Change two plays, and we live in a different world.

I've been thinking about this since the end of football season, but haven't had a chance to post anything about it before now. Apologies if someone else has raised the same point, but I don't check the rant every day, and I easily could have missed something.

There is a lot of hype these days about the new Bama "dynasty", but many people don't realize how close we are to living in a completely different football universe. In fact, the difference is just two plays.

Let's go back to 2011 for play no. 1. If the Okie State kicker doesn't miss a late field goal (and he missed only by a couple of feet), we would have played them in the NC game and most likely beaten them. Bama would have played in the Sugar Bowl, but who cares. We would be the undefeated national champs and hailed as having one of the greatest seasons in college football history.

Play no. 2 obviously occurred at the end of our game with Bama this past season. Pick any play from our last offensive series or Bama's last drive and change the result. We would have beaten Bama for the the third straight time and would have won the West for the second straight year. Don't know if we would have beaten UGA and played for a second NC, but the larger point is, we, and not Bama, would be perceived as the program to beat in the West.

Of course, one could conceivably find two plays that would have cost us two victories during the past two seasons, but I would argue that this wouldn't alter in any appreciable way the national (and local) perception of the LSU program and its place in relationship to Bama. Change the two plays I listed above, however, and the perception of the two programs (and, I might add, the two coaches) is COMPLETELY different.

So, anyone who might be worried that there is a widening competitive gap between us and Bama should think about how close the two programs actually are....literally two plays away from switching places in the national pecking order.