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"And David put his hand in his sack, and took out a stone, and threw it, and smote the Philistine on his forehead … and fell on his face to the ground."
– 1 Samuel 17:49
In one look, LSU hardly looks like David next to Alabama Goliath.
LSU is ranked # 3 in the initial ranking of the University Football Qualifiers. Alabama is No. 1, it's true, but these numbers hardly suggest an unbalanced confrontation.
Then, behind the eight wins of Alabama, you'll see really scary scores. The scarlet wave rolls ruthlessly in its program, like the Soviet tanks in Eastern Europe, raining tyranny without breaking the sweat. It's been two months 65-31 on this team and 58-21 on that. Ole Miss dared to score the first touchdown of the match on Sept. 15, then the rebellion was crushed while Bama scored 62 consecutive points, including 59 in the first three quarters.
Despite all the successes of LSU this season, a 7-1 record marked by the only six wins of the winning teams of all FBS programs, the Tigers are a two-hit outsider. At home. What promises to be a perfect Saturday night for college football.
In other words, if LSU wants to win, the Tigers will have to shoot what is perceived as a monumental surprise.
There was no more shocking victory in American sport than the US team's 4-3 victory over the Soviet Union at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics. Jim Craig played the role of goalkeeper. American goal in this epic game. He currently runs his own marketing and motivational speeches firm, aptly named Gold Medal Strategies, in his native Massachusetts.
Craig said the key to the miracle on the ice is not based on a miracle. The first step is to believe that you are as good as the team you are trying to beat.
"If you're upset, you will not think you have to win," said Craig. "If I were a coach, I would never let my players use that word. It's a game. We are competing in this game. Work harder, smarter and expect two wins. "
It was hard not to think that LSU beating Alabama in 1993 would be a surprise. The Tigers were 3 to 5 and the Crimson Tide led a 31-game unbeaten streak that included their 1992 national title run. LSU was such a big underdog going to Tuscaloosa that year, with 25 points on a line of paris in Las Vegas. The title in the Mobile Register of this day was: "The tide could lose, pigs could fly."
Instead, the Tigers flew until a 17-13 victory. To date, no LSU team has exceeded a larger score difference.
"We knew we had the opportunity to show what we were capable of," said Kevin Mawae, former All-American LSU center, today an offensive analyst at Arizona State. "Sometimes you have to earn your respect and defeat that bully on the block. That's what Alabama is.
Mawae echoed what Craig said in the sense that LSU players must believe that they can win even before they can hope to compete.
"I had never thought that I was a lower player than the one I was taking part in the field," said Mawae, who has produced eight Pro Bowls in 16 seasons in the NFL. "For all players in the LSU team to think that they are less than their opponents when they enter the field, you are already beaten."
In 1976, the LSU basketball team was bumped 87-72 at Rupp Arena by Kentucky, an Alabama version based on basketball from the Southeast Conference. The Tigers had beaten the Wildcats only twice in their history and never on the road. After five more years of loss, Dale Brown was trying to find what to say to his team.
"I opened the door to kick," Brown said. "I said," Do not shower yourself. "Then I said," You, the elders, I'm sorry, but if you listen to me, if you do not give up, we'll come back here and we'll beat even more. that they beat us.
Two years later, LSU beat the future Kentucky National Champion 96-94 at home in overtime with the five starters at fault. And in 1987, LSU destroyed the UK 76-41 at Rupp Arena. Not worse, but pretty good. And for an LSU football team that has lost seven straight games against Alabama, an example showing that perseverance is finally paying off.
There may be no more bizarre dream than LSU, which defeated the mighty Alabama on Saturday night. But the Tigers sound like they're saying the right things, asserting their identity.
"We're going to play crazy," coach Ed Orgeron said during his radio show Wednesday night. "We will play aggressive. We will win the football match. "
"I'm not scared of this game," said LSU quarterback Joe Burrow. Although he is about to overtake Bama's quarterback, Tua Tagovailoa, as a Heisman favorite, Burrow has instilled part of his test pilot "I'm going to fight with this unruly beast" bravery to Tigers since his arrival from the state of Ohio.
"I do not think any of our guys are afraid of this game," continued Burrow. "That's the reason you play football, that's why you grow up working so hard for such moments." If you're shy, then do not go out of that locker room because we're going to be ready from. "
It's that kind of spirit that Craig would like to see from LSU if he tried to motivate the Tigers.
"These kids should look at that moment and kiss it," he said. "It may never happen again. They must play at the highest level possible and ask their teammates to do the same. "
Maybe Alabama will become an unassailable fortress. Or maybe LSU needs the right mix of talent, attitude and ability to decipher the code. The scarlet tide is, in the end, simply a college football team, not the Soviet Red Army. And it's the tiger stage, not Hungary.
As Orgeron said, the Tigers must be the aggressor. They need, like David, the confidence to plant a stone between the eyes of Alabama.
"You have to believe it in your heart," said Brown. "The French call it" fixed idea ". Everything you fix in your mind can happen.
"Cinderella lives. And she is wearing purple and gold shoes instead of a slipper.
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