By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL/Designated Writers

You can say what you want about the state of sports in Shreveport-Bossier City, but days like Saturday don’t come along too often. Major college events were held on both sides of the Red River and both involved a team ranked in the Top 20 of their respective sports.

Save yourself the trouble of looking it up and just assume it hasn’t happened too often. Or go with “never” and dare someone to call you on it.

One game featured two teams that came from a combined 1,838 miles away and in the the other, the two came from only 309 total miles away.

Interestingly, one game started almost exactly when the other one ended.

One was a post-season football bowl game, the other was a non-conference basketball game. Both games were nationally televised. Both were highly competitive and well played.

There was a former national champion playing a school that didn’t even have a team five years ago.

And there was a flagship university of the state against a school that likes to think it is the home team of North Louisiana, playing in a location that is often the intersection of divided loyalties.

This was something special, all right. The only thing more special was being able to see them both.

These days, you just assume the weather is going to be awful for the Independence Bowl. It’s almost a tradition by now. To be honest, the Snow Bowl of 2000 (Mississippi State vs. Texas A&M) wouldn’t even make the Top 5 for most miserable conditions in the 45 years of this game.

That Top 5 is going to have to be re-organized after Saturday.

Of course, it didn’t have to be this way. For the three days leading up to the game, the temperatures reached 80 degrees. But a few thousand residents of area code 318 took one look at their weather app mid-week and saw what tradition already knew – rain, cold and wind on Saturday. If you didn’t know that was the date of the Independence Bowl before then, you did now.

Shreveport stayed home. Which meant that the vast majority of those who showed up were fans of Brigham Young and UAB.

If there’s a theme that rings true every year, it’s that the Independence Bowl is improperly named. Nice idea in 1976 with the whole Bicentennial thing going on, but it has long been established that “hospitality” is the key concept at work here.

Once again – as seems to happen every year – both coaches brought it up (relatively unprompted) in the post-game media conference. Winning coach Bill Clark of UAB went on and on about how he and his team were treated that he might as well been writing a referral letter. “It was just as good as it could be,” he said and then made sure he thanked the police escorts.

So was the game, at least for his team. UAB came in at 8-4 and was a touchdown underdog but never flinched. The Blazers got out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter and it was game on with the 13^th-ranked Cougars. Even after BYU took a 28-24 lead early in the fourth quarter, UAB went on a 15-play, 75-yard drive for a score. Faced with fourth-and-7 from the BYU 14, Clark told his kicker to take a seat and went for it.

It look like he also told the BYU defender the same thing as UAB quarterback Dylan Hopkins found Trea Shropshire for an amazingly uncontested touchdown pass to give the Blazers what would prove to be the winning points.

It should be pointed out that UAB iced the game late in the fourth quarter when the Blazers “recovered” a “fumble” after a “completed pass.” Nobody needed to turn out the lights in the replay booth because apparently, they were already out.

Maybe those guys were also in a hurry to get across the Red River.

If you walked into Brookshire Grocery Arena (aka “The Sack”) at any point after the LSU-Louisiana Tech basketball game had settled in, you couldn’t help but wonder one thing – why can’t this happen more often?

Maybe not LSU vs. Tech – though that would be nice and it seems like those two programs have a very healthy relationship with each other – but why not Tech vs. another major program or LSU driving up to play a decent non-conference game? It’s college basketball, so scheduling can take place with about two phone calls.

LSU came in with a 10-0 record and a No. 19 ranking while Tech was 8-2 and its only two losses coming to members of the SEC and ACC. Unlike what took place at Independence Stadium, this was a game with high local fan interest.

Tech was the home team – the Bulldogs had the cheerleaders and the white uniforms – but the crowd slightly favored the Tigers. However what was interesting was that the crowd was mostly cross sections of Tech and LSU fans. There was as much blue and red in Section 109 as there was purple and gold.

If you wanted to watch a really good December college basketball game, this one did not disappoint. There were five lead changes in the second half and the game was tied seven times. The Bulldogs dominated the first half, scoring the first 11 points of the game, and led by eight at halftime. But it was a matter of time before LSU’s pressure and height began to take its toll on Tech.

“Our pressure has a cumulative effect on you,” said LSU coach Will Wade. “It may not get you early, but we do tend to wear you down. We got to their legs a little bit in the second half.”

Tech was beginning to struggle to score when Kenneth Lofton, Jr. had to come out with four fouls. After that, the Bulldogs really struggled and seemed lost as to what to do to try to score. They shot just 25.9 percent in the second half and scored only two points in the final 7:30 of the game.

“We emptied the tank,” said Tech coach Eric Konkol.

Meanwhile, LSU sophomore Tari Eason scored 10 straight points and was the best player on the floor, finishing with 21 points and eight rebounds. When Eason was in the game, LSU outscored Tech by 21 points.

Tech led for almost 29 minutes of the 40-minute game. “I was proud of our guys,” Wade said. “We’re never out of it. It takes us awhile to get our footing.”

“I think (the atmosphere) was fantastic,” Konkol said. “It gives people something to watch that is of interest to them. Unfortunately, we just fell a little bit short.”

“I thought the environment was tremendous,” Wade said. “Tech had a great crowd, we had a great crowd. I didn’t know what to expect from the arena but I was very surprised in a good way. I thought it was a great night.”

By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL/Designated Writers

He will walk up to the booth Saturday at Independence Stadium, buy his ticket – likely on the home side, just below the press box – and spend the next few hours with thousands of other people watching the Independence Bowl game between Brigham Young and Alabama-Birmingham. He will blend into the masses in his typically unassuming way.

But Rusty George will be unlike just about everybody else in the stadium.

When they kick off the 45^th Independence Bowl, it will be the 45^th time George has seen the annual game begin. That’s right, he’s seen them all.

“I can’t prove it, but there’s no reason to doubt me,” he says. “It’s something I’m proud of, but it’s not really worth anything. Everybody who knows me knows that I say it every year. And I’ll be there for this one.”

It would be nice if he had a ticket stub or a program from every game.

Sorry.

About all he has to show for it is a Tulsa pennant from the inaugural game against McNeese State in 1976.

While there may be other people who have been to all 45 – bowl officials, media members, etc. – George may be the only person who has gone strictly as a fan. And to those who know him, it is no surprise.

“He’s the ultimate local sports enthusiast,” says Bubba Cordaro, who has known George for more than 40 years. “He’s supports it all. He finds a way to support everything in every way. As long as something is going on, he will support it.”

George may very well be the #1 sports fan in Shreveport-Bossier City. It’s almost more surprising when you don’t see him at a local sporting event. It should come as no surprise that George will attempt to go to both the Independence Bowl AND the Louisiana Tech-LSU basketball game that night.

“I’ve done my fair share,” he says. “I do what I can to support local sports.”

That’s 45 years of never being sick on game day. Forty-five years of never being out of town. Forty-five years of always being interested, no matter who was playing in the game. “I’ve always planned on going,” George says. “I’ve never thought about missing it.”

Now 72, George began going to Independence Bowls because he was a Tech graduate and the bowl had a tie-in with the Southland Conference at that time. After the first year, the Bulldogs then played in the next two games and George has just kept going ever since. “I figured it was just something to do,” he says.

“There’s not much more for us to do anymore. (Minor league) baseball is gone. Centenary still has basketball but it’s not what it used to be. Horse racing isn’t what it used to be at Louisiana Downs. The bowl is the one thing that’s still hanging on and I’m glad it’s still here.”

Like many people, he points to the Notre Dame-LSU game in 1997 as being the most memorable, but George mentions an early game in bowl history as being significant. In 1979, Syracuse took on McNeese and marked the first time a former national champion would appear in the Independence Bowl.

“When Syracuse came here, for a some reason it just gave it a little more of a big-time feel about the game,” George said. “I don’t know if was their band or their tradition, but things started to change.”

In typical local sports historian form, George is quick to note that when BYU tees it up against UAB, it will be the 21^st team that has won a national championship to play in the Independence Bowl.

He’s attended the game with different groups and sat in different places and does admit to not always being there when the final horn sounds.

“I may not have sat through every minute of every game, but I’ve certainly been there for the start of every one of them,” George says. “I usually sit on the home side, not too far down from the press box. I’ve sat in both end zones and on both sides. I always end up moving at least once, depending on how the game is going.”

The 1997 game was special for George not only because it was Notre Dame and LSU. He attended that game with his father Walter. “I believe that was the last football game he ever saw in person,” he says.

In the least shocking news of the day, George has no plans to end the streak. “I’ll probably keep going as long as I am physically able at this stage of the game,” he says “I sort of joke about it … when I write my obituary, I may lead off with ‘Well, it looks like I’m going to miss my first Independence Bowl.’ ”