Well, sort of. That year the semifinals were played on December 28 and the championship game wasn’t played until over two weeks later on  January 13.

So it’s not exactly four years.

But the 2024 national championship game is Monday night and we’re running out of time to reminisce.

This is all for fun anyway, especially on the heels of the ReliaQuest bowl victory, a coming new defensive staff, and some truly stellar recruiting for both 2024 and ’25 by Brian Kelly.

Especially since there’s nothing really to write on Michigan and Washington except maybe predicting how much time ESPN will spend sunshine pumping Michael Penix for the Heisman.

By the time we ran this article in January 2020, fans and players alike were ready for the party. It is always fun to look back, as I was once again reminded last night when a montage of plays from the 2003 BCS title game against Oklahoma came across my news feed. It was twenty years ago yesterday that Nick Saban won his first national title–with LSU in the Superdome. Twenty years ago that Justin Vincent broke through the line of scrimmage for a foot race on the very first play from scrimmage. Twenty years ago that Marcus Spears was slim and trim giving LSU what would be the final margin of victory with a pick-six.

LSU football is just plain fun when the Tigers are good. And those articles I’ve linked are pretty fun too.

Today we look back at 2019-20 again….

History is on the line, and history is written by the winners.

Two days and ten hours from now, it won’t be a stage without players anymore, as it has been for two long weeks. Clemson and LSU will send its respective players to that stage for one final show, for one final battle that will decide who gets the trophy, who gets the ring.

It will decide who will be remembered in the annals of history.

The LSU Tigers have raised the standard. Now all they have to do is finish.

You’ve Raised the Standard.

Now Finish What You’ve Started pic.twitter.com/lfNq5EDXFw

— LSU Football (@LSUfootball) January 11, 2020

Back in 2011, that Tiger team was on the verge of being considered as one of the greatest teams of all time, having beaten eight top-25 teams, including three in the top-5, before falling to No. 2 Alabama in a miserable night no Tiger fan will ever forget.

Unfortunately, maybe history does sometimes remember the loser, because Alabama’s dominating victory that night defied logic and seemingly nullified a 13-0 season and SEC championship for LSU. People still remember wondering what on Earth was wrong with LSU that night.

But people can start forgetting Monday night.

Once again, the Tigers have, right there in front of them, the opportunity at history. They have the opportunity to be considered among the greats of all time.

If not the greatest.

With a win, LSU will have defeated seven top-10 teams this season. Seven. Let that sink in. Almost half of their fifteen victories will have been over the elitest of the elite.

(6) LSU 45     (9) Texas 38

(5) LSU 42     (7) Florida 28

(2) LSU 23     (9) Auburn 20

(1) LSU 46     (2) Alabama 41  

(1) LSU 37     (4) Georgia 10

(1) LSU 63     (4) Oklahoma 28

This never happens.

Even before the Georgia game, the Tigers had become the first team in the modern football era to have wins over five top-10 teams in the same regular season.

The team boasts the Biletnikoff Award winner, the Thorpe Award winner, the Maxwell Award winner, the Davey O’Brien Award winner, the Walter Camp Player of the Year, the Coach of the Year, and of course, the Heisman Trophy winner.

Now, after its 63-28 dismantling of Oklahoma in the semifinals, with six top-10 wins and a wagon-load of individual awards accumulated already, the question is not at all out of the realm of possibility:

Would an LSU victory Monday night, over the defending national champions on a 29-game winning streak themselves, cement the 2019 Tigers as the greatest college football team of all time?

Tiger fans would say yes. They would say a resounding yes that would echo all the way back to January 9, 2011, all the way 350 miles north to Tuscaloosa.

So here it is, Tigers. Your one shot at greatness. Your one shot at erasing another kind of history, the one no one wants to be a part of.

It is your one shot at being remembered for the right reasons this time.

Finish the job.

Finish what you started.

And sit back and watch history tell the tale.