LSU v Alabama before kickoff

I rarely do this anymore but what the heck.  Tonight the most watched TV program in all of America will be the above mentioned football contest.  My LSU Tigers are playing the #1 ranked Alabama Crimson Tide and the game is in Alabama.  This year, no football expert or prognosticator is going with LSU.  That's ok.  If just based on the evidence of both teams on the field in 2013, Alabama should be a prohibitive favorite. 

During football season, and baseball season too, I really bleed purple & gold.  Now I catch a little bit of heat from a friend or family member reminding me that I never, ever went to LSU as a student.  True enough!  I was not even raised to be a big LSU fan either by family when I was a boy.  A little transistor radio and the voice of John Ferguson was my only connection to the fighting Tigers.

Over the years, it just seemed my duty, as a loyal Louisiana citizen, to cheer on LSU.  In my young adult life, my Jaycee career and the relocation of an old friend to Baton Rouge, led me to attend many a game in Tiger Stadium.  Now this was mostly the 80's and LSU was solid, but never great then.  However, every game in Tiger Stadium was magical.  As they say, no better place to be in the fall on a Saturday night than Tiger Stadium, especially when that band hits that incredible note and the mayhem ensues!

My actual skin in the game occurred as a parent, when off to LSU went my children, first my son, who spent over 7 years there acquiring his DVM, then my daughter, a 4 year inhabitant of the B.R.  She got her B.A. before going to USM for her Masters.  My money and my children's education ties me to LSU forever.

The game?  Well, all I will say today is that I'm all LSU.  I totally get what a powerhouse Alabama has become.  LSU has two bad losses, one that I deem as unacceptable that will keep them from big things at end of year.  So beating Alabama is their big thing; the big opportunity to do something huge!  I will watch, cheer on my Tigers; rejoice with all they do well and act overly frustrated at what they do poorly.  Sometime tonight I will even blame Les Miles for something!  Sorry Les.

But I do rejoice that this is a premier college football program, and a premier college, and that all of America will be watching.  And I dare bet that almost all of America, outside of the state of Alabama, will be cheering for "my" team.

Louisiana, stand up united, cheer for LSU; Geaux Tigers!  And no matter what, be proud of LSU!