This used to be a respectful, physical rivalry. But, something happened in the early days of 2007: The state of Louisiana lost their collective minds and somehow conflated LSU -> NFL -> Alabama as Nick Saban -> Alabama. It's just dysfunctional and borderline though processes. (yes, that is an ad hominem statement, but...). Lost amongst the fact that Saban put the Whos onto the national scene is the recent trend of LSU as a sloppy, maddeningly-inconsistent trainwreck. World beaters one week, scraping by on the virtue of sheer talent the next. Their coach is a certifiable whack job good for two bonehead plays and two ponderous losses per. Also, theirs are the sort of fans that make the rest of SEC look grounded and sanguine about wins and losses.

That said, it's time to explain the moment when I knew that Whos were degenerates. In 2001, my friend and I made the seemingly-perennial trip to Shreveport to watch the Iowa State game. The ISU fans were a helluva lot of fun, and we tailgated with a bunch of really cool, funny and passionate fans (RVing with midwesterners is a lil' odd though). The game was nice, the tailgating first class, but above all, I will take away the LSU fans' behavior as the defining moment of that game.

There was a very large contingent bedecked in their purple and gold (what they were doing there, I'll never know), and they showed up not to pull for the conference or to actively root against anyone. They were there to start sh**. During the entire game, they harassed old people, heaped verbal abuse upon any and every person. When Alabama did something well, they would golf clap and yell about how it wasn't as good as it should or could have been. When ISU did something well, they would yell at the fans to "shut the f*** up" or "sit the f*** down". So, fast forward to halftime, and I went to the restroom. While there, there was a middle aged gentleman talking at the urinal to me (he's in the center). He was talking about what a good team we had, etc...to the left of him is one of the Whos. He hears the ISU fan compliment the class of the fans and the nature of the game, and the Who looks over at him and screams "Shut your F****n mouth you Yankee faggot!" and then, I kid you not, pisses on the poor man. I wish that this was the end of the story, but, no. After the questionable missed kick to end the game (I was in that endzone, he missed it), everyone was piling out of the stadium, and another group of Whos were throwing elbows at people and eventually started a fight in the ramp.

There are about a dozen of these, but this is the most recent and most egregious, so I feel it's okay to hate hate hate those crazy MF'ers.