TUSCALOOSA, Ala. – The scene felt so hauntingly familiar. The sing-song chants of “Roll Tide Roll,” the 100,000 fans belting out “Sweet Home Alabama” and the menacing glare of Nick Saban on the sideline.

There are few forces in sports as relentless and reliable as Alabama football playing at Bryant-Denny Stadium, an unflinching machine that’s managed more national title victories (5) than home losses (4) in the last 12 seasons. Alabama entered the day with a 31-game home winning streak, the longest in the school’s gilded history.

That’s what made the super-human performance by LSU quarterback Joe Burrow so remarkable in No. 2 LSU’s 46-41 bullying of No. 3 Alabama on Saturday. The quirky kid from small-town Ohio who favors cartoon T-shirts – Batman, Mickey Mouse, Space Jam – authored a performance that should spawn a clothing line of his own. These days, Superman should wear Joe Burrow T-shirts after he emerged Saturday as the type of outsized folk hero that almost single-handedly handicapped Alabama’s College Football Playoff chances.

On a day when President Trump received a rousing ovation at Bryant-Denny Stadium, Burrow’s 393 passing yards and three touchdowns left America wondering what will make Alabama football great again. Amid the Alabama autopsy of penalties, turnovers and hopeless defensive lapses, Burrow’s epic afternoon would still be listed as the probable cause of death on Alabama’s season. He left more than 101,000 fans in a state of perpetual surrender cobra, palms glued to temples in disbelief of what played out before them.

With LSU’s 20-point halftime lead in peril twice in the fourth quarter, Burrow led LSU on consecutive touchdown drives after Alabama cut LSU’s lead to one score. The drives showcased all that Burrow can do, as he wriggled out of the backfield to scramble for key yards and whizzed NFL-caliber passes into tight windows for first downs.

"To have a championship team, you have to have a championship quarterback," said LSU coach Ed Orgeron.

View photos LSU Tigers quarterback Joe Burrow (9) carries the ball against the Alabama Crimson Tide during the first half at Bryant-Denny Stadium. (USA Today) More

It takes a virtual PowerPoint presentation to go through all of the meaningful reverberations from LSU’s domination of Alabama. From flipping the tenor of a rivalry to changing the guard in SEC supremacy to likely moving up to No. 1 in the national title race, the shockwaves rippled through nearly every corner of the south and the sport. And that doesn’t even include the individual honors poised to come to Burrow (31-for-39 passing), who is the runaway leader for the Heisman Trophy and somersaulted himself in the conversation for the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft.

Where to start? LSU’s victory both snaps an eight-game losing streak to the Tide and essentially ends Alabama’s College Football Playoff chances. Alabama’s schedule, unless LSU relinquishes the SEC West lead, only allows them one chance at a quality victory. That won’t be enough to allow them to vault one-loss conference champions, as this Alabama team fails both the look test and the data test. (And no, Tua Tagovailoa’s ankle injury won’t be enough of an excuse for the CFP committee.)

Perhaps the highest compliment to Burrow is he authored a victory with 559 total offensive yards that highlights the diminished Alabama aura of invincibility. The Tide’s face-plant is reminiscent of their last marquee game – a 44-16 blowout loss to Clemson in the College Football Playoff title game. Simply put, when the stakes were highest again, Alabama had no answers on defense.

Alabama trailed by 20 points at halftime after a Tua Tagovailoa interception gave LSU the ball at the Tide 13-yard line with 11 seconds left in the second quarter. And the Tide left a spree of mistakes riddled across the play-by-play, as they buried themselves in their biggest halftime deficit since 2000 thanks to a Tagovailoa unforced red-zone fumble, a stone-cold drop by punter Ty Perine and a defensive substitution penalty negating a Trevon Diggs interception. There were enough mistakes to cement the grimace in Saban’s face until Memorial Day.

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