Observations about T-Town/Their Campus/Stadium/Game/Rematch

1st off -- driving to their campus and going by the tornado devastation was a very somber experience. It brought back echoes of New Orleans/Katrina. Piles of rubble still everywhere I think north east of the stadium. Now to more pleasant thoughts.

Campuses -- Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but their campus is nowhere near as nice as ours -- no cultural theme or feel to it -- just a bunch of non-descript buildings. Adv -- LSU

Stadiums -- their stadium is very imposing going all the way up all the way around. 101K people stuffed in there looks very impressive. But they have 4 very small, very shitty digital screens on each corner. In addition, although 101K people can certainly be loud and tried their best to intimidate our guys on offense, I was a little surprised it wasn't louder -- especially with the closed configuration of the stadium. In TS, sometimes your head feels like it's going to explode from the noise. That never happened in BDS. Adv -- LSU

Access into/out of Campus -- afraid the geography favors them. Plus we have a river on one side. I parked about 2 miles away up University toward McFarland. Now I was hoofin' it back to my car to get out. I was staying in Hoover, and a very nice 'Bama guy had told me of a back road from University headed I think east. I was in my car at 11:40, was able to get out pretty quickly, was on this road by midnight, was doin 50 the whole way til I got to I-20/59, and was in my hotel in Hoover by 12:45. Considering that 101K plus untold thousands more all left at the same time, I was very impressed getting out so easily. Adv -- 'Bama Btw -- 1 Gump said before the game that he had heard there were 250,000 people on campus before the game.

Stadium Location -- this one depends on what's your cup of tea pre-game wise. Their stadium is strategically positioned quasi between the campus and the downtown bars. "Tailgating" is spread everywhere and seems kind of diluted, except in the quad area next to their bell tower. I partied just a couple of blocks from the stadium in a bar called, "Houndstooth," which was a lot of fun. A ton of LSU people there. Huge tv screens with all the games. Gumps were very nice -- very little trash talking.

A side note about the quad -- about 200 LSU fans -- mostly college kids formed a "gauntlet," and dared any Gump to walk through it. It was hysterical. Cops were monitoring, but the LSU fans were behaving themselves. To see LSU fans just take over this part of their quad was truly special.

I'm gonna call the tailgate/pregame experience a wash.

The Game -- Even though dominated by defense and maybe not an artistic thing of beauty if you're on offense person, this game was just unbelievably intense. Every play had me sitting on the edge of my seat. The 'Bama fans almost rioted when TM7 did whetever he did to Kirkpatrick. I didn't see what happened.

The see, hear, and feel the air being sucked out of that place when Claiborne made his pick, their kicker missed in OT and then when Ford ran for what we thought was the game winning TD -- was just unbelievable.

A side note about Ford's run. Everyone -- and I mean EVERYONE thought it was a TD and the game was over. The LSU sideline erupted onto the field. For a moment when we realized the game was not over, I was paranoid that the refs would hit us with an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty for running onto the field. I especially thought this when he started to annouce that Ford had stepped out of bounds.

The Trent Richardson versus Spencer Ware debate -- I know a lot of you were upset when Danielson said a while back that Ware was not in TR's class. Don't be hatin', but it's true. TR was an absolute beast. Say a prayer every night that he turns pro after this year. He should be as he'll be a top 5 pick. His run just before Reid's INT was incredible. Why they didn't feed him the ball again after that is beyond me.

I'm starting another thread about the Miles versus Saban issue.

Rematch? -- Personally I hope not. We beat them in their own place. A rematch will also depend on which team makes the best adjustments. Each defense was susceptible to 1 type of play. They were susceptible to the option toss. We were susceptible to the screen to the left flat.

Overall just a great night to be a Tiger fan in T-Town!