Laney: No Wave in near future for Tigers

• By GARY LANEY
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Nov 1, 2009

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Halloween at Tiger Stadium, it turns it, was about ghosts from LSU’s past.

They were all there.

The flickering images on the video board of Billy Cannon’s legendary punt return from 50 years ago drew a crowd reaction like it happened Saturday night. The black-and-white photos of LSU’s 1964 Halloween win over Ole Miss on the screen brought you back to yesteryear. Cannon was there to wave to the crowd, members of the 1949 Sugar Bowl team were honored and 50 years of Golden Girls were back to dance at halftime.

It was all the good times, one more time.

Even Tulane was kind enough to show up.

Remember the Green Wave? The one-time rival?

They were making their last Tiger Stadium appearance, at least under any contract anybody can envision in the near future. And as the 42-0 whipping by LSU unfolded, it was easy to see the chasm between the programs that has made this a non-rivalry.

LSU was simply bigger, stronger and faster, which everybody knew coming into the game, explaining why LSU had its smallest crowd of the season.

What that crowd wanted to see was LSU being as physically dominant as the matchup said they should be.

And the Tigers were.

The defense was, again, brilliant in picking up its first shutout in two years. The special teams, even without punter Derek Helton, dominated that aspect of the game with one blocked punt and Trindon Holliday twice flirting with giving the Tigers another Halloween punt return TD. Charles Scott finally gave LSU a 100-yard game.

It was LSU’s biggest offensive night of the season in terms of points and yards (455).

It also meant LSU can go into the last full month of the season still in the hunt for the Southeastern Conference Western Division title, the SEC title and the national championship.

And best of all for Tigers fans, LSU looks like a team that could go to No. 2 Alabama and compete to keep all those hopes alive Saturday.

The last time the Tigers played a state rival that was inferior, LSU didn’t leave that impression. In the 31-3 win over Louisiana-Lafayette on Sept. 19, LSU struggled to run the ball, gave up more yards than most would have liked and hardly looked like a team that could physically compete in a game against a top opponent.

This time, the Tigers did what they wanted when they wanted. In many ways, ULL was a more impressive in-state rival than the school that used to compete with LSU for bragging rights.

Those days were over long ago.

On Saturday, the Tulane game didn’t mean enough to keep LSU fans around much past halftime. They got to see LSU’s only Heisman winner. They got to see his punt return. And they got to see LSU take the Tiger Rag home one more time.

Then they went home, looking forward to a future that, save one more yet-to-be-scheduled meeting in the Superdome, doesn’t include Tulane any more.