Last year(?) on the Big Ten board I detailed how I was running out of F's to give about this sport, given how it's changing, and not to my liking. It's my duty to inform you sometime during the off-season I finally ran out. It's been a long time coming--the ugly truth is I never enjoyed the 2019 season the way I would have prior to around 2014. I was happy for the team and there were memorable things and I enjoyed the games in a certain capacity. Just not like I used to. Last season I was able to muster up the final Give-A-Damns to root for Daniels to win the Heisman since he was having a great season and the sudden novelty of Heisman winners was such a stark contrast to most of the program's history that it provided something unusual enough to stop total disengagement.
I'm still watching the games. I mean, I'll probably never not, given that my wife is still a huge football fan and bogarts the TV during fall weekends. But I don't record any games to watch later, I don't make a point to watch games of our upcoming opponents, and I don't flip channels to watch multiple games at once. I watch whatever game seems most interesting in each of the three time slots, and those are usually LSU and Texas (for Mrs. DeTiger). I don't really feel any differently about them, whoever is playing. When "my" team wins or loses, I don't seem to care. It passes the time and it makes the wife happy to sit and watch with her. A lot of it is the sport and how it has changed. I actually find myself more interested in the NFL on Sundays, which is not something I ever thought I'd say. Something about it seems more honest now. But I suspect at least some of it is me, and how I've changed.
Maybe it wouldn't have happened if I had kids I could've passed this on to, like how my dad used to take me to games--especially the Ole Miss ones (and watch whatever few of our games were on TV back then). But then, it doesn't seem like going to games with family would be affordable anyway. The last AD made sure LSU's total gameday experience priced out the average fan years ago, and unless you're a big TAF donor I don't know how you get tickets at a decent price.
I still have great memories of watching the game on TV and in person back when I absolutely ate it up. Meeting up with friends, making a few board meetings at stadiums I'd never seen before, watching LSU hammer Ole Miss in person through the years, going to DKR when Baton Rouge was too far to drive and I wanted a live-cfb gameday fix, and somehow finding a way on Saturday and some of Sunday to watch gobs of games I recorded and then logging on to some message board and chatting about them. Nothing will ever beat the feeling of LSU winning the SEC in 2001 and going to the Sugar Bowl after a decade of suckitude. Winning it all in '03, and again in '07. Heck, even 2011 is still probably my favorite team ever, despite the ending. And the crushing losses that ended my hopes during many other years, which I hated, and yet in retrospect realized I still loved because there was a lot of joy in rooting for them every weekend. Somehow, I can still remember the names of a right guard or a weakside linebacker, for example, from all of those teams. And 2019 still held some charm as well, even though it was fading.
The good news is that when LSU inevitably slides into its next long phase of suckitude and Florida inevitably is "back" and beats us by 40 pts every year, I won't feel the need to claw my eyeballs out like I did in the 90's. Feels weird, but here we are.
