My First Game in Tiger Stadium...

It was incredible. We got to the stadium around 10 am Saturday morning and spent all day walking around, looking for tickets and taking in the sights and interacting with LSU fans. To a person, LSU fans were the nicest, most hospitable, fun-loving group of fans that I've ever encountered, and I've been to games in Tennessee, Florida, Clanga and neutral site games in Dallas, and of course Tuscaloosa, but LSU fans have them all beat. Bama fans have gotten better, but they have a long way to go to match the passion, spirit and fun loving, hospitable nature of LSU fans, and I mean that with all sincerity.

Night games in Death Valley are legendary, and I had heard many stories of rowdy LSU fans, so to be honest, I was a little worried coming in, but visiting every SEC stadium is on my bucket list, and I'm not getting any younger. It turned out that I had absolutely nothing to worry about. None of that proved true. We did have one young LSU fan near us who had to be escorted out of the game because he drank too much and threw up, but it was his fellow LSU fans who were mad at him. Stadium Security and EMTs had to hold on to him to get him down the stairs otherwise he would have taken a nasty fall because the poor kid was blitzed and probably ended up in jail. I suspect Sunday was a rough day for him.

We got a few good-natured, "Tiger Bait," chants as we walked around, but even those were few and far between. Almost to a person, every person we spoke to said, "Welcome, enjoy your stay," and they said it with a smile on their face. I was so impressed. The atmosphere was electric and the campus is beautiful. We made several trips around the stadium, took in Tiger Mike's enclosure, walked through the tailgaters, got some Tony Chachere's fried catfish samples which whet our appetites, and we went looking for some good food. We didn't find anything and ended up at Wendy's. By that time we were pretty hungry so it was good. We listened to the bands and heard, "Calling Baton Rouge" and watched the crowd go crazy. The moment was infectious and energizing.

We ended up getting some pretty good tickets, but as someone on here had predicted, we paid a steep price -- $450 a piece -- but we were getting desperate when we found them. We wanted lower level sideline, but all we were able to find at this point were endzone or upper deck and those were going for $250 to $350 then we encountered, "Ticket Leonard." Nice guy! He had two in section 302, but they were in row 59. We decided to get them and tried to negotiate, but several people spoke up behind us to buy them if we didn't, so we coughed up the $900 which was painful. "Bucket list," I kept telling myself.

The Game. I know LSU fans are disappointed, but from my perspective, watching it live, it was not nearly as one-sided as the media tried to portray it, and the crowd was definitely a factor, and can be credited with keeping the Tide out of the end zone on the first drive. I've never heard a louder crowd in my life, and I've sat next to the student section with their cowbells at Mississippi State. When Bama drew back to back off-sides, it felt like a bomb going off. I didn't end up feeling comfortable until the 3rd quarter. LSU did a great job of pressuring Tua and he was not nearly as accurate as he's been against lesser defenses and Alabama was not able to run until the LSU Defense was tired in the 2nd half. I think Saban brought back the jet sweep for that very purpose -- to get the defense running side to side in the first half. LSU moved the ball very consistently and got into the red zone several times but just didn't punch it in. I know it doesn't help, but overall there is much to be positive about.

In any case, I just wanted to say thank you to LSU fans for an incredible experience. You set the standard by which all fanbases should be judged.