Delusional Optimism Hates Alabama

This is not a rivalry. This is hatred.

I don't dislike Alabama. I don't respect our years of tradition. I hate them. Viscerally.

The only thing I agree with Auburn fans is on the subject of Alabama. And the fact that Alabama forces me to find common cause with the False Tigers only makes me hate Alabama more. Alabama is so evil that even Auburn can see it, and Auburn is practiced at ignoring evil.

Alabama fans are the Yankee fans of college football. Obnoxious, over-bearing, obsessed with dead guys and things that happened before you were born, and worst, omnipresent. It's like an infestation in here. Like cockroaches in a frat guy's apartment, we have Bama fans coming out of the floorboards.

Do you want to know why we have an invasion of Bama fans, ready to complain at the drop of the hat if one of their freakin' rivals suggests that maybe, just possibly they don't like Bama or buy into their narrative of unstoppable dominance? It's because Bama fans are the most insecure fans in college football.

Almost Alabama's entire identity is wrapped up in winning. Every school has their own unique traditions and their own quirks which define them, but more than anything, Alabama views their only true tradition as winning. Let's be honest, Bear Bryant is probably the greatest college football coach ever and during his tenure, Alabama absolutely dominated college football, and the SEC in particular. Bryant's influence extends to every SEC program and for a generation of fans, he pretty much was college football.

The Bear retired in 1982 and since then, despite what Bama fans will tell you, they are no longer the dominant power in the SEC. I have absolutely no memories of the Bear in my lifetime, and this is becoming more and more the norm for fans. The Bear, and Alabama's absolute dominance, has passed to historical memory.

Bama fans want to tell you the last 30 years is, essentially, a fluke. That LSU is an "upstart" program or some such nonsense, not that this is the New Normal. Alabama is a very good program. They are even a great program. They are just no longer THE program of the SEC, nor have they been in my entire lifetime.

Which is to say, treating Nick Saban as just a very good coach and Alabama as just one of several very good program is heresy. Pointing out that LSU is every bit Alabama's equal is an apostasy that must be stomped out. It is "arbitrary endpoints", as if there is anything arbitrary about using the Bear's retirement as an endpoint. It is, quite possibly, the ultimate endpoint. It's when Alabama became just like everyone else, and Alabama fans have been raging against that for my entire life.

We have been inundated this week with messages that Alabama is some unbeatable juggernaut. ESPN yesterday devoted actual programming time to discussing whether Alabama could beat an NFL. This is the same Alabama team that has beaten precisely one ranked team all year. So you can see where Bama fans might get the rather high opinion of their team, as the narrative is coming from outside their own echo chamber.

But people are acting like it would take some miracle for LSU to beat Alabama. This is a team that LSU actually DID beat last season, if anyone cares to remember. It's not like these teams are all that different, even down to LSU's nearly non-existent passing game. Alabama fans want us to only look at the game in January because a look at all of 2011 leads one to the unavoidable conclusion that LSU had the objectively better season.

We need this win not just for this year, but to take back last year. You know, the one in which LSU put up perhaps the greatest regular season of any team in a half century. Oh, but suddenly we suck because the calendar flipped to 2012.

I'm just tired of being treated like we're some Johnny come lately. We've been Alabama's equal or better for three decades (and this is even including the worst six year stretch in LSU history), exactly how much longer do we have to keep doing this before it is no longer considered a fluke?

I cannot say this enough, LSU has more SEC titles than Alabama since the Bear retired. LSU has more SEC titles than Alabama since the SEC instituted the SEC championship game. LSU has more SEC titles than Alabama in the last year. This isn't 1979 anymore. We're not some upstart that hopes to give a good game. We expect to win.

Alabama is a great program. Guess what? So is LSU. Alabama has a great team this year with an amazing defense. Yeah, so what? Ditto. Alabama has a great coach. Not impressed. We got one of those, too.

They will never ever treat as equals. Alabama fans are far too arrogant to ever admit they have an equal. This is a program that has never lost a game, they just un-win a few times or the other team got lucky. They can keep telling themselves those lies, but we don't have to believe it.

They think they have restored order? Well, I aim to misbehave.