September is going to be a great month to kick off the 2012 season for collegiate football. Fans looking to get their hands on LSU Tigers tickets have a wide variety of options too. After opening on the first of September with the North Texas Mean Green right in Tiger Stadium, the Tigers will face heated rival the Auburn Tigers on September 22, 2012. This should be a heated grudge match between the two as it always is from year to year. One thing that will be exciting to see is how many new talented youths that LSU can sign. Surely, when LSU signs over some great new athletes, fans will be crawling up and down just to get their hands on LSU tigers tickets. One big recruit that has the potential to help the tigers is Mario Edwards. Only time will tell if he will decide to trace the same path as his father or go along in a new direction.
Louisiana State University cultivates many active rivalries, keeping their season fresh and exciting every step of the way. LSU has a very long tradition of athletic excellence so they’ve have plenty of time to acquire these rivalries. The oldest is against Tulane University’s Green Wave.
The teams first met in 1893 and for half a century there was no more hated team by the players or fans than Tulane. The trophy for the annual contest is a satin flag, called the Tiger Rag by LSU and the Victory Flag by Tulane. The flag represents both schools and the reason for their rivalry with the logos for each school divided diagonally and the Louisiana state seal in the center. Many rivalries are born from schools being geographically near each other and LSU and Tulane have this and time on their side. LSU’s home in Baton Rouge is only 80 miles away from Tulane’s home city, New Orleans. The cities represent a rivalry as much as the school, one being the center of government and the other of culture.
The competitive series was played on a regular schedule from 1919 to 1994. Especially in the early years tensions rose to dangerous levels. There was a riot in 1938 after a Tulane victory. The rag trophy was incorporated in 1940 to encourage more a more sportsmanlike approach to the rivalry. It apparently worked because there were no further riots. It was highly competitive series up to 1949; LSU led narrowly with a 23-18-5 record. After that the rivalry lost energy as LSU clearly dominated with 45-4-2 until the series ended in 1994. The original rag trophy was lost in a fire in 1982 and the two schools worked to recreate it based on photographs in 2001. The annual series was briefly rekindled from 2006 to 2009, but is currently dormant.
Both Tigers have plenty of other rivalries to keep them busy, most of those dating back to the early 1900’s or before, but since 1988 tension between Auburn and LSU has been growing into a fiercely competitive rivalry. Both teams are dominant in the SEC and LSU has been winning more and more of the contests between the two schools since the early days when Auburn was clearly dominant.
One of the most infamous match-ups between LSU and Auburn was the Earthquake Game of 1988. Auburn brought its #4 team to Tiger Stadium expecting their powerhouse offense to march right over the Bayou Bengals. Neither team intended to give ground easily that night and both were held scoreless until the last two minutes of the game when a fourth and goal touchdown, the same play that had failed to score on third down just before, brought the underdog LSU out on top and brought the fans to their feet in such a violent explosion of enthusiasm that a seismograph on LSU’s campus, about 1,000 feet away from the stadium, registered an earthquake.
In 1995 the Bengal Tigers put on their white uniforms for a home game for the first time in 15 years when they invited #5 Auburn into Death Valley. This became a point of controversy between the two teams because of a play when Auburn quarterback Patrick Nix stopped action when he heard a whistle from the stands, thinking it was the end of the play. He was sacked for a safety and when a pass from Nix was intercepted in the end zone on the last play of the game meaning the end of the Auburn’s run to the SEC Championship. The series has grown increasingly competitive over the years with LSU just barely ahead at 24-20-1. Both teams continue to be serious players in the SEC and coming years could see anything happen.
The Tigers have enjoyed a relatively injury free season so far. Unfortunately the only player currently out of action is T-Bob Hebert, an offensive cornerstone for LSU. Luckily his injury doesn’t seem to be serious. He left in the third quarter of the West Virginia game and did not return to play. The report is that he is having some leg problems and is pretty beaten up overall. Fans and teammates hope he’ll be healed up and back in action soon as the offensive line has come to rely pretty heavily on T-Bob’s versatility and reliability in the middle of the action.
Hebert is a football legacy, his father, Bobby, was quarterback for the New Orleans Saints and Atlanta Falcons. At 6’3” and 304 pounds, Hebert is a force to be reckoned with on the line. In high school he played both sides of the ball, boasting a 91% blocking average as a junior and, in 2005, managing 28 tackles and 5 sacks as nose guard. He was red shirted his first year at LSU. His next year he saw some action, playing in six games but starting none. He returned a kickoff for 13 yards against Auburn and saw some action as a backup guard, either side, center, and fullback for short runs. His season was cut short by a knee injury which he recovered from by the next season.
In his sophomore season, Hebert became much more critical to LSU’s offense. He played as starting center in 11 games and played every snap for the first 7 games. A minor ankle injury slowed him down for two games, but he came out of the season with 42 knockdown blocks and 606 snaps under his belt. The next year he was moved primarily to the right guard position, though he remained backup center. He played all 13 games, starting at right guard for the last half of the regular season, and produced a team-high of 76 knockdowns. Even greater results can be expected this year.
Tiger Stadium is a landmark in Baton Rouge and one of the most fearsome venues in college football. It is the eight largest on-campus stadium in the country with a staggering capacity of over 92,000. On game nights Tiger Stadium is the fifth largest city in Louisiana, every citizen a rabid football fan ready to watch the Tigers defend their home turf. At the beginning of the 2011 season the Tigers have won 44 of their last 49 home games including a streak of 19 from 2005 to 2007 and remains a school record. Since the 2000 season, LSU has gone 67-11 at home including perfect home records in 2004, 2006, and 2010. Polls show Tiger Stadium to be one of the most feared venues in college sports. Its fans, its record, and its team intimidate any and all who step into “Death Valley”.
Last season marked the sixth straight year that home games averaged over 92,000 spectators, nearly filling the 92,542. During the 2010 season Tiger Stadium actually averaged 92,718 spectators per game, an all time high and well above the technical seating capacity of the facility. The 2008 season saw the highest total attendance ever with 739,065 fans attending the 8 home games. In 2008 and 2009 the stadium hosted over 93,000 fans at individual games, against Alabama in 2008 and Florida in 2009. Since the NCAA started keeping attendance records in 1957, LSU has averaged over 75,000 spectators per game in 341 contests at Death Valley. It is truly a center of football culture in Louisiana. When Hurricane Katrina swept through New Orleans, Tiger Stadium became the temporary home to Tulane and the New Orleans Saints, hosting the Tulane-Southeastern Louisiana game as well as four Saints games.
Part of the legacy of Tiger Stadium is night games. Since 1931 the Tigers have played the majority of their home games at night and they have proven to be more successful under stadium lights than daylight. LSU’s home record is 219-60-4 at night and 21-26-3 during the day since 1960.
Regardless of a particular sport’s rules, it is generally understood that a team wears its dark jersey at home and its light jersey when away. LSU is one of the few colleges to defy that tradition. For most of NCAA football’s history, there has been no rule regarding which uniform is worn when. It was handled as it is in the NFL with it being the home team’s option. In 1958 Coach Paul Dietzel decided LSU would wear white at home and it quickly became both tradition and a good luck charm as Dietzel led the Tigers to their first National Championship that year.
In 1983 the NCAA passed a rule requiring home teams to wear their darker color. Even though LSU won SEC Championships in 1986 and 1988, fans and players alike considered the purple jerseys to be bad luck at home. Coach Curley Hallman tried to convince to the NCAA to let them go back to white in 1993, but failed. It wasn’t until 1995 when Gerry DiNardo personally lobbied with every individual member of the NCAA Football Rules Committee that LSU was again allowed their traditional choice of uniform. The very fist game in which they wore white at home, the then unranked LSU Tigers upset Auburn in what became known as the “Whistle Game” due to a controversy with whistling in the crowd causing LSU to secure a safety against Auburn, giving them lead required to win.
The rule came with an exception, the opposing team had to agree to allow the white jerseys in non-conference games. The first time an opposing team forced LSU to wear purple, the Tigers won 35-0. The second time they lost 22-10. If anything it seems the superstition is just that. Coach Nick Saban changed the tradition, only allowing the Tigers to wear white for the season opener and against SEC opponents. The current coach, Les Miles, has continued this tradition despite the NCAA relaxing its rule in 2009 so the only requirement is that teams wear contrasting colors.
All sports teams have their superstitions and all fans have their favorite traditions. LSU is no exception and their traditions, wacky and serious alike, are followed by one and all Tiger fans. Tailgating is common to all live sporting events, but not all are made up of 90,000 fanatic fans shouting cheers and chants at each other in Louisiana’s second biggest party after Mardi Gras. Opposing fans, “Tiger Bait”, are taunted and goaded and plenty of fights break out, but those who bear the abuse with a good nature find themselves welcomed with the Southern hospitality and get to enjoy food, drink, and football loving company despite affiliation.
A popular game amongst LSU fans is poking fun at the Creole dialect that calls Louisiana home. “Geaux Tigers” and “Geaux to Hell, Ole Miss. Geaux to Hell” are common uses as well as playing with the names of coaches like making Gerry DiNardo’s last name “Dinardeaux” and Nick Saban’s into “C’est bon”. There are many cheers in the LSU fans’ playbook including the “Geaux Tigers” cheer which is used for first downs and distinct cheers for second and third down as well. There is of course “Tiger Bait” which is yelled at anyone wearing opposing colors. A general cheer that reflects Louisiana culture is “Hot boudin, cold coush-coush, come on Tigers, push push push.” The LSU band has a special tune called Chinese Bandits for whenever the Tigers defense reclaims a ball, this commemorates the nickname Coach Paul Dietzel gave to the defense of the first National Championship winning LSU team.
The field itself has some unique characteristics. The Tigers have H-shaped uprights as opposed to the more common Y-shape so the team can run through the goal posts at the north end of the field when they first enter. They also have the yard line numbers that are multiples of 5 on the field, as well as the 10’s.
LSU has had a long history and an equally long tradition of bringing their best to the football field. There have been many legendary events that help define the LSU legacy as one of achievement and victory, even in the face of overwhelming odds.
In the 1959 LSU was playing Ole Miss, one of their long-time rivals. Late in the game LSU trailed 0-3 when LSU legend Billy Cannon received a punt. He pushed 89 yards down the field, breaking 7 tackles to score the only touchdown of the game and securing an LSU victory. In 1966 during the Cotton Bowl Classic LSU, unranked, beat #2 Arkansas to break the Razorbacks’ 22 game winning streak. Another Ole Miss incident, further fueling the rivalry, happened in 1972. An unranked Ole Miss had very nearly upset the #6 Tigers on LSU ground when LSU managed to push through two offensive plays to score in the last 4 seconds of play time. Ole Miss has ever since contested that LSU’s clock gave the Tigers an extra play. LSU’s tradition of breaking hearts in grand fashion continued in 1982 when the Tigers defense delivered the most thorough shutdown in Alabama history during Bear Bryant’s last game against LSU. The Tigers held Alabama to just 80 yards of offense and Bear called it “an old-fashioned butt whipping”.
Tigers fans showed their spirit in 1988 when unranked LSU upset #4 Auburn, a new rival at the time, in the last two minutes of the game. A seismograph in the Howe-Russell Geoscience Complex registered the crowd’s reaction as an earthquake. The earth shook again in 1997 when #14 LSU, after losing their 9 previous contests against Florida, upset the #1 Gators in the Tigers stadium. This was the first time LSU had beat a #1 ranked team and it earned them the cover of Sports Illustrated. The upsets continued in 2001 when #21 LSU beat #2 Tennessee to earn the Tigers first visit to the Sugar Bowl in 15 years. A year later the #16 Tigers were very nearly upset by an unranked Kentucky, but a 75-yard Hail Mary with no time left on the clock found the hands of Devery Henderson after slipping away from Michael Clayton and Henderson managed to break a tackle to score the winning touchdown. Kentucky fans had already rushed the field and torn down a goal post, one of most exciting and most confusing comebacks in college sports history.
With LSU’s Quarterback Jordan Jefferson stating that he is ready to come back after a recent arrest he says his goal remains to be LSU’s starting quarterback and that he has learned a lot from his recent arrest and four-game suspension that stemmed from an August bar fight. He was permitted by LSU to speak to reporters Monday night for the first time since the August. 19 fights Jefferson was reinstated last Wednesday after his sentence was reduced the felony second-degree battery charge was reduced to a misdemeanor. He then played in last Saturday’s home game against Kentucky, scoring a touchdown on a 1-yard, fourth-down sneak. The LSU team as a whole battered Kentucky repeatedly and then took the win in impressive fashion.
With LSU looking as good as they have the Tigers have managed to climb the impossibly complex BCS rankings to garner themselves the number two ranking in the country. For the Tigers the next step would be to obtain the number one spot that is currently being held by perennial powerhouse Oklahoma. LSU has been carrying a high powered offense as of late that has drowned out Kentucky as well as last year’s national championship finalist Oregon.
Jefferson was a key player in the LSU offense and now is looking to get back into the game. It is unknown if the head coach will allow Jefferson the starting position so easily but one thing is for sure, if we know anything about LSU it is that they make the right decisions at the right time on and off the field so it will be interesting to say the least. LSU will look to remain undefeated coming into the next series of games with their sails full of wind they appear to be moving forward at an alarming rate. This could be the year for LSU!
If you want to win a game you have got to have the defense and that is exactly what LSU has that most other teams are lacking. With the dominant performances that LSU has managed to turn in it all came down to the defensive side of the ball. With the high powered offense running on all cylinders with the return of Jordan Jefferson it looks to be all clear for the LSU offense. But the defense might be one of the most underrated in the game.
Starting with one of the best performances against what many considered to the best Oregon team to come out ever LSU shut them down on defense. With even the BCS ranking system saying that Oregon should have been the number three team in the country it was hard to deny LSU that spot in the top five. With the shut down play of the middle linebackers they had Oregon’s speed neutralized. Game over, then came West Virginia which was made to look like a High School team rather than a college team with the way the secondary shut down the passing game. After West Virginia came Kentucky, Kentucky was won in the trenches with the behemoths that we call the lineman, LSU had that game one since the first play from scrimmage you could tell that Kentucky was clearly outmatched. It was hard to watch the defensive line of LSU just manhandling the offensive line of Kentucky. It was nightmarish, it was stirring, and it was beautiful.
LSU’s continuing improvement on defense will be no surprise to anyone once word gets out that they have the defense to shut down any offense in the country. Now with the tools they have been lacking in the last couple seasons it looks like it is time to make a run at another championship. The BCS will have no difficulty allowing them entry to the big show this year if they continue to win.