For whatever reason, Alabama always has played well in Death Valley

The year was 1987 and Alabama was getting ready for its first trip to LSU under new coach Bill Curry. LSU was undefeated (7-0-1) and ranked No. 5. Alabama was 6-2 and ranked No. 15.

“Nobody outside the state of Alabama gave us a chance to win,” Curry says.

During a team meeting several days before the game, then-defensive coordinator Don Lindsey was giving an impassioned speech about what that Saturday night in Baton Rouge would be like for the Alabama team.

“Don was really going on about how loud it was going to be,” says Curry, who also was a coach at Georgia Tech, Kentucky and Georgia State. “He talked about all those Cajuns and how they would back their team. He talked about how hard the…