Depending on who you ask, LSU's biggest rival might be Ole Miss, Auburn, Florida or Alabama. But now ask which school considers LSU to be its biggest rival. Auburn and Alabama are each other's top rivals, far and away. Ole Miss would much rather beat Mississippi State than LSU. Florida has both Florida State and Georgia ahead of LSU, and probably Miami as well. Georgia has Florida and Georgia Tech. I have no idea whether or not Ark and Saw considers LSU its top rival. At least to my viewpoint, we're pretty high up on most school's list, but I don't see where we are the TOP rival for any of our traditional year-to-year opponents. As for Tulane, I'm right there with you, Sugar. For all I care they can play the rest of their games in Tad Gormley Stadium against Millsaps, Louisiana College, Sul Ross State and whoever ... and I will pull for "whoever."
And I thought Ole Miss had a successful season if they beat LSU. That's the Old War Skule rivalry. One that many of us are too young to relate to. To me, Ole Miss is akin to a gnat. Just aggravating. The more you swat, the more aggravating it becomes. I would say that the younger peeps would consider Auburn the biggest rival, even though their instate epics with Bama are historic. While the AU faithful say that the LSU games doesn't matter, they sure do get all up in arms about it. IMO, we are their #2 rivalry. Most years that I remember, the AU game was almost always a slugfest.
The sad reality is that LSU does not have a true rival anymore. Once upon a time it was Tulane and Ole Miss ... but both of those programs went in the tank for so long that it stopped being a rivalry. I have to admit that I enjoyed all the hype leading up to last year's Ole Miss game and the Eli Manning stuff ... brought back some great memories when I was a youngin' in the 70s!
We will probably be Ark and Saw's biggest rival now and everyone involved is trying very hard to make it so on both sides with the boot or whatever. If we keep on needing to beat them in the last game to make the SEC CG then it will become a little bigger for us every year. Aw burn already had 2 big rivals in Bama and UGA as the UGA came is a big border war as AU is so close to the Georgia state line and gets as many Jawja players as they do Bama players most years, always have. Ole Miss/LSU was always a great rivalry due to both teams being so good in the late 50's, most of the 60's and early 80's and the fact that MSU was a pretty moribound team for most of it's history. If the Ole Miss tradition can be sustained that would end up being our biggest rivalry on both sides of the fence, if they or us fall back to mediocrity than it will loose it's luster again and most folks feel that they will fall back but not us. Tennessee, LSU and South Carolina are the 2 schools without a major rivalry year in and year out due to other schools having a somewhat bigger rivalry game. Florida/UT was the biggest games for each for a decade but UGA/UF is bigger on a continuing bassis due mostly to the cocktail party. Bama is the game UT fans focused on most of years throughout history but not the Bama fans as they always wanted AU the most, of course with the recent revelations about Phat Phil that may change for a few years. South Carolina has no rivalry in the SEC really but they have Clemson OOC. I wonder if that game will continue to played with the new ACC. The funniest rivalry is the Vandy/Uk one as each one looks upon that games as possibly their only SEC win of the year in many a season.
auburn is first for me, followed by florida, and then ole miss. i am a younger generation tiger fan, and was not around for the days when both lsu and ole miss were both good, so the rivalry has died some for me. this year was a great renewal though, so hopefully it will get better for the younger tiger fans.
I don't HATE any team we play. What's the point in that? It just leads to the kind of fan hostility that we have with Auburn, and it only distracts from the game. I do like a spirited rivalry, though. LSU has had no traditional in-state rival since Tulane left the SEC. Instead what LSU had is an intense rivalry with the program that best stands between LSU and the SEC championship. The schools that were the thorns in our side. With nemeses like Archie Manning, Bear Bryant, Steve Spurrier, and Tommy "The Tube" Tubberville. In the 1960s, it was Ole Miss In the 1970s and 1980s, it was Alabama In the 1990's, it was Florida In the 2000s, so far it is Auburn, although Georgia may quickly take their place.
I would have to say mine would be Florida. I lived out the for a few years and got absolutely sick of hearing about the Noles and Gators. What I found as strange is that hardly anyone was into the Canes. From growing up, Alabama was the big nemesis, then Florida, then Auburn. I dont like any of em.
Sorry guys, I disagree about Tulane completely. I guess I am a traditionalist and an old softy, but I want Tulane back on the schedule, home-n-home, as it should be. Yeah, we are BCS and they aren't. Yeah, the rivalry got a little one-sided at some point. So what? The same thing happened to Colorado/Colorado State a few years back. Colorado also tried to "distance itself" from it's in-state little brother. But the alumni of both schools and state gov't. would have none of it, they wanted the game. So a compromise was achieved; they now play the game at a neutral field (Conseco Field/Mile High Stadium in Denver) and it's always the first game of the year. And in recent years, Colorado State has been tough enough to hit back; they've won three of the last four vs. Colorado and because of that, a rivalry that was this close to going out forever has not only been preserved, but has become white hot. And other rivalries destroyed by the BCS and big budget athletic dept. greed are returning as well. Tennessee is renewing it's rivalry with Memphis, home-n-home, beginning next year or 2005. Memphis used it's basketball leverage and basically told Tennessee that if they didn't play in football, they wouldn't be playing in ANY sport. Kentucky and Louisville never stopped playing, and Louisville was not always good; they were a joke in football just six years ago. Virginia and Virginia Tech also never stopped playing, and Virginia Tech, once a bottom-feeder, is now a BCS super-power. There are some things about college football, the most wonderful game in sport, that you just can't put a price on, and a good rivalry is one of them. Also, Tulane would bring stability to the OOC schedule. Remind me again how many game contracts we've had to restructure because of last minute cancellations in the past four years? A OOC rivalry game set in stone would change that. And Tulane, though not consistently good, does have some winnning seasons and will usually do your SOS more good than ULM or The Citadel. And we could restructure our budget to where we don't need 7 home games a year or get the money later by having a 12 game season with 8 home games. It can be done. Tulane is probably gonna have to offer us some incentive too, like a game guarantee and a cut of the gate at the 'Dome, because let's face it, we'd bring a lot of the fans. It wouldn't be that way for very long though. I will say this, as far as rivalry goes, the Ole Miss rivalry is re-intensifying bigtime. I felt it with our game against them this year, and that one was truly a classic. The last eight years we've played, they've won four and we've won four. The two years both games came down to the wire. Last year, the SEC West was at stake. Now, next year, they will probably not be the team we most have to worry about in the West, but the year after that, who knows? Arkansas is our end-of-year "trophy game," but last year's game, which should have been a revenge grudge match for what happened at the end of 2002, was anti-climactic; we crushed them. Arkansas/LSU is just gonna need time and a few more games as intense as the 2001 and 2002 match-ups to catch fire as a rivalry. If I had to list our rivalries, I'd say it was like this; Tulane Ole Miss Auburn Arkansas But only Tulane or Arkansas have the chance to be PRIMARY rivalries for both teams. We are SECONDARY rivals to Ole Miss (who has Miss. State as their primary) and Auburn (who has Alabama).
