For more than a decade, LSU was typecast each November.
The Tigers posed a yearly threat to Nick Saban’s crimson-clad machine for 60 minutes. Until Kirby Smart’s operation got rolling post-COVID, Les Miles and Ed Orgeron rostered the only annual outfit that could reasonably look Alabama between the eyes from a talent perspective.
Tennessee, Arkansas, Florida (post-Meyer) and Ole Miss couldn’t. Auburn found a way a few times on Thanksgiving weekend, but LSU rivaled the Tide every April in the NFL draft.
The Tigers rarely rivaled Alabama in November. Saban won eight in a row, beginning with the shutout win in the BCS national championship game in 2012. It was perhaps college football’s most high-profile matchup, but the results ledger was severely lopsided.
Roles are shifting.
Without Saban, Alabama is still a quality football program. Kalen DeBoer’s Crimson Tide played for the SEC championship a season ago and made the College Football Playoff. They won a CFP road game.
However, Georgia blasted Alabama in Atlanta, and Indiana embarrassed the Tide from start to finish in Pasadena. Those results felt very un-Saban-like. So do DeBoer’s 10 losses in less than three seasons. Saban lost 10 in his last seven seasons.
Lane Kiffin has an opportunity to change LSU’s role on Saturday. Las Vegas suggests he already has. LSU is a 5.5-point favorite against Alabama, the biggest spread favoring the Tigers in the rivalry since 2007 when the eventual national champions were 6.5-point favorites in Tuscaloosa. The Vegas lines don’t matter, though. It’s all about the action between the white ones in Tiger Stadium at 2:30 p.m.
The last three times the Tigers have toppled the Tide, those victories have come on the backs of a pair of Heisman winners and perhaps the best defense in school history (with all due respect to the Chinese Bandits and Saban’s 2003 squad). It took enormous outliers to get the job done.
Not this time.
The Tigers aren’t expected to be a scrappy underdog on Saturday. They’re expected to throw a knockout punch in Death Valley. That’s the role reversal.
When Saban’s teams exited Tiger Stadium’s southeast tunnel, it felt like the bully was entering the block. Kiffin’s vision is the Tigers wearing that title for years to come. That doesn’t come from portal rankings or Vanity Fair cover stories. It doesn’t come from hammering Auburn or dismantling the corpse of Dabo Swinney’s Clemson.
It comes from consistently answering the bell in big games. Thus far, Kiffin’s team has blasted the inferior opponents on the schedule and come up short in the two tight games. Saturday brings another opportunity.
Shortly after the sun finds its home in the western sky, LSU will have announced itself as a playoff threat or a $40-million flop. That’s a heap of pressure, but that’s life near the top of college football.
Alabama has headlined the show for two decades straight. LSU has made a few cameos.
Saturday’s stage is set, and the feel around the game has changed. These two programs are no longer significantly separated. Saturday’s winner will be firmly in the top 12. The loser will be a long shot.
Rama Jama has played far louder than Callin’ Baton Rouge the last 20 years in Tiger Stadium.
It’s time for a role reversal.
