There are two kinds of crystal balls in college football: the much-promulgated variety at the beginning of the year and the more distinct, elusive one at the end. Like so:

One of them means, literally, nothing; it doesn't physically exist and exerts little to no bearing on reality. The other means everything, and each annual incarnation of its grandeur is created equal. For LSU, it means everything. In 2003, the crystal ball is all that separated the Tigers from poll champion USC, and last year was one of two pieces of hardware (the SEC championship trophy being the other) that distinguished the mighty 2007 edition from its two-loss, bowl-winning predecessors in 2005 and 2006. In terms of onfield performance, legions of Les Miles doubters were essentially right when they pegged his from-the-gut style as one with an inherent "loss margin of around two a year" - if his twice-beaten teams in 2005 and 2006 were something less than the full realization of their overwhelming talent, as frequently suggested, what was his twice-beaten team in 2007? An outfit that didn't face rolling Georgia in the conference championship (2005) or play alongside another team that locked down the division title with a 7-0 conference start (2006) and that did get a wildly improbable combination of breaks (Missouri and West Virginia losing, to Pitt) on the final Saturday of the regular season. Under the unprecedented circumstances, it was also the first two-loss team in history to compete for a mythical national championship in a bowl game - a fate considered borderline impossible as late as the afternoon of the SEC Championship, when Miles went off on the media - circumstance from which at least 32 undefeated or once-beaten teams from the SEC, Big Ten, Big Eight/Twelve, Pac Ten, ACC and Big East since the SEC split into two divisions in 1992 did not benefit (but presumably would have, if top-ranked teams  had fallen at such an alarming rate in those years).

For LSU, the crystal ball erases the circumstantial; it is, in and of itself, complete validation.

Take the Baton Rouge Advocate's Scott Rabalais, for example, in a two-week-old column titled, "No matter what, LSU is still No. 1," and in today's column about the fear LSU strikes in its opponents. Hard to write about a twice-beaten Peach Bowl champion. Hard to write about a twice-beaten team that finished second in its division. But a twice-beaten team that brought home the crystal ball? Baby, let the river flow:

What is the difference between "victory," on a conventional level, and "conquering," removing the heart, so as to induce fear? A team that was outgained overall and held to its season low in total offense could generally be said to have won the game by some combination of strategy, execution and a bounce (or dropped pass, or roughing the punter) or two, but Rabalais insists here the Tigers "waxed" the Buckeyes as an inevitable result of their irresistable essence. Is there a standard, or is it, like, two plays he happens to remember that align with his narrative of overwhelming, inherently fearsome Tiger force?
A blocked kick and a big hit: behold the dominance of these two snaps and quake in fear of your conquerers, conference that has produced zero repeat champions in the last nine seasons. Heed not the thousands of plays that make up the whole, do not contemplate that whole's place in history, ignore similarly "dominant" images by Ohio State (I can think of three off the top of my head, the obvious one by Chris Wells and a couple others by Vernon Gholston, which do not count) and especially those made by Arkansas and Kentucky, or any others that fail to align with the omnipotent wisdom of the result. There is only the result, and the result is not simple victory but dominance.

Rabalais and his less balance-restrained LSU partisans get to say these things because LSU has the crystal ball (indeed, it earned the crystal ball), and the crystal ball is a wrecking ball of doubt, an obliterator of nuance. It carries in its finely-honed ridges the embodiment of ultimate truth, "bragging rights," and silences haters on sight. The ends rout the means. The crystal ball is carte blanche to draft any narrative you please. I guess that's what it means to be Number 1.