Sports Then and Now

When it comes to the toughest stadiums to play in college football, the LSU Tigers’ Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana is generally regarded as the toughest, especially on a Saturday night.

Over the years, “Death Valley” has been voted as the scariest place for a visiting road team to play a college football game because of the loud decibel levels that are provided by the partisan LSU faithful.

One night in October 1988, the LSU fans got so loud after the game-winning touchdown against Auburn, they produced an “earthquake” on the LSU campus.

LSU was playing host to #4 Auburn, who entered the game having won their first four games of the season by a combined score of 161 to 44.

The Tigers were led by head coach Pat Dye, who was in his eighth season at Auburn and complied a 61-21-2 record in his first seven seasons.

Even though he had enormously successful at Auburn as he won two SEC championships and had defeated arch rival Alabama four times during his tenure, the 1988 team was perhaps Dye’s best team as it featured a defense that allowed only 79 points through the 11 games of the regular season and had the best defensive player in the country in defensive lineman Tracy Rocker.

While Auburn came into the game on a roll, LSU came in limping as they had dropped their last two games and entered the game with a measly 2-2 record.

The Bayou Bengals were under the direction of second-year head coach Mike Archer who directed LSU to their first 10-win season in 25 years the previous season.

LSU was having a difficult time replacing all-American wide receiver Wendell Davis and 1,000 yard rusher Harvey Williams as they evident by their 19-6 loss to Florida the week before the Auburn game.

Junior quarterback Tommy Hodson and the LSU offense had their work cut out for them as they faced with the nation’s best defense on a Saturday night in “Death Valley”.

In the first quarter, Auburn drove into LSU territory three times but each time could not get into or were taken out of field goal range and were forced to punt the ball all three times.

Meanwhile, LSU mounted very little offense as they were unable to cross midfield at all during the first quarter.

Looking for a spark on offense, Archer took out Hodson and replaced him with backup Mickey Guidry on LSU’s first possession of the second quarter.

But Guidry was unable to move the Tigers either as LSU did not mount a drive in the first half as they punted on all seven of their possessions. Read the rest of this entry →

The LSU Tigers have had plenty to shout about during the first month of the 2011 college football season.

Isn’t it hard to believe that something that takes so long to get here, can already be going by this fast? If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that drinking beer and watching football passes the time like no other. The good news is it’s only the first third, and plenty of exciting football remains.

People often say that the polls don’t matter this early. But ascending your way through the rankings and ultimately being crowned #1 is what it’s all about. Seeing as how we are now one-third of the way through the regular season, it seemed like the perfect time to do a special breakdown of what we’ve seen so far from each team. Top 25

1. LSU Tigers (42) (4-0, 1-0 SEC)
So far LSU has been the most impressive team of the season, and are deserving of their new #1 ranking. Three of their four wins have come on the road and have come in dominant fashion. All three against ranked opponents, including last years runner-ups and #3 ranked Oregon. The Tigers may look like the best now, but the daunting SEC West may be too hard to make it out alive. If they keep up their winning ways, they will without a doubt be making a short trip to New Orleans in January.

2. Oklahoma Sooners (12) (3-0, 1-0 Big 12)
The Sooners were jumped by LSU this week despite being alloted top spot to begin the season. With an impressive road victory over the #5 Florida State Seminoles already, the Sooners sit at 3-0 with an easy Ball State opponent coming to Norman. Oklahoma’s next test comes in two weeks when they travel to Austin to face the Longhorns. Read the rest of this entry →

The Mighty Zultan Tells Football Fortunes...

Zultan, the mighty soothsayer, hibernated soundly after a glorious conclusion to Big Ten Football Bowl Season last January.

The all-seeing one remained zoned out for months after admittedly over-indulging in some exotic-looking orange punch with the kick of a kangaroo.

The Big Ten pounded its way to an impressive 4-3 record during post-season play which included wins over some very highly ranked BCS teams at the conclusion of the 2009 football season.

The action culminated with the Iowa Hawkeye’s victory over the Ramblin’ Wreck from Georgia Tech. After the Hawkeyes rolled over them, GT may still be putting their “wrecked” offense back together.

When the mighty one’s eyes snapped open this week, ready to dig in for another season of football prognostication –– low and behold, the news was delivered.  The Big Red Machine was going to be joining the Big Ten. What a blow!  After years of living in the shadow of the God Almighty Nebraska Cornhuskers, the all-seeing seer now must feel the singe of the hot poker once again––as Nebraska closes in on the neighboring Hawkeyes starting in 2011.

Putting aside his feelings of betrayal, the all-seeing one now marshals the massive skills that allow him to predict the outcome of football contests.  The Big Ten Conference will be a force to be reckoned with in 2010 along with other highly touted football contests each week.

What he wishes to know is––can you outguess him?  Do you feel lucky, well, do you?  If so click here and you can pit your puny predicting powers against the great Zultan.  If you outguess him, then he will announce that you beat him in next week’s column, plus entering your name for a prize to be awarded at the end of the season.

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Jimmy Clausen has thrown 12 touchdown passes in 2009 with just two interceptions.

It was another interesting weekend of college football as several ranked teams received unexpected challenges while a couple teams solidified their place in the rankings.

Putting the Fight Back in the Fighting Irish
I’m not ready to call the 2009 Notre Dame Fighting Irish a good team, but they are definitely entertaining.

Now 4-1 following a 37-30 overtime victory over the University of Washington, the last four games for the Irish have been decided by a total of 17 points with all of them going down to the wire.

Except for in the 38-34 loss to Michigan when the Wolverines scored in the final seconds to pull out the win, Notre Dame has been able to make big plays when it counts.

That is a far cry from a year ago when Notre Dame finished 7-6 and seemed to always fall just short in crunch time.

I’m sure that the legions of Notre Dame faithful across the country are ready to claim the return of the “Golden Dome Aura”, and I suspect the Irish will probably inch back into the top 25 this week.

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