LSU Celebrations During Win Over Alabama Set off Seismograph

Tigers fans quite literally shook the ground in Death Valley at the end of the overtime thriller.

LSU pulled off an earth-shaking win over Alabama in Baton Rouge over the weekend, outlasting the Crimson Tide in an overtime thriller to gain the upper hand in the SEC West. 

No, seriously. The Earth shook in the closing stages of LSU’s upset victory on Saturday evening in Death Valley. 

According to measurements taken by LSU College of Science seismograph, multiple celebrations by the crowd in Tiger Stadium registered on the Richter scale. The first peak came on Jayden Daniels’s 25-yard scramble to the end zone on LSU’s first offensive play of overtime, which pulled the Tigers to within one point of Alabama. 

The second spike came three minutes later, when LSU scored a two-point conversion to seal the 32–31 victory. 

Saturday wasn’t the first time LSU fans generated seismic activity during a game. The weekend’s event took place 34 years after the aptly named “Earthquake Game,” when Tigers fans erupted following a late touchdown pass that led to a 7–6 upset of No. 4 Auburn on Oct. 8, 1988.

Saturday’s seismic event eventually was followed by fans’ storming of the field, which naturally came at a cost. The SEC fined LSU $250,000 for the action, marking the second time this season that the school was punished due to “a violation of the league’s access to competition area policy.”

Despite the cost of Saturday night’s jubilations, LSU surely wouldn’t have wanted the weekend to go any other way. The win sent the Tigers up eight spots in the AP Poll to No. 7 and put them in the driver’s seat in the SEC West.

More Extra Mustard:

LSU Country: LSU-Alabama Showdown One of the Hottest Tickets in College Football 

For more LSU coverage go to LSU Country.


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Zach Koons
ZACH KOONS

Zach Koons is a programming editor at Sports Illustrated who frequently writes about Formula One. He joined SI as a breaking/trending news writer in February 2022 before joining the programming team in 2023. Koons previously worked at The Spun and interned for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He currently hosts the "Bleav in Northwestern" podcast and received a bachelor's in journalism from Northwestern University.