FanHouse

College football is great for a lot of reasons: the story-lines, the games, the emotion. One thing it's not really known for, though, is reasonableness. Take, for example, the BCS -- there is no finer an example of irrationality than thinking one can choose the two best teams out of 119 more easily than one can choose the best four, eight, or sixteen.

This weekend we'll have another example: when LSU comes to Tuscaloosa on Saturday, there's every likelihood that the pre-game hype will be better than the game itself.

Why is that?

The answer is simple: we, as fans, have been played like a fiddle by the national and regional media.

No matter what anyone tells you, Alabama is a true underdog in this game. While nothing this season is truly surprising, this is not even close to an evenly matched contest. LSU is bigger, stronger, faster, and deeper than Alabama is in basically every phase of the game. The only possible exception being the quarterbacks: taken alone, Wilson's best game is probably better than Flynn's best game, but not by much and John Parker Wilson has been everything but consistently good this year.

So, why is everyone getting so pumped up about a relatively boring game in Tuscaloosa? A trumped up controversy about Saban leaving LSU. The animosity between LSU fans and Saban is just silly.

Saban was the man who stepped in, returned LSU to national prominence, and got the Tigers a national championship. Then, in a move that should have been completely unsurprising to everyone, he jumped ship for the NFL. This is the man who, between 1983 and 1999, coached at two universities and with two NFL teams, changing jobs four times. Saban flirted with two different NFL franchises before arriving at MSU and had far more ties to the Spartans than he did in Baton Rouge, but left for the greener pastures of Death Valley all the same.

That said, college fans are almost always upset when a coach leaves of his own accord, even if it's totally irrational, so it wasn't surprising when LSU fans called into talk radio stations back in December of 2004 to rip Saban up one side and down the other.

He came to Baton Rouge, loaded the cupboards with talent, won a bunch of games, and then dashed off for the NFL the minute someone offered him a head coaching job. This is precisely what LSU bought. They didn't buy a lifetime coach (in fact, many would argue that those days are over) and they came out of it far better than they went in. All in all, a reasonable LSU fan would've regarded Saban with, at the very least, gratitude for the success his or her team is seeing.


When Saban bombed in the NFL and left for the more comfortable college game, LSU fans were, understandably, not thrilled. But what amazed me was the vitriol and hate that managed to bubble up. LSU fans went on the offensive, calling Saban a liar, and warning Alabama that he was going to run off for another school in three or four seasons. When you really stop and look at the situation, LSU sounds a lot like the girl who finds out that her ex-boyfriend is dating her most hated colleague -- it's a typical "woman scorned" situation.

When you combine that with the sports media's push for some fantastic story every week, with the sheer number of idiotic college football fans (from both sides of this new rivalry), you end up with the most over-blown football game of the season.

That's all well and good, but how does a reasonable fan approach this game?

The Reasonable LSU Fan:
It's just another game standing between LSU and both the SEC West crown and a shot at another national title. It will be nice for LSU to beat its old coach, but that's the secondary to what this game means as it relates to the post season. With regards to the "betrayal", it was a win for LSU and a loss for Saban -- LSU ended up with a national title and boatload of talent. Saban had some rough years in the NFL and is now back and rebuilding a program which has higher expectations and less (at least initially) to work with. Who really won out with that one? LSU did, and Miles is a more than adequate replacement who will keep LSU in the hunt year-in and year-out for seasons to come.

The Reasonable Alabama Fan:
The Tennessee game was a glimmer of things to come, but it will take all that and more to beat LSU on Saturday. The Tide will need some breaks, they'll need nearly flawless execution, and they'll need Les Miles to take a few chances that don't work out. At the end of the game, if that doesn't come to pass, losing will suck, but no more than losing to FSU or Georgia this year or losing to LSU any other year. This is, and always has been, a rebuilding year, and those usually include some tough losses. LSU, though, is a picture of what the Tide will look like in a few years and that's something to be excited about.

Unfortunately, fans who take attitudes like those described above are few and far between... and they often get drowned out by the loud, obnoxious, ignorant fans on the internet: The idiot LSU fans who want to crow about how Saban betrayed them while conveniently ignoring the fact that he did exactly what one would expect him to do... and the idiot Alabama fans who believe that Saban will magically lead to perennial dominance over all of their rivals from now until the end of time.

Those are the folks driving the discussion and the ones the media and most blogs are catering to... but maybe, if people took a step back and really asked themselves: "What is so different about the game this year, and is it worth getting really worked up over?" They'd realize that, no, this isn't a "special" game, it's just another quality SEC match-up in an exciting season.

So, to the ladies and gentlemen in Purple and to those in Crimson... let's tone down the bile and rhetoric, shall we?