It’s a rivalry, and a very heated one, so the team that’s supposed to win doesn’t always win, and that’s the very beauty of really everything when Alabama faces LSU on the first Saturday in November.

Sometimes, it’s better to expect the unexpected than to hang your hat on what’s supposed to happen.

Because what you, Tommy from Tuscaloosa and Benson from Baton Rouge think about a topic or the very essence of the Crimson Tide and Tigers doesn’t always compute.

When it comes to LSU vs. Alabama — a Deep South grudge match that goes back to 1895, a deeply serious rivalry of respect and hatred and general college football excellence — really anything goes.

Anything can happen. You’re taught to expect the unexpected, to throw away the records and all those delicious old sayings that are only attached to something special like the Crimson Tide-Tigers annual tussle.

This Saturday night at venerable Tiger Stadium, the noise meter will make it sound like an earthquake (like the 1988 LSU-Auburn game), and it won’t much matter that Bama is a near-2-touchdown favorite over a resurgent LSU team.

The Tide’s No. 6 ranking in the AP poll won’t mean a hill of beans, nor will the Tigers’ No. 15 ranking, and 7-1 (Bama’s record) and 6-2 (LSU’s mark) will make for solid accessories to the scorebox on the TV but really won’t mean much at the end of the night.

It’ll be another all-out, all-time fight to the finish, for the 87th time ever, and you might just get another legendary upset victory by LSU to add to an already healthy list of shockers in this rivalry.

And with upsets on our brain, with that queasy feeling of the unexpected in our fragile hearts, we give you the top 10 upsets in the history of LSU-Alabama. These games involved a lower-ranked or unranked team upsetting the higher-ranked team. (Or, in one notable case, a barely higher-ranked team winning on the road as an underdog in Vegas.)

And in the spirit of the totally unexpected, we’re going to put these 10 dates when the improbable happened, shake them up in our fictional little time capsule and present them in inverse order, with the top upset going last.

We figure it would come off more appropriately improbable and dramatic that way. So here it goes:

10. Sept. 29, 1951 — LSU 13, No. 9 Alabama 7

The Tide came in ranked 9th and the Tigers didn’t have a number next to their name, but that didn’t matter when LSU pranced into Ladd Stadium in Mobile and stung Bama with a defeat that sent the Tide spiraling to four straight losses.

Some 32,169 fans watched in horror (or the ones who hadn’t made the trip from Louisiana did) as an eventual 5-6 Crimson Tide team stumbled its way around offensively all day. Bama scored its 1 and only touchdown in the 3rd quarter on Bobby Marlow’s 1-yard touchdown run. But LSU had all the answers that day in Mobile as Leroy Labat scored the game-winning touchdown on an 18-yard run later in the 3rd.

It was a stunner to open conference play for both teams, and while the upset started to deep-6 Bama’s season it helped spark LSU to an unlikely 7-3-1 campaign under 4th-year head coach Gaynell Tinsley.

9. Sept. 26, 1953 — LSU 7, No. 5 Alabama 7

Just 2 autumns later, right back in Mobile, it all sort of happened again, except that Bama was ranked 5th this time, not 9th, and the game ended in a tie, not an LSU victory. Still, on this day a tie was mighty delicious for the Tigers, it wasn’t bland, and it wasn’t like kissing your sister, and it wasn’t a sign that going back to the drawing board was needed.

None of those things. Instead, a “boring” 7-7 tie for Tinsley’s team was anything but. It was riveting, and it was one of the highlights in a 5-3-3 campaign that included 3 straight losses later in the season but ended with 2 straight wins over Arkansas and Tulane.

It was also a stunner that day because Bama didn’t lose an SEC game that season. Harold Drew’s Tide actually tied 3 times in conference play that season, but they finished atop the conference at 4-0-3 and eventually lost to Rice in the Cotton Bowl to finish things out.

But that September day against its old rival was a stumbling block for Bama. Both TDs in the tie were scored in the 1st quarter, and then not much happened for the rest of the day in Mobile, which was just fine for the Tigers.

8. Nov. 9, 1968 — Alabama 16, No. 20 LSU 7

We emerge out of the 1950s to find a stunner of the crimson-colored kind in Bear Bryant’s 11th season. LSU was ranked 20th that cool afternoon before a capacity crowd at Legion Field in Birmingham, when the unranked Tide smothered the Tigers, holding them to a little old touchdown.

LSU scored its only points of the day in the 3rd quarter on a 15-yard Kenny Newfield touchdown run, but Bama responded with 10 unanswered points on a 29-yard field goal by Mike Dean in the 3rd quarter and a 16-yard TD pass from Scott Hunter to Donnie Sutton in the 4th period.

Bryant’s Tide would end up losing the Gator Bowl to Missouri to end that season, but the upset of LSU came smack in the middle of a 5-game win streak that helped them go 8-3 that year. Meanwhile, the Tigers finished with the exact same record as the Tide, going 8-3 overall and 4-2-0 in the SEC. But Bama was listed ahead of LSU in the final standings because of what the Tide did to the Tigers on that shocking day in Birmingham.

7. Nov. 6, 1982 — No. 11 LSU 20, No. 8 Alabama 10

Fast-forward a few decades to The Bear’s final season in Tuscaloosa, when the Tigers let out over a decade’s worth of frustration by slaying the dragon after 11 straight losses to Bama.

It wasn’t a complete stunner that day, we realize that, because LSU was ranked 11th and Bama was slightly ahead in the poll at No. 8. Still, when big brother beats you so many times in a row, from the early ’70s on, it’s always a shocker when The Streak finally ends, and it finally ended at Legion Field for the eventual Liberty Bowl champion Crimson Tide.

For the upstart Tigers, it kept them undefeated that season until a 1-3 close to the year put a little damper on things. Still, LSU went 8-3-1 and finished 2nd in the SEC after so many years of being Alabama’s whipping boy.

Not in 1982. The Tigers had finally had enough of all the losing and said goodbye to The Bear in the most pleasant of fashions.

6. Nov. 8, 1986 — No. 18 LSU 14, No. 6 Alabama 10

Four years later, the Tigers pulled another Legion Field stunner, taking down the Tide in an SEC defensive struggle that was typical of its day.

LSU coach Bill Arnsparger’s 3rd season would be a golden one, when the Tigers captured the SEC crown, and one of the crown jewels of that magical ride was smothering their hated SEC rivals and only needing 14 2nd-quarter points to get by that day.

The Crimson Tide went 10-3 that year under Ray Perkins and won the Sun Bowl, but in primetime, on national TV in early November against the Tigers, they could get little going against Arnsparger’s defense and lost for the 3rd time in 5 years in the rivalry.

5. Nov. 7, 1987 — No. 13 Alabama 22, No. 5 LSU 10

The very next fall, the proverbial shoe was on the other foot, or in this case that horrible, shocking feeling of losing a game you didn’t think you would was all on the 5th-ranked Tigers, who only managed 10 points against the 13th-ranked Tide at Tiger Stadium.

The victory was particularly sweet for Bama because it was LSU’s only defeat of 1987 under 1st-year head coach Mike Archer. The Tigers had tied Ohio State earlier in the season, but the loss to the Tide ended LSU’s hopes of something really special during an otherwise impressive first go-around for the youthful Archer.

LSU rebounded from the loss to Bama with 3 wins to end the season, including a Gator Bowl victory over South Carolina. But the Tide got the last laugh that fall in an otherwise nondescript 7-5 campaign under their own 1st-year head coach, Bill Curry. Bama lost its final 3 games after that primetime win in Baton Rouge on national TV, and that would have to be good enough for the fan base in Curry’s opening season.

4. Nov. 6, 1993 — LSU 17, No. 5 Alabama 13

Six years later, that unforgiving pendulum of upsets swung the other way, and the unranked Tigers had all the fun in another SEC defensive struggle at Bryant-Denny Stadium. This time, it was the 5th-ranked Crimson Tide, the defending national champions no less, who couldn’t get enough going and succumbed to the nature of this grand rivalry.

LSU didn’t do much of anything that year in Curley Hallman’s 3rd season in Baton Rouge, going 5-6 overall and 3-5 in the SEC. But it had just enough defense that day in Tuscaloosa to trip up the Tide’s dreams of a repeat national crown. Bama still hadn’t lost yet that year. It had tied Tennessee 3 weeks earlier but was humming along without a loss until the Tigers stuffed Gene Stallings’ crew.

Sure, Bama still won the SEC West. But it lost in the SEC Championship Game to Florida and finished with 3 losses in its final 5 games, a disappointing stretch that began with that afternoon clunker at Bryant-Denny. The Tide never recovered, and the very average Tigers had the satisfaction of knowing that they tripped up Bama’s chances of replicating the magic of 1992.

3. Nov. 6, 2010 — No. 12 LSU 24, No. 5 Alabama 21

Alabama and LSU have met 29 times when both were ranked. No. 30 will come Saturday night. This game in 2010 was one of the many monumental meetings between the rivals when both were ranked, and Les Miles’ 12th-ranked Tigers got the better of Nick Saban’s 5th-ranked Tide in a Tiger Stadium slugfest on CBS.

Both teams were really good in 2010. The Tigers would finish 11-2 overall and win the Cotton Bowl over Texas A&M. The Tide went 10-3 under Saban in the only season during a 4-year run when Bama didn’t win the national championship (they won it all in 2009, 2011 and 2012). That day in Baton Rouge was a Miles-Saban Classic, and there was a little too much Stevan Ridley that day for Bama to overcome.

Meanwhile, quarterback Greg McElroy couldn’t produce enough magic, and the dreaded 2nd loss for the Crimson Tide meant there would be no repeat championship in Tuscaloosa. The title glory would have to wait another fall to resume.

2. Nov. 7, 2015 — No. 7 Alabama 30, No. 4 LSU 16

Speaking of national championship glory, the 7th-ranked Crimson Tide were determined to get back to the promised land, and the 4th-ranked Tigers were in the way in primetime at Bryant-Denny. So Saban’s team gently moved LSU aside that night, putting up 30 points in a nationally televised domination of its fierce rivals.

It was the 5th straight win in the series for Bama, which shook off an early-season loss to Ole Miss that year and won out to claim its 4th national championship of the Saban era in Tuscaloosa.

Alabama’s defense also showed up big-time that night, creating 7 plays of negative yardage by LSU in the game, including 7 tackles for loss and 2 quarterback sacks. The Tide also held the Tigers to 182 total yards. They held LSU star Leonard Fournette to 31 yards on 19 carries.

Meanwhile, Bama spoiled LSU’s own big dreams that year, handing the Tigers their 1st loss after a 7-0 start. LSU would lose its next 2 games after falling in Tuscaloosa and settle for a “just OK” 9-3 season. It had its hated rivals to thank for that.

1. Nov. 9, 2019 — No. 1 LSU 46, No. 2 Alabama 41

LSU and Joe Burrow Magic get the last word in our Upset List. And, yes, it qualifies because, well, Vegas said so. Oddsmakers opened by favoring Alabama by nearly a touchdown and still had the Tide at a 4.5-point favorite at kickoff.

So even though the 2019 Game of the Century was a No. 1 vs. No. 2 blood war between these ancient rivals, so both teams were crazy good, and even though the Tigers were the higher-ranked team, the game was at Bryant-Denny, so this qualifies as an upset.

It also makes its way to the top of our list because, after so many years of Alabama owning LSU, after so many Crimson Tide national titles, it was finally LSU’s time, and Burrow made it so in an epic scoring duel in Tuscaloosa. The Tigers finally ended the Tide’s reign in the rivalry, finally beat Saban after losing to him 8 straight times, and finally were on the way to their own national championship, which they would win a few months later in New Orleans.

LSU slayed The Dragon in grand fashion, slicing and dicing Saban’s defense for 46 points led by Burrow. The 46 points were the most ever scored on Alabama at Bryant-Denny in a regulation game. Fittingly, that piece of history now belonged to Burrow, who helped the Tigers pile up 559 yards of total offense. Burrow passed for 393 yards and 3 touchdowns during a season when he would capture the Heisman Trophy along with that national championship.

While the Tigers went on to ultimate glory under Ed Orgeron that season, the Tide stumbled in the Iron Bowl 3 weeks later and finished 11-2.

It was LSU’s time to lift some hardware while Bama watched. The 1st Saturday in November was a real rivalry again, because LSU was great again, at least for one autumn.

Now we’re here again. It won’t be No. 1 vs. No. 2, but the 2022 matchup will pit ranked teams looking to forge their way to Atlanta. If Bama prevails, well, the Tide were supposed to win, anyway. But if the Tigers pull it off, it’ll go down on the Upset List, and Baton Rouge will be in party mode until well after the break of dawn Sunday.

It’ll be the beauty of college football. It’ll be another unlikely chapter of LSU-Alabama, just like the shocking entries on our list.