Growing up, nobody gave a shit about the Saints (that has changed after they started to not suck and long after I moved off) and everyone was obsessed with LSU. I grew up on the border of Mississippi, and I would have friends from there who would pick LSU over Ol Miss and Mississippi State. The year I went to LSU was fun (maybe too much fun) and I will always have a soft spot in my heart and affinity towards that institution.
I never went to a football game, but trust me when i say, the campus would turn INSANE around game time. The day before the game there would be hundreds or thousands of RVs with people grilling and getting drunk. I wish I would have given a shit about football back then (and now I again do not give a crap, so I guess it is full circle) as I heard they are a lot of fun, and I want to go to one on one of my trips back.