I can only imagine what LSU felt in 2011 when they finally slayed the giant only to face them again in the BCS championship. And then losing as badly as they did. Or Georgia a few years later when they were stuffing Hurts and then Tua came in and almost single handedly won them the game.
Well it sucked, but just as a point of clarification, LSU did not "finally slay the giant" in 2011, as LSU had won the previous year also and at that time Miles' LSU was 3-2 vs. Saban's Alabama. When Alabama won the rematch they pulled back even to 3-3 vs. LSU. LSU remained highly competitive in the games for a while, with a super-near misses in 2012 and 2014 (fantastic games, although we came on out the wrong end), 2014 arguably being lost on a blown call. 2013 was also a great game, 7 pt difference going into the 4th quarter with LSU having given away 10 pts in the game, so hypothetically had played well enough to be up by 3....but no question Alabama dominated the 4th quarter with superior depth, so that one wasn't as close as others. 2016 was sort of?? competitive, at least from the scoreboard (10-0), although IMO the Tigers were never in danger of winning that game as in other years. It's been 2017 and on that LSU was no longer competitive with Alabama, excepting 2019, which due to the record of the previous decade was much more "slaying the giant" than 2011 was.
The thing that stands out in my minds 10 years later about the 2011 season is that the perception of both games is skewed. By both fanbases and outsiders alike. Based on multiple lines of evidence, I have always maintained that those were two great teams that could have a variety of outcomes the more they played, BUT I never could get LSU fans to admit that the regular season game could've gone either way b/c it was simply a great game between two-well matched teams that LSU just happened to win....i.e., play that game 10 times and you probably get a 5/5 split. IMO opinion LSU wasn't "better," they just won. And I never could get Alabama fans to admit the rematch was not as representative of the two teams that season, given that LSU did two wonky things that night that was irregular for them, and it didn't work....at all. Play THAT game 10 times and LSU loses every single time.
The QB play is something that will probably forever haunt LSU fans. We had poor QB play consistently at that time, but the rematch was the nadir. Taking nothing away from how well Alabama played and how good they were, images of TE Deangelo Peterson streaking down the seam several times uncovered are burned in my memory. The QB was just that bad....he missed literally everything that was there that night. In people's minds it turned into "nothing worked, they covered everything, Alabama was infinitely greater, etc." but in truth even a regular "poor" QB probably makes that a different game (though not necessarily a win). That's the worst QBing I've ever seen, from any school, in any game, ever.