NOTE: Please take this in the tone that is meant........ :D
Sports columnist Kevin Scarbinsky
Nothing Good Can Come From LSU vs Tulane
Sunday, May 29, 2005 Birmingham News
Are they mad? LSU, Tulane on for 10 years!
No one knows if Les Miles is going to be the next Nick Saban or another Gerry DiNardo. So things can change.
But, at the moment, LSU is a better football program than Alabama, and that's not all.
The Tigers are gutsier than the Crimson Tide, too.
When the 12-game regular season kicks off in 2006, LSU is going to do something so bold, Alabama won't even consider it.
What is this startling move? Are you sitting down?
LSU is going to play Tulane.
It sounds crazy, but it's true. An SEC West team is going to play football against a program that competes in Conference USA and lives about an hour away in the largest city in the very same state.
Does that sound like anyone Alabama knows?
LSU isn't going to play Tulane only once. The two schools signed a deal last week for a series that will run every year for 10 straight years.
And LSU isn't going to play Tulane in Death Valley alone. The contract calls for a true home-and-home series. They'll meet one year in Tiger Stadium, the next year in the Superdome and so on and so forth, back and forth for a decade.
That's five games in LSU's back yard and five games in Tulane's sandbox.
Is Skip Bertman nuts? Is this the kind of madness that ensues when you promote a baseball coach to athletics director? Did he inhale too much resin in his previous job?
Doesn't Bertman know Tulane is the competition? Doesn't he realize Tulane wants the recruits and fans and dollars that LSU has?
Sure, LSU's one of the nation's top programs now, and Tulane is nothing more than the best college football team in New Orleans - at least when UAB visits - but why not leave well enough alone?
What happens if Tulane gets lucky and some C-USA referee gets tricky and the Green Wave actually beats the Tigers in one of these games?
It could happen. It has happened. Hey, Tulane has beaten LSU four times. OK, those victories came in the last 48 meetings between these old rivals, but that proves the underdog will have his day every decade or so.
LSU and Tulane have a history that includes 94 games overall and dates to 1893, but why relive the past?
When is the rest of the SEC going to learn? It was bad enough that Florida played Florida State and Georgia played Georgia Tech and South Carolina played Clemson and Kentucky played Louisville every year.
Now here comes LSU, throwing Tulane a bone, calling it a win-win deal for both schools.
The only way for this madness to end is to keep it from getting started in the first place. That's why you won't find Alabama on the same field with UAB or Auburn rubbing elbow pads with Troy.
No good can come of it. Look at what happened when LSU was foolish enough to play UAB in 2000.
LSU lost. The Tigers didn't win an SEC championship till the next season, and it took them three whole years to win it all.
Kevin Scarbinsky's column appears Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write him at kscarbinsky@bhamnews.com.
Credit: Birmingham news.
Copy: BlazerTalk.com AB
|