Hot Boudin, Cold Cous-Cous...

Yeah, So, Uh, Grad School Is Pretty Time Consuming: Week 4 Preview:

Still, absolutely no excuse for the tardiness of this post. Won't happen again.

I'm making the executive decision to forgo the Week 3 Media Roundup, as the general mood around Tigertown isn't too entertaining. You've got a coach standing by a sputtering running game, SEC suits defending something they probably didn't even watch live, and columnists declaring the end is near for the Miles Administration. Can't we play Arizona every week?

Sure makes my Week 3 Recap look like I'd done a couple whippets or something. I'm still disappointed at the general reaction of LSU fans and media, and I'm fairly certain they're underestimating the Auburn defense 99% of the time. You realize this is the toughest defense we'll face all year, right? By a long shot? You really expected Jake Hester to look a Jim Brown in the Plains? I vividly remember clapping loudly at the bar everytime JV got 3 yards on the ground; the Michigan fans were looking at me with the power of 10,000 Lloyd Carr faces.

Lloyd. Carr. Face.

That's the type of thing you expect in a matchup of top-10 teams. I like to think of the '06 Auburn game as the '03 Georgia game with better defenses, except for the outcome. I still remember being outside the stadium that day in September; never before had I been so quick to congratulate a visiting SEC team's fans. And they obliged. Surely, that didn't happen in Auburn.

Enough about last week. Let's preview The Team My Dad Would Still Pull Against If Playing Alabama: the Tulane Green Wave. Running late and still need to pack == post will be completed in a record 12 minutes.

LSU-Tulane By the Numbers

8. Your starting Tulane quarterback, Lester Ricard. Stop giving me sob stories, Times Picayune... the bottom line is dude was a sixth-string quarterback in Tigertown. Fucking Perrin Rittiner (sp) was getting more snaps than this guy. I'd want to transfer to the Slime Buckets, too.

Of course you can't play for us, Les, you're wearing Adidas

23. Years of dominance in this one-sided match. Tulane got fed up and burned the Tiger Rag in 1998; we turned around and paced them 48-17 while losing to UAB the next week. I love this rivalry.

Tulane fans are c-razy. Don't worry, I got the same education as you. For free.

4.333333333. Current number of points the number-one-ranked LSU defense is allowing. Scary thing is, Tulane might score more than our previous opponents combined. Still, this is probably the most one-sided the rivalry has ever been since Tulane was on the fence about leaving the conference. Tulanians: don't try to tell me how much better your athletic program would be had they never left the SEC. Truth is, you were a couple points better than Mississippi State (our next opponent):

"The Green Wave were a charter member of the SEC in 1933 but eventually became such a doormat in football that they opted for independent status in the mid '60s. Their final season in the conference was 1965, in which they were shut out five times, including the first two games of the season."

- Brad "Still My Boy" Edwards, espn.com

Uh, so, yeah, your president stole what would be a sterling athletic reputation in the SEC. Forty years later, it almost happened again. I'll continue to kick while you're down.

0.3%. Chances we'll see the redshirt stripped from Anthony Scelfo's body on Saturday, leaving the 5'10" quarterback to add to the Erik Ainge Legacy:

Luckily, there's no former LSU quarterback on the Wave. Wait...

62. Points I'm expecting us to score on Tulane, hopefully making it four 62-0s in the history of the rivalry. Two-point conversions, late-game scoring, missed extra points, whatever it takes. This number is special.

"1958: Prior to the game, a Tulane player said that they would beat LSU because they would choke. LSu lead only 6-0 at the half, but poured it on the 2nd half and scored 35 points in the 4th quarter. This would be the 1st of 3 wins by this score in the next 7 years."

-www.dandydon.com's great games in LSU history

241. New section number? What? It will always be

42. in my mind. Whatever, this change pales in comparison to the number of times the Golden Band (purportedly) is playing 'Tiger Rag' in the Pregame:

Apparently, the Tiger Rag chant is about as dated as Ragtime itself

0. Hey, half the reason I'm coming in town for this game is to yell 'Asshole!' in the pregame! LSU and their PC university presidents.

4500. Number of calories the 24 hours leading up to the game will consist of. Gatti's are all over the place here, but there's no way they have a "My wife said if I keep going to LSU games she's going to leave me. I sure am going to miss her!" bumper sticker in them.

Inventors of Cheesy Bread

1. Number of Brooks & Dunn concerts on the Parade Grounds Saturday. Uh... thanks, Coca-Cola, for commercializing the tailgating experience in Baton Rouge. Also, you cannot tailgate the concert itself. I see several irate country-music-loving LSU fans near the bell tower Saturday.

61-10. My prediction for the week. Look at Miles, refusing to go for two as all knowledgable LSU fans remaining make their loudest noises of the night. Miles at first sends Colt David in for the PAT, but soon realizes that Colt will probably 'botch' the kick and go for two himself, stemming from all that new confidence from what seems like the longest road field goal in LSU history. And then he sends #39 R. Gaudet in for the point after.

Colt most certainly ignores Gaudet's 19 missed calls when he hits up Brightside Bar

I'll be away till Sunday, visiting the City That Care Forgot. Drinking tomorrow night; hitting up some hungover Crabby Jack's Friday.

Fried. Rabbit. Po. Boy.

Of course I'll be at the game Saturday, losing my voice for the first time this season (didn't happen when Ohio State was in town... figures). Purple jersey on, plenty of food and drink from both sides, Gatti's, then the game. Can't think of a better day.

- P.T.