Tiger Tracklist: Arkansas

This ain't no game, I'm takin' all you have. And you're gonna pay for it.

I’m lucky and I realize it.

In all my years of drinking in South Louisiana, I have only ever truly had one hangover, and that was after the first time I drank. Because of this, I have seen a great many hangovers up close and personal without experiencing one for myself. And from my limited firsthand experiences and multiple secondhand ones, hangovers suck. Somebody with a hungover is very agitated and easy to anger, but their state does not allow them to act on that agitation. It’s a physical pain for sure, but it’s also a mental state where somebody with a hangover is not who they generally are as a person. It’s sort of a “low-battery mode” where only basic needs are realized.

In the past, this is where LSU has been hungover. And here we are again.

Split your lungs with blood and thunder when you see the white whale. Break your backs and crack your oars men, if you wish to prevail. This ivory leg is what propels me, harpoons thrust in the sky. Aim directly for his crooked brow, and look him straight in the eye.

Bret Bielema has been at Arkansas for four seasons now, and has played LSU three times. And every time he has found a way to thoroughly kicked LSU’s ass, with a Hail Mary bailing LSU out in 2013. You can take whatever metric you want, five year performance, recruiting, on-field production (both defensive and offensive), but it doesn’t matter because that should not be happening.

It’s easy to say that Bielema has outcoached Les Miles and LSU, but I don’t buy that line of thinking. I think in the past that Les Miles and LSU have been subject to an Alabama Hangover, a cloud that hung over the program following the Alabama loss where you can’t get up for games after suffering a crushing defeat in the biggest game of the year.

In the past LSU has looked downright unmotivated to play Arkansas because of this, a problem that Arkansas doesn’t have because before A&M joined the conference, this was their game. This game is their Alabama, and they play like it.

Holy water cannot help you now. See I've come to burn your kingdom down, and no rivers and no lakes can put the fire out; I'm going to raise the stakes, I'm going to smoke you out.

All that ends this year. If Ed Orgeron wants the LSU Head Coach title in 2017, he needs to break the Alabama Hangover and hammer Arkansas. He couldn’t beat Alabama, but nobody really expected him to in the first place. But if he could hang Bielema’s hide on the wall and bring the boot back? It wouldn’t lock up the job but it would be huge.

Because frankly, LSU should not lose to Arkansas. Not in Little Rock, not in Fayetteville, and especially not in Baton Rouge.

In too deep, give up and run. No fire rides, oh bitch, you've got it wrong.

This year the game will be played in Fayetteville. Like most Fayetteville nights in November, It’s going to be cold, damn near freezing at night. That’s a mirror image of 2014 when LSU got shutout 21-0 in Fayetteville.

Perfect.

Quid pro quo, now it’s time for Arkansas to be shutout in the frigid cold. You’ve got it coming, BERT. Are you ready for your #karma?