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 →