Tide poise beats LSU emotion...

Screen Pass was a great call...

     LSU defensive cornerback Jalen Mills blitzed past T.J. Yelding like a man on a mission. Instead, he was on a fool's errand. I bet Yelding's heart skipped a beat or two when he saw Mills race past him.  He knew that he was going to be able to make some yardage. The question was just how many?  We now know the answer was 28 yards and a  voyage into the hearts of Alabama fans forever.  Before taking the field for that last drive Barrett Jones had reminded his offensive line coach not to forget the screen pass. Whether that message was relayed upstairs to the offensive coordinator remains unknown. What is known is that the Alabama Crimson Tide picked themselves off the canvas and delivered a knockout blow that LSU will never forget. The sheer magic of that moment is now ingrained in the collective memories of the LSU nation forever. It will be a kind of pigskin Pear Harbor on the bayou for LSU.  The game was the ying to the yang of Billy Cannon's rain soaked punt return to beat Ole Miss in 1959. Only this time the Tiger fans were on the receiving end of whoever decides things like that occur at the most inopportune times. To steal a line... It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. This time it belonged to those wearing Crimson and White.

A tremendous story for the ages...

       When the story of this team is written, a large portion must be about LSU game, Yelding, McCarron, and Norwood. Norwood made three key receptions to put Alabama into the position to win. A.J. McCarron shook off a horrible second half and convinced his teammates, and perhaps himself, that the Crimson could win this game. Yelding's part of this story won't really be known until the end of the season when sans freshman interview rule expires for the true freshman. There are still games to be played this season, perhaps one for the national championship, but I doubt any will be more meaningful for Tide fans than the one played at Deaf Valley in Baton Rouge. Jim McCay always started his great sports show by saying, "the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat". Has there ever been a game since Saban arrived that underscored that intro better than Saturday night?  Perhaps Van Tiffin's kick to beat Auburn might be its equal. I have been lucky enough to have seen them both

Poise beats emotion...

     Have you seen a team more pumped up than LSU?  The Bayou Bengals were higher than a meth addict hanging out at Starbucks.  Emotion is good. In the end that emotional energy that the Tigers showed and the LSU fans supplied just wasn't enough. I remember thinking on that final drive the Tigers were on the emotional edge of what they might consider to be one of the biggests wins in their schools history. One the other side of the field Alabama gathered themselves together and talked about doing what they had done in practice a hundred times. As Coach Saban has said before, "each play has a history of its own." Those fumbles and three and dones were history. The impressive thing is that Alabama believed that mantra, and had the chance to prove they were listening.

      One-two-three-four and LSU was no more. It was a simple as that. Keep your eyes open and your head clear. 11 players eaching do their assignments. Some will get more credit than others, but the team knows that if a single player failed to do his job the Tide might have lost. In the end all that energy and desire for revenge fell short. In the final two minutes Alabama kept their poise, and LSU played on emotion. Emotion will ruin your poise more often than not.

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