In mid-September, the Alabama-LSU football game was still more than a month away. But in the Ravens’ locker room, in the weight room, in the cafeteria, the trash-talking for Southeastern Conference supremacy had already begun.
Waving the flag for the Crimson Tide were former Alabama players Jalyn Armour-Davis and Marlon Humphrey. Repping the Bayou Bengals was Patrick Queen, widely regarded as the biggest trash-talker in the Ravens’ locker room when it comes to his college team.
“Oh yeah, I definitely am,” Queen says with a smile. (For the record, the consensus is J.K. Dobbins is a close second, profusely touting his Ohio State Buckeyes. The injured running back was unavailable to comment.)
Queen will dish it out to anyone.
“SEC! Come play in the SEC!” he shouts to safety Geno Stone, the former Iowa safety whose locker is just to the left of Queen’s.
“Hey, we beat Mississippi State!” Stone counters.
Indeed, Stone’s Hawkeyes beat Mississippi State, 27-22, in the Outback Bowl at the end of the 2018 season. That was Stone’s only game against the SEC, so he can always say he went undefeated against what is perceived to be college football’s best conference.
Queen isn’t having it.
“Mississippi State?” Queen says. “You’re goin’ on about beating Mississippi STATE??!! Bruh …”
The Ravens’ locker room is filled with former All-Americans, many of whom played for the most elite teams and in the most storied rivalries in the country. Players still bleed the colors they wore in college, and they let others know it.
“It’s Marlo, Ro, all these guys. Even this skinny dude over here,” Queen says, pointing to safety Kyle Hamilton. “He be talking trash about Notre Dame.”
Ravens players can’t always watch their college teams play on a Saturday, given their work preparing for their own game the next day. But they catch highlights, and during the Ravens’ bye week each year, several return to campus and watch from the sideline, carrying the cachet of having made it to “the league.” Younger Ravens have former teammates on the field.
And all season long, they see scores. As for discussing a game, well, that depends on your point of view.
Stone had no choice but to pipe down around linebacker Odafe Oweh and punter Jordan Stout after their Penn State Nittany Lions spanked Iowa, 31-0, in late September.
“Yeah, I can’t say nothing now,” Stone says sheepishly. “It is what it is.”
Stone, though, gladly points out that his Hawkeyes team routed then-No. 3 Ohio State, 55-24, in 2017. Both Dobbins and Malik Harrison were on the field that day for the Buckeyes.
“I always let Malik know I never lost to Ohio State, and [we] gave them one of the worst losses in their program history,” Stone says. “So they really can’t say much about me when Ohio State plays Iowa.”
Harrison says he doesn’t ratchet up much talk until “The Game,” the Buckeyes’ annual showdown with Michigan. As Harrison speaks in the locker room one afternoon, he does his best to tune out Oweh, shouting “We are!” — Penn State’s rousing cheer — a few lockers away.
Ohio State has lost to Michigan two years in a row — in 2021, linebacker David Ojabo had a hand in the Wolverines’ win — though Harrison went 3-0 against Michigan, part of an eight-game winning streak the Buckeyes enjoyed against Michigan from 2012-2019.
Tight end Mark Andrews wasn’t quite as successful in the Red River Rivalry, going 2-1 when his Oklahoma Sooners played Texas in the annual Cotton Bowl showdown. Andrews caught a 59-yard bomb from Baker Mayfield for the deciding score in a 29-24 Oklahoma win in 2017.
If Andrews wants to talk smack about that series to former Longhorns Justin Tucker and Devin Duvernay, he’s on his own; all his former locker-room Sooners — Orlando Brown Jr., Marquise Brown and Ben Powers — have moved on.
“That’s OK,” Andrews said. “I’ll hold it down.”
“We know how those Texas guys are,” he adds. “When they’re on top, they like to let you know. … But we’ve been so dominant for so many years.”
The Sooners, in fact, have won seven of the past nine meetings, including a 34-30 win this season. For Andrews, that erased the sting of a 49-0 rout by Texas last year, the worst shutout loss in Oklahoma history.
Tucker no longer has bragging rights, but he does acknowledge that Andrews’ assessment is “probably pretty spot-on.”
“When Texas is going good,” Tucker says, “I’m just as loud as Patrick Queen is about anything and everything LSU.”
Of course, all that talk leading up to a big game is one thing. But like a boomerang, it can come flying back at you.
Armour-Davis said he was “talking heavy” to Queen last season before the ‘Bama-LSU showdown. After all, the sixth-ranked Crimson Tide was a two-touchdown favorite. But the game went to overtime, and in the extra period, LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels scored on a 25-yard run, then threw a two-point conversion for a stunning 32-31 LSU win.
“I was not expecting them to beat us last year,” Armour-Davis says, shaking his head. “At all. So I was talking heavy before the game, which made it that much worse.”
Queen smiles and says, “We hate ‘Bama. All of LSU hates ‘Bama. It’s probably the worst team in the SEC. Nah, we just tease each other. Every year it’s, ‘Y’all suck! Y’all suck! Y’all couldn’t beat us when we were there!'”
Call that selective memory. Queen’s LSU team was thumped by Alabama, 29-0, in 2018, but then in Queen’s final season in Baton Rouge, Queen and the Tigers won, 46-41, as part of a 15-0 season that ended with a national championship.
“We tell [Queen] he was blessed enough to be on probably one of, if not the, best college football teams ever assembled,” Stone says. “We always say it was because of Joe Burrow. We tell him if they didn’t have Joe Burrow, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“I always joke and tell him their defense was good,” Stone adds, “but it wasn’t better than our defense in college.”
But recently, Queen and fellow Bayou Bengal Odell Beckham Jr. haven’t been able to say too much around inside linebacker Roquan Smith, a Georgia alum whose locker is adjacent to Queen’s. The Bulldogs have won back-to-back national championships and beat LSU, 50-30, in last year’s SEC championship game.
“We don’t have to do much trash-talking because we know what’s going to happen when those Dawgs come to town,” Smith says with a grin. “[Queen] just tries to root on those Bayou Bengals because they need that confidence or something. But guys from Georgia, that go to Georgia, that root for Georgia, we don’t need that. Because every time them Dawgs get off the leash, they know it’s time to hunt.”
Photo Credits: Alabama Athletics Photography, Courtesy of Penn State Athletics, Courtesy of LSU Athletics, Brian Ray/hawkeyesports.com and Courtesy of Texas Athletics