No football at LSU just budget bluster
BATON ROUGE, La. — Last week, Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards claimed a massive financial shortfall might threaten that most sacred of Louisiana rituals: LSU football.
Should the state’s public universities run out of money this spring or summer, Edwards vowed in a speech televised across the state, “You can say farewell to college football next fall.”
Texas A&M fancies itself as LSU’s biggest Southeastern Conference rival, so A&M graduate James Gardner of Houston, along with many other Aggies, hardly shed a crocodile tear at the pecuniary plight among the swamps.
“Thank God we aren’t Louisiana,” said Gardner,
like many other Texans a curious observer of what exactly is going on in that football-loving, low-lying land across the Sabine River.
If the cleat were on the other foot, what would A&M and Texas fans and the faithful of every other Lone Star State university who gather on fall Saturdays do without college football?
“A ton of hunting and fishing,” reasoned Gardner, a popular Twitter poster among A&M fans. “All wildlife would probably die at the hands of restless, angry, deprived college football fans. The streams, lakes and Gulf of Mexico would be fished clean.”
Louisianans are in no mood for fishing jokes, or any other brand of humor, based on recent reaction on and near the LSU campus, thanks to Edwards’ scare tactic he swore wasn’t a scare tactic concerning his now infamous “farewell.”
“That would cause a little ruckus,” LSU fan Nate Eddy said in bustling Baton Rouge eatery TJ Ribs, home of the Tigers coaches’ weekly radio shows. “It might get a little ‘rioty,’ if you know what I mean.”
LSU sophomore Ross Brown knew exactly what Eddy meant — even if the latter made up a word in the process.
“LSU students are ticked off,” said Brown, who wore a big yellow wig as part of the “Bengal Brigade” during last weekend’s A&M at LSU basketball game in the Maravich Center. “The governor is saying a lot of stuff that he has no intention of following through with.”
No riot to quiet
Brown wouldn’t even entertain the notion of what he’d do in place of LSU football in the fall.
“It’s not happening,” the San Antonian said with a wave of his hand. “We all know there’s going to be football back this year.”
Brown is correct — there will be LSU football this year, unless Edwards intends for things to get a little rioty along the banks of the Mississippi River. Edwards is pushing for nearly a billion dollars in new taxes by June to make up for a budget shortfall, and along with LSU football, he used health care as another necessity that will suffer without the money.
But it was the football illustration that earned national headlines.
“Student-athletes across the state would be ineligible to play next semester,” Edwards said in the speech. “I don’t say this to scare you. But I am going to be honest with you.”
In reality, it’s a serious issue, but even a Baton Rouge attorney who deals with serious issues on a daily basis said fans shouldn’t worry about college football — which made nearly $3.5 billion nationally in 2013 — going the way of the old USFL (kids, use your Google).
A serious issue
“We’re lucky to have him as governor, we do need to raise money, and we do need to support LSU,” said noted LSU law school graduate John Perry, who is a noted mediator.
But what about an empty Tiger Stadium on a crisp October Saturday, thanks to the state’s inability to raise enough funds on other fronts in coming months?
“That’s not going to happen,” Perry said. “You don’t have to worry about that.”
And neither do Texans, although Gardner cracked up at the image of A&M and UT fans going at it on Twitter and message boards sans football, like they already do (sans football against each other, at least).
“Both fan bases would argue on the Internet incessantly about which school lived life in a football-less world better,” Gardner surmised. “And I’m positive the suits from both universities would be even worse.”