Twenty years ago tonight

Apropos of Louisiana State defeating Alabama last weekend and becoming the #1 team the college football playoff rankings, it's interesting to note that, exactly twenty years ago tonight, something rather improbable happened: the Houston Cougars defeated the LSU Tigers at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge.

On this day in 1999, Kim Helton and the Houston Cougars beat LSU at Tiger Stadium, 20-7. The win assured UH of their second winning season in Helton’s 7 years. 

LSU drove 84 yards for a touchdown on their opening possesssion. Rondell Mealey finished it off with a 34-yard TD run. It was 7-0 Tigers and the sleepy, sparse crowd started to wake up. 

But that would be all of LSU’s excitement for the night: for the rest of the game, the Cougars kept the LSU rushing attack in check: after the first series, LSU ran for -12 yards total. UH dared LSU starting QB Josh Booty to throw it while keeping everything in front of them. 

Jason McKinley led the Cougar offense on three-straight scoring drives in the first half – perhaps the best sequence of the ’99 season (and maybe the entire Helton regime). In those three drives, McKinley went 9/11 for 117 yards and a score.

The Cougars would continue to stymie the Tiger defense after halftime - LSU would end up turning the ball over four times in the second half, including interceptions on their final three drives - to hold on for the victory.

While this sounds impressive - and to be sure, it is notable any time another team, especially from out of conference, beats the Tigers in "Death Valley" - this game really wasn't the shocker it at first appears to have been. For one thing, LSU was simply not good that year; they had lost seven games in a row coming into the Houston game and ended the season with a 3-8 record. The loss to Houston, in fact, was the final straw for embattled LSU head coach Gerry DiNardo.

In the locker room after the game, Gerry DiNardo was fired by LSU as the Tigers turned their sights to Nick Saban. Kim Helton would last 8 more days as the UH head coach before being dismissed by Chet Gladchuk.

Indeed, not even a win over LSU in Baton Rouge could save Kim Helton's job. Although the Coogs won seven games that season, none of those wins came against teams with a winning record and the schedule included a particularly demoralizing loss to 5-6 UAB (playing their first season as a member of Conference USA). The Cougars did not go to a bowl that season; Chet Gladchuk probably made up his mind to fire Helton well before the LSU game occurred.

They say that Saturday nights at Tiger Stadium are some of the most magical in college football. I'm not sure you could consider what happened on November 13, 1999 to be "magic," but it was definitely extraordinary.

(For another notable college football game whose 20th anniversary is approaching, take a moment to read this oral history of the November 1999 "bonfire game" between Texas and Texas A&M at Kyle Field. I was at that game - I was still technically enrolled at UT at the time - and it was indeed very emotional. I still remember it being so quiet in the stadium when the Aggie Marching Band silently walked off the field at the end of halftime that you could hear the clinking of the spurs on the seniors' boots from the upper deck. I still get the chills when I think about it.)