NEW ORLEANS -- Thanks in large part to Patriots coach Bill Belichick's connection with former LSU coach Nick Saban, this corner of the country has always been a fertile one for the New England franchise.

One Tiger-turned-Patriot predates all of that: venerable running back Kevin Faulk.

I was reminded of that this afternoon, when I hit a place called Mulate's for a beer. As you can see from my (very) amateur stab at photography above (or maybe you can't see, since the picture awful), the restaurant's owner isn't shy about showing his LSU allegiances. And if you look real close, you'll see a name scrawled on the back of that helmet.

It belongs to this guy ...

... whom you might recognize as Faulk.

The bartender I talked to didn't know how they got Faulk to sign the LSU helmet, but said it generally happens when athlete (there was a bunch of signed memorabilia on hand) comes in to eat. The helmet was set opposite the helmet of my alma mater, Ohio State, and under some stuff from the 2007 National Championship Game between the two schools, so it would figure that was around the time Faulk stopped by. So maybe, if you're here, you should stop in, too.

As a sidenote, I went to the LSU game against Arkansas last night. Pretty awesome, and not hard to see the things that the college game has all over the pros.