Perspective Piece: Alabama-LSU

Nick Saban makes his much-publicized and eagerly-awaited return to Baton Rouge this week, but it’s the context surrounding the Alabama coach’s visit that has caught the college football world by surprise.

Ever since the man who won a national title at LSU signed on to coach the Crimson Tide before the 2007 season, this event turned into an apocalyptic encounter, an occasion when the already off-the-hook emotions of SEC football would exponentially increase. Yes, it was a big deal for LSU to beat Saban and Alabama last year in Tuscaloosa, but it’s this Saturday’s spectacle—the traitor coming back for a heaping helping of hugely hostile heckling—that Tiger fans have truly been waiting for. He’ll never catch too much heat during home games. Against Auburn, the Iron Bowl’s outcome matters far more than the personalities of the head coaches involved. But when Nick Saban coaches at LSU—in 2008 and beyond—he will receive a reception defined by runaway rudeness.

Jim Nantz, who used to serve as the play-by-play voice for CBS Sports’ college football coverage (and would have called this game for the network, either in the late 1980s or the mid-1990s), is famous for referring to The Masters golf tournament as “a tradition unlike any other.” Had Nantz been assigned to this Saturday’s game, the accomplished broadcaster might have used the following words: “A treatment unlike any other: Nick Saban, in Tiger Stadium.”

It’s no secret that LSU fans hate Saban something fierce. Tiger partisans feel, with understandable justification, that on Christmas Night of 2004, the man whose last name is very close to that diabolical entity (just substitute a "t" for a "b" in the middle) got comfortable with evil. Then, in choosing to come back to the SEC with Alabama, it became clear down on the Bayou: Nick Saban truly had made a deal with the devil. The Tide had their Sabanic cult. The Tigers just gained a new demon to contend with. That backdrop of betrayal, the break-up followed by the love affair with a bitter rival, has LSU fans feeling jilted to the extreme. No wonder the hot and heavy passions in Louisiana are burning up the state as a mortal enemy returns to the stadium he once owned in the early part of this decade.

All this would make for a terrifically fascinating story in its own right. But what few people counted on--inside or outside Cajun country--was that Alabama would be the favorite when Saban returned to the LSU campus.

It was Saban himself who built LSU into a gridiron colossus, with Les Miles taking over and ably steering the ship in the following three and a half seasons. It was Saban who--much like Steve Spurrier at Florida in the 1990s--awakened a sleeping giant and put LSU on top to stay. Miles has done a superb job in Baton Rouge, overcoming some of his own mistakes to match the national title Saban brought to the Bayou in the 2004 Sugar Bowl, but the resurrection of Tiger football in the 21st century is first and foremost a Saban success story. The Alabama coach--in his first few years with the Tide--figured to be a victim of his own success in Louisiana. The team from Tuscaloosa wasn't supposed to contend for a title just yet. Upon his return to Baton Rouge, Saban figured to be an underdog playing the spoiler role against The Hat and his heavy favorites. That was a reasonable preseason projection, at any rate.

Instead, Saban has flipped the script, which has only added to the drama and tension that will engulf Tiger Stadium on Saturday.

It's well known, in the SEC or anywhere else college football is taken very seriously, that when you win, you're targeted and hated to an even greater degree. Vanderbilt doesn't earn hatred. Mississippi State doesn't earn hatred, except from Ole Miss fans. LSU and Alabama, though, are the big-boy behemoths in college football, the types of teams who receive the bulls-eye every week, and all the venom attached to a highly-ranked outfit. In 2007, LSU became the team that everyone wanted to knock off the pedestal. As a result, Tiger fans didn't have to hate Saban quite so much.

Winning its its own best revenge, its own sweetest tonic; getting back at someone is much more meaningful to the underdog who needs to salvage a season or create a special memory. Entering the 2008 campaign, then, it seemed likely that LSU would once again be the top dog, with Bama nipping at the Tigers' heels. As much as they want to kick Nick into the ground, Tiger fans would have found it a little easier to stay off Saban's back if their LSU lads had a national title in their sights and the SEC West very nearly locked up. Being on top of the mountain, after all, is the easiest way of sticking it in the face of a hated foe. LSU figured to enjoy that kind of lofty leverage yet again.

But no, it's Saban's squad, a year ahead of schedule if not two, that will enter this consequential collision with national title designs and a chance to officially clinch the SEC West. It's Alabama and the 32 million-dollar man who can get the bling and the ring this season. LSU, after getting its bell rung by Florida and Georgia, is playing the spoiler role, with a repeat division title being a remote possibility at this point. Seeing Saban strut into town with an unblemished record and big-time bona fides only has to rankle the home folks even more, ratcheting up the rancor and resentment to an exponentially higher level. The national titles LSU fans have come to expect every now and then could flow to the double-dealing, two-timing, no-good, scheming Alabama boss who's in bed with the devil after the events of the past four years.

Hating a man's actions is one thing. When that man breaks your heart and succeeds more quickly than even he probably expected, the vinegar and vitriol will only shoot through the roof.

Welcome back to Baton Rouge, Nick Saban, as your team tries to stay on track for the BCS title game. The locals are resenting your success, and are consumed with spoiling your season. Pass this test of nerves in a lathered-up Louisiana lair, and your team will appear far more worthy of competing for college football glory on January 8.