Tiger Stadium back to rocking, rolling and… field rushing?
Published 8:59 am Monday, October 27, 2014
BATON ROUGE — Yes, that was Tiger Stadium back in its all its vocal glory Saturday night.
Give the old/new place a big assist in LSU’s 10-7 upset of Ole Miss.
It’s been heavily modernized for the new millennium, some say with way too much pampering of corporate interests, with wine-spritzer creature comforts not conducive to fueling the blue-collar, bourbon-wafted hell hole of old.
But, gosh, it can still have its moments.
Like Saturday.
“Wow,” LSU’s Les Miles said afterward. “How about that stadium!”
Not a corn dog in sight, by the way.
The shiny new south end zone upper deck addition became an even better conduit to hold in the sonic booms rather than just a convenient club room to get a decent latte’ at halftime.
Yes, the place was boiling.
“It’s a crazy atmosphere,” said Ole Miss Bo Wallace, whose inner Bad Bo surfaced often and particularly late. “This is the craziest place I’ve played. Absolutely was a factor.”
That vocal assault on Wallace was music to LSU fans’ ears.
They’re relevant again.
Now if the student section can just work on the awkward ending.
They rushed the field en masse at the final horn, a monkey-see, monkey-do thousands of them, and they were having a merry old time like only screwy kids in a mosh pit can.
Nobody got hurt, it seemed like good, wholesome fun and, for one, freshman wide receiver Trey Quinn will surely never forget being gleefully body-surfed around the place by his fellow students.
LSU won’t blink on the mandatory fine that will come down from the SEC office and, to their credit, nobody got the bright idea to tear down the goal posts and cart them back to the frat house.
And it did look like great fun.
Still …
Not to nit-pick here, and in truth there was no harm done, but … but you’re LSU.
Act like it.
It’s been a trying year. But the Tigers are still way beyond that kind of thing.
If you’re LSU, opposing fans rush the field for beating YOU (Ole Miss last year) or, in some cases, for almost beating you (see, Miracle, Bluegrass, 2002).
This was the fan equivalent of Leonard Fournette posing for the Heisman after his first college touchdown.
LSU beat Ole Miss. Yes, the Rebels were very good, ranked No. 3 in the nation.
It was still Ole Miss — a team that a month or two ago LSU fans didn’t think was worthy of being a true rivalry game.
Les Miles didn’t even want to admit in advance that beating them might be an upset.
Of course, Miles is used to knocking off top 10 teams, often in dramatic fashion.
He’s done it at least once for five straight years, right there in front of the home folks’ eyes.
So it’s not like this should have shocked anybody.
So enjoy dashing the Rebels’ dreams, but don’t let them know it made your season.
And it was kind of a shock. It took some digging to find that the last time the LSU student section convened out on the field was Dec. 1, 2001, Nick Saban’s second year, when a victory over Auburn secured the school’s first visit to the SEC championship game.
That was the dawn of the Golden Age of LSU Football.
Since then, LSU has gotten used to winning big games, even to the point of being spoiled rotten.
LSU fans would like to think they keep proper company with, say, Alabama, in college football’s pecking order.
The Tide, by the way, is smugly proud that the last time its fans rushed the field for a victory was … never.
The Tide fan base did rush the Tuscaloosa airport when Saban first arrived, but apparently that’s a different category.
Bama, which lost at Ole Miss earlier this year (and watched Rebel fans rush the field), must be laughing at LSU today.
Seriously? Ole Miss?
Again, it’s not a big deal, and surely LSU’s self esteem will survive the postgame faux pas.
And maybe, just maybe, they were rushing the field for something TRULY shocking and unexpected — the Tigers completed a “forward pass” to an eligible “tight end,” for a game-winning touchdown no less.
To be fair, for four very intense hours, the game did have the “feel” of rush-the-field kind of game.
And maybe there was a message in there somewhere.
If you want Tiger Stadium to rock and roll and, most importantly, keep fans in their seats until the bitter end, it’s pretty simple.
Give the place a good, intense football game.
Sit back. The place will respond like no other and put the whole campus on earthquake alert.
It doesn’t have to the a point-a-minute silliness so prevalent across the college landscape these days.
LSU-Ole Miss was a throwback, a game that Twitter or Instagram could never comprehend, a game with old-fashioned values where running games mattered and field position was cherished.
Apparently even the kids enjoyed it.
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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU sports. Email him at shobbs@americanpress.com
Jonathan Bachman