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Watch LSU play an SEC team in Tiger Stadium at night. Show up at least 6 hours before the game starts and walk around the campus. This will give you some perspective. The energy in Tiger Stadium is palpable during a big game. At night, it's even better.

Maybe I can help illustrate it for the noob. I married an LSU graduate, and she took me to my first LSU game at Death Valley in 2000. It was against Houston. Noncon loser from a loser conference. We spent the night at the home of her college roommate and her husband. Kickoff is at 7:00pm on Saturday. We wake up at 8:00am that morning and it's raining sideways. A true frog-strangler. I looked at our friend Mike and said, "Well, guess we're not tailgating today." He looked at me like I'd punched his mom in the gut and said, "Like hell we're not tailgating. Get dressed." A half hour later we were at Winn-Dixie with a full cart of liquor. By 9:30 we were at the tailgate next to the Indian mounds. There were two tents bungeed together, a pickup backed into one side of one of the tents with a large tv and satellite dish so we could watch Gameday.

About 11:00, the moms of the folks at our tailgate started showing up in their Lincoln Town Cars, rolling down the windows and handing out dishes and pots of the best food on the planet. Mind you, still raining sideways. Nobody cared. We were alternating between hitting off the keg and swilling the beam.

Some time mid-afternoon the rain did finally stop. Not long after that, everyone started leaving their tents and lining up along the street. At that point, in the distance you see the most gorgeous wemmenz on the planet - Golden Girls - leading the Tiger band toward the stadium. Now...I'm partial to my Razorbacks and everything about them....but even I have to tip my cap at the Golden Girls. The band marches by, and there's so many of them, it seems to take forever.

By then, you go into the stadium, and remember, this is just Houston they were playing. Not anyone important. Student section was full a couple hours before kickoff. Stadium was full well before kickoff as well - even on a lousy weather day. Then the band takes the field and hits the first notes of "Hold That Tiger." As a non-LSU fan, and a non-alum, that gave me chills. The crowd responds every time they hit those notes with a noise I'd not ever heard. The PA announcer says, (I have to paraphrase because I can't remember exactly), "The sun has set and it is now NIGHT TIME IN DEATH VALLEY." And the crowd goes berserk once again.

For the next 3 hours, it is a delicate balancing act of trying to keep the buzz going while still maintaining just enough of your wits to follow the game.

After the game I went back to our tailgate spot, got in the car and prepared for the ride back to our friends' house. They laughed at me. The final whistle does NOT mean the end of the day. Tailgate time was still young. The end of the game means you go back to the tailgate, drink till the keg floats, listen to the postgame on the radio, and "wait for traffic to clear."

That's how LSU does it. That's how most SEC teams do it. If that's not what you're doing, then you don't know jack about SEC culture.