wall and let it happen.
Ole Miss had a knack for it a few years ago. There was never any reasonable explanation.
Auburn’s Jordan-Hare Stadium seems to hold some kind of hex over the Tide, with strange and unexplainable things happening. Hint: Good things tend to happen if you can just trick the Tide into kicking.
No good for LSU. Alabama treats Tiger Stadium with no more awe than a college frat ransacking a condo in Gulf Shores.
Fighting fire with fire doesn’t seem to hold much hope.
But many years ago, in a far simpler age, a group of college students were faced with similar doom and gloom about their situation.
Remember?
“Dead! Bluto’s right. Psychotic, but absolutely right. We gotta take these guys. Now we could do it with conventional weapons that could take years and cost millions of lives. No, I think we have to go all out. I think that this situation absolutely requires a really futile and stupid gesture be done on somebody’s part.”
The Animal House gang’s solution was to sabotage and obliterate the Homecoming parade.
Not sure the Tigers need to go that far. LSU seems to have college football’s party angle down pat. If the time ever comes to celebrate a victory over Alabama, they’ll know what to do.
But Bluto and Otter and those misfits were at least thinking outside the box.
Traditional tactics were failing miserably.
It may take a similar mind set if Orgeron and LSU is ever to break the Bama Blues.
And that quarterback won’t be at Alabama forever.
Gerald Herbert
