Laney: Decline of Tulane rivalry good for LSU

• By GARY LANEY
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Oct 31, 2009

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As we move toward the impending end of the LSU-Tulane series, Tigers fans who might be a little sentimental about the days when playing for the Tiger Rag meant something should also acknowledge the decline of the series has had a positive effect for LSU.

LSU is the unquestioned kingpin of college sports in Louisiana. That seems like so much of a given that one forgets the early 1980s when that concept wasn’t nearly as clearly defined as it is now. I don’t forget, because that’s when I moved to Louisiana and was getting my important early impressions of this state.

In 1982, Tulane beat the Tigers for the third time in four seasons. For somebody coming from elsewhere, that left a message: LSU was the big dog in the state, that much was clear even when Tulane won its share of meetings. But Tulane was the little private school that gave the big school fits. It was a rival.

Of course, that changed over time. First, the Tigers started dominating the series again. Then, they quit playing so regularly. Then, the BCS was created and LSU was in a BCS conference and Tulane wasn’t, thus adding more distance in the ever-growing chasm between the programs. Then, LSU started winning BCS national titles, and its rival increasingly became whoever else was contending for the crystal trophy.

One can argue Southern California, which hasn’t played LSU in 25 years, is now a bigger rival to the Tigers than anybody in the state. The Trojans haven’t played LSU on the field, but they have contended for perceived supremacy in the sport.

It’s in that context that a game against Tulane now exists. Tulane has gone in 27 years from being a team that could win three of four meetings with the Tigers to a gimme game LSU must somehow not overlook before playing Alabama in a game with national implications.

And that’s pretty much how the whole state — from Rodessa to Boothville-Venice, Kilbourne to Johnson Bayou — will see it.

What a luxury that is for LSU.

Here we are in a mid-sized state — Louisiana’s population of just more than 4.4 million people is ranked 25th, right smack dab in the middle — and we have one school that so dominates the landscape of the state’s college athletics, if not higher education in general.

It happens to be a state that ranks near the top in per-capita production of NFL players, so it’s pretty fertile.

In Alabama, a state with a couple of hundred thousand more people than Louisiana — think of adding another Shreveport to Louisiana, that’s all — there’s an Auburn to go with the Alabama. In South Carolina, a state with almost the same population as Louisiana, you have the Gamecocks and Clemson.

You have Oregon and Oregon State, Washington and Washington State, Michigan and Michigan State, Penn State and Pitt, Georgia and Georgia Tech. I could go on and on.

Heck, Oklahoma has almost 800,000 fewer people than Louisiana — think of subtracting Greater Baton Rouge from this state — yet it still has to find players for two BCS programs, OU and Oklahoma State (thanks, Texas, for the help).