I came of age during the Golden Age, 2001-2011. For that reason, I still have this completely illogical belief that LSU should be able to just strap on a helmet and compete for championships every year. Reality has shown us differently though. Outside of a miraculous flash in the pan in 2019, we have been practically irrelevant in any meaningful way over the last 15 years in terms of conference or national title contention. The cognitive dissonance was strong.

Last night changed that. The total disrespect in going for two, the “heisman qb” on the other side who had his way with us, the lack of discipline, the unforced errors. I watched a mid-tier SEC program get shown just how far behind it is. Fans of other teams call us delusional because they can see this clearly and have seen it clearly for a number of years. Maybe some of you have too. I did not. But I understand their perspective now.

Maybe that is a good thing. Maybe I needed to finally accept that the wave Saban created had already crested and gone. We had gotten too full of ourselves with far too little outside of 2019 to show for it. We got lazy as fans. We started leaving games early, treating wins not as novel accomplishments but as forgone, expected conclusions. Maybe we need to experience the “come-up” again, and try to kick off a new wave of ascendency that will bring back that energy and passion of the early 2000s. Being grateful for every win while still remembering what it is like to lose.

We should not be melting tonight. “But we almost beat them on the road” should be the exact take-home point from this game. Because as a mid-tier SEC program, we should not expect to win these kinds of games yet.

In much the same way, Lane too is delusional. He has no meaningful head coaching accomplishments to speak of. Thinking he is “better than Ole Miss” is a notion based on an idea of himself, not a fact. Just like we think that we are a better program than Ole Miss right now because we have better history and more money. Spoiler alert: we are not, not right now anyway. That is an idea, not a fact.

Maybe Lane is the guy who can kick off that next wave of ascendency and turn his (and our) ideas into reality. But my faith in that is tenuous right now. I can’t expect him to be Nick 2.0. But if that’s what he envisions for himself, then he needs to take this seriously. The sideshows, the distractions, the Vanity Fair pieces, the fake injury reports, the snarky halftime comments, and the celebrity cameos are only cute if you’re winning. And he just got embarrassed tonight by a program he purports to be better than. Not cute anymore.

It’s time for Lane to come to the same conclusion I did: we ain’t sh*t. And neither is he.

If he ever wants to be more than that, then it’s time to drop the act. Cast the boy aside and become the man he was meant to be. Take the resources LSU will provide and get serious about the gravity of his position and the fulfillment of his potential.

He needs to decide if he wants to be a socialite celebrity or a championship football coach. You can’t have it both ways. If he chooses the latter, then I can only hope that he too was awakened from his delusion tonight.