LSU Fans Still Very Much Obsessed With USC
April 10, 2007
by Brian Grummell
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First, the latest evidence: "USC Campus Invasion". A permtastic
LSU Tigers fan (apparently a member of the golf team) swung by the USC campus with friends and took some pictures in front of USC's various championship wares as well as O.J. Simpson's Heisman Trophy. There were lots of middle fingers and the usual "murderer" stuff. Predictable anti-USC hate, really.
That might've been cute in 2003. Or 2004. Maaaybe 2005. Less so in 2006.
But it's now 2007. Doesn't the statute of limitations for that kind of behavior exhaust after a few years? By my shaky math we're now four full years past that tumultuous time.
Not content to recognize a shared title and bask in their own glory, LSU fans have continually sought ways to diminish USC. There was that OnePeat billboard mess. There was the LSUOverUSC blog. There were the histrionics over USC's signing of high school star Joe McKnight out of Louisiana. The madness only grows with time.
Why is this? Let's call it a tale of two schools. LSU has a rich football history. They've done some good things, winning two national championships and a Heisman Trophy. They basically created the equivalent of an earthquake one night. They've sent some players to the NFL. The school's football legacy is very much intact.
Sadly, I think there's a jealousy factor at work here. USC's won a great many more championships and Heisman Trophies than LSU. Worse, since that fateful January the teams have gone in different directions. Both programs had "repeat" expectations but LSU never came close in 2004 nearly losing their home opener to Oregon State before eventually losing three other games that season. Coach Nick Saban saw the writing on the wall and bolted town for the NFL's Miami Dolphins and the Tigers have been unable to sniff championship football since.
Meanwhile, USC won an outright championship in 2004 and was within 19 seconds of another title in 2005. If not for a stunning upset against
UCLA Bruins last November they would have appeared in their fourth consecutive championship game. USC's built a lasting legacy beyond 2003's split championship and received a great deal of attention for it. Attention LSU fans have so badly wanted. That dichotomy has only deepened the wound for LSU fans, casting a great many of them further into the anti-USC fever swamps. And so we continue to see childish antics from otherwise rational people.
At least that's one interpretation of it.
