They have raged, raged like the Gulf of Mexico during a storm — for more than a decade now, since Nick Saban left Baton Rouge for the NFL, then made a U-turn back to the Southeastern Conference at the most infuriating destination of all, Tuscaloosa.

LSU fans have raged for a while, of course. Ross Dellenger, a Sports Illustrated reporter who worked for a time in Baton Rouge, remembers that they were enraged at Tiger Stadium in 2001, carrying a two-year grudge because Auburn coach Tommy Tuberville had smoked a cigar on the tiger’s eye at midfield after an AU win in 1999. There is no scientific way to measure whether the rage was higher then than it was in 2008, when Saban was both hung and burned in effigy on his first return to Baton Rouge after taking the Alabama job.

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