A Real Cool Hand; Waiting for the Big One

"It's all now you see. Yesterday wont be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago. For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it's still not yet two oclock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it's all in the balance, it hasn't happened yet, it hasn't even begun yet, it not only hasn't begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin..."

-- from Faulkner's Intruder in the Dust

Its already been one hell of an anticipatory week for college football fans. And not a real easy time to get any work done at the office for me. Every time I try to clear my head and get at the things that I do to pay the bills, I start to see it unfold all over again. We will be in that corner of the endzone at Tiger Stadium. It will be Senior Day - for all LSU's faults, I've got to admit that the way they handle Senior Day is first rate - and we'll be sitting there half-heartedly applauding when their guys come walking out of the opposite tunnel. We'll be polite but internally we'll be ready to explode. When the Rebels finally appear we'll erupt, though everybody watching at home on CBS will only hear the boo's. And we'll remember who we're dealing with. But in the moments before kick-off we will reach a fever pitch, only this time it'll be a little different.

See I've been reading what the other schools have been saying all week, too. There's a couple other pretty big rivalry games coming up and they, too, have a little different flavor to them this year. Like this one up in Ann Arbor. For the first time in recent memory, Michigan won't be bowling this year. Won't be playing for a piece of the Big 10. Won't be jockeying for BCS position. Won't be doing anything but laying everything they've got on the line in an effort to take down their blood rival. And Lord, are they ready. You'd have to think more so than they've ever been.

Ditto for Auburn. A team that's so used to being in the national picture in November has been whittled down to playing for nothing more than respect. Or for disrespect, depending on how you look at it. Tommy Tuberville's team has racked up 6 straight W's in the Iron Bowl, won damn near every one they've played this century. And in that time span Alabama's fans and various administrators have tried to play off the losses as if they simply don't mean that much. They'll tell you that the Iron Bowl means less than the National Title picture - one that the Tide is finally involved in after years of searching. I'd be willing to bet the Tiders are singing a different tune if things go down this year like they're supposed to. But 'supposed to' never amounts to much in these games. And Auburn's fans know that all too well.

These teams, see, they're going in for the first time in a while knowing that everyone discounts them. Funny how that "us against the world" thing molds, welds, congeals an entire program in the days leading up to the big one. With all due respect, Tigers and Wolverines, welcome to my world. Welcome to every third weekend in November for the Rebels. Welcome to this thing, this silly little contest between 18-22 year old students, that keeps me up at night. Because the past few years, as you know, things have been going crummy for the Rebels, much like they have for you this year. And it only makes it all the worse when that team and those people that you hate - and there is no other word for it but hate - is bringing home football-shaped chrystals in January. Yeah, we can empathize.

Except this year they are trying to take that mentality away from us. Vegas keeps bumping that line down, and Troy came in and did their thing last week, and we had that game in the Swamp and so on and the next thing you know these assholes are trying to tell me that a.) well, we're supposed to win, anyway and b.) they don't really consider us a rival anyhow. Nah, son. We're not gonna let you pre-emptively neuter the feeling we're going to take away from Saturday's game.

Just because you may or may not be in the midst of a shitty year, you cannot take away the essence of who we are. We're Rebels, you see. Rebels. And sometimes defeat is part and parcel of that whole thing.

But as you know, when we go down, we go down swinging. How else do you explain the scores from the past few years? Why else would a team in the midst of a two-time National Championship run need overtime to dispose of a team that was a year away from going winless in the SEC? We're not there for moral victories. We're not there for the symbolism of being 'rebellious.' Do you think you can convince Justin Vincent that Patrick Willis was just trying to be symbolic when he leveled him with what some have called the perfect tackle in a game that the Rebels supposedly had no business even being in? Do you think John Jerry was only trying to prove a small conciliatory point when he tore through the line to block an extra point as time expired in 2006? Better yet, do you think the seniors on our team (or yours) have just forgotten about the way these games played out?

It seems self-evident to me that no matter how many first rounders LSU produces, no matter how many BCS bowl games they win, no matter how comparatively terrible our team may be, everybody involved knows that none of that shit matters when the whistle blows because this is a balls-out blood-and-guts knife-fight rivalry. These things are not symbols.

Luke got up every single time Big George Kennedy knocked him down in the middle of that prison-yard ring, with all the other prisoners telling him to stay down for his own good. "It's not your fault, he's just too big," they tell him. They were on his side. He'd already proved his point. But the little son of a bitch keeps getting up. He's not there to prove a point. Neither are we.

We'll be in that ring Saturday because we believe that we are just better than you. We are not there for moral victories. We are not there simply to prove that we belong. We are not just happy to be there. Everytime we've gotten up for the past six years its because we believe that we are better than you. We do and we are. You've had us for a while now, we'll give you that. You've got the trophies. You've got the recognition. You've got the glory. But for now, with it all in the balance, here we are coming back again. This is us ready to fight. This is us cranking this shit up to '11'. This is me with two arms raised, both middle fingers in the air. This is defiance. This game is what it means to be one of us.

Forward, Rebels.