Best day ever has a sequel

LSU coach Les Miles and quarterback Matt Flynn celebrated the Tigers' 38-24 win over Ohio State in the BCS national championship game tonight in New Orleans. I was there inside the Superdome four years ago when LSU won it's first national title since 1958.
This time around, I watched the game with Rex here in San Diego at Kristy's MVP, a sports bar that servers as home to the local chapter of the LSU Alumni Association.

Nearly every seat in the building was occupied when I arrived about two hours before kickoff. By the time the game started, at least 250 fans were packed into the bar.

Kristy's is owned by a couple who became LSU fans while working in network TV sports broadcasting and traveling to Baton Rouge for various college games.

The alumni group's leaders, who organize an annual crawfish boil here in San Diego that feeds about 3,000, deep-fried three turkeys and made a huge pot of jambalaya. The food and familiar accents made it feel a little bit like Bayou Country.
That's the jambalaya on the left and a frying turkey on the right.

Here's Kristy, the bar co-owner and namesake, showing off her sexy tiger top and doing a victory dance with another fan late in the fourth quarter of the game.

Earlier in the night Kristy engaged in her fairly frequent ritual of spanking the rears of many of her patrons with a long, thick, heavy wooden paddle. Unfortunately, I can't shed light on the origins of this peculiar and somewhat troubling tradition, but I can relay that there are some at Kristy's who consider it an honor to find themselves on the receiving end of the sportive proprietress' swings.
Flynn gives some love to the BCS crystal trophy after the game. Check out Rex's take on the game night here.

Some fun facts about tonight's game:
- LSU became the first school to win two BCS championships in the game's 10-year history.
- Ohio became the third team to loose two BCS championship games, sharing that dubious honor with Oklahoma and Florida State.
- The Southeastern Conference has won four BCS championships. Only one other conference, the Big 10, with two titles, has won more than one.
- The SEC now has five head coaches who have won national titles - Miles, Nick Saban who won at LSU, Steve Spurrier who won at Florida, Urban Meyer who won at Florida and Phil Fulmer who won at Tennessee.
- Ohio State has lost nine consecutive bowl games (and counting) to SEC opponents.
- The SEC finished the season with five teams ranked in the AP top 15. The Big 12 had four teams; the ACC had two; and the Big 10, PAC 10, Big East and Mountain West each had one.
- In both of LSU's BCS victories, the Tigers were led by quarterbacks named Matt - Flynn in 2008 and Mauck in 2003.
- LSU finished the season with seven wins over teams ranked in the top 20, including three top 10 teams, and it was the third season in a row that the Tigers won at least 11 games.
- In both of its BCS championship games, LSU defeated teams from states that start with an "O." (Should we expect a national championship battle with Oregon in the future?)
- LSU (12-2) became the second college team to win a national title with two losses. The first was Minnesota (8-2), which split the 1959 national title with Syracuse. LSU actually finished the 1935 season 9-2 and was named national champion by some pollster called Williamson, but the title isn't officially recognized by the Tigers much less anyone else.
- The win earned LSU its 44th national sports championship of any kind.
- All three of LSU's football national championships have been capped by wins in New Orleans, with the first coming in 1958 after the Tigers won the Sugar Bowl.
- The game drew 79,651, the biggest crowd ever to pack into the Superdome but still far fewer than the 92,000-plus who cram Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge for most LSU home games.