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Advocate staff photo by Bill Feig
LSU?s Tigers prepare to take the field for the first game of the 2001 season.
LSU scrambles to pack Tiger Stadium
By SCOTT RABALAIS
Advocate sportswriter
It?s simple finance: To pay most of the costs of running a $30 million-plus athletic department budget, LSU needs six or seven home games a year in Tiger Stadium. Packed home games with upward of 91,000 people in the stands, buying concessions and souvenirs and paying for parking.
A not so simple question, however, is who to play.
Last Saturday, LSU opened its season by playing Tulane for the first time in five years. The result, even though it rained during the hours leading up to the game and it was available on pay-per-view television, was a record crowd of 91,882 in 91,600-seat Tiger Stadium.
This Saturday, the Tigers play at home against Utah State at 7 p.m. Not a big-name team, nor a team that will bring thousands of fans (though it returned 1,800 tickets to LSU, Tulane did sell 4,700), and not one likely to produce a sellout. As of Tuesday afternoon, 7,000 tickets remained. LSU?s other non-conference home game, Nov. 10 against Middle Tennessee, is also far from a sellout.
And so the question looms: Should LSU try to schedule more in-state teams, thus generating more interest for its non-Southeastern Conference home dates, or continue to scour the map for whoever it can entice to play in Baton Rouge?
It?s a question the LSU athletic administration will consider, even though the Tigers? schedule is almost completely booked through the rest of the decade.
"With Skip (Bertman, new athletics director) just coming on board in the last month and all the preparations to open the season, it hasn?t hit the radar screen yet as to where we?re going to go with some future scheduling questions," said Dan Radakovich, LSU?s senior associate athletics director. "The week that we?re open between Auburn and Tennessee (Sept. 22) we may sit down with coach (Nick) Saban and really look at where we are.
"We?re going to look at the schedule. Whether or not the in-state part of it comes into play, that?s up in the air. We have to see where the discussion goes."
Radakovich said the LSU-Tulane game had a great atmosphere. But he doubted that it could be repeated every year, or with other state schools.
LSU and Tulane aren?t scheduled to meet again until 2005 in New Orleans, the Tigers? first game there since 1994. Then the Tigers and Green Wave wouldn?t play in Baton Rouge again until 2009.
Tulane athletics director Rick Dickson would welcome the opportunity to play LSU more often, but realizes additional football games in the near future would be difficult. He wants to see the schools compete in a variety of sports, like men?s basketball. The Tigers and Green Wave haven?t met on the hardwood since the early 1980s.
"We?ve got to work on building a relationship," Dickson said. "I understand the issues very well regarding football. Like many BCS schools, it generates a large amount of money. As demonstrated last Saturday and in all the months leading up there is a significant interest in these historic relationships.
"Right now we?re not playing each other consistently in anything but baseball. I?d like to think we have more opportunities."?
But what of other in-state schools? Though LSU regularly played games against in-state competition in the early days of the program, the Tigers haven?t faced a Louisiana school in football -- besides Tulane -- since they played Southeastern Louisiana in 1949.
Louisiana?s other NCAA I-A schools -- the universities of Louisiana at Lafayette and Monroe, and Louisiana Tech -- are eager to play LSU again.
"We would certainly welcome the opportunity to play LSU and in Tiger Stadium," UL-Lafayette athletics director Nelson Schnexnayder said. "But it has to be something that both schools see as beneficial to their programs. Our fans would love to see it. At least for the first few games there would be a lot of interest."
Earlier this summer, Schnexnayder and LSU officials dismissed a report that ULL and LSU were close to working out an agreement for a two-game series.
"We would welcome the chance to play in Tiger Stadium," Louisiana Tech athletics director Jim Oakes said. "I certainly understand the scheduling difficulties coach Bertman and his staff have. But if ever the occasion arose we would welcome that."
In Bertman, state schools hoping to play LSU may have at last found an ally in the athletics director?s chair. As LSU?s baseball coach for 18 seasons, Bertman made it a point to regularly play against almost all in-state programs, including many games on their campuses.
Oakes acknowledged that getting LSU to go to Ruston would be highly unlikely, but floated the prospect of playing an LSU two or three times in Baton Rouge then getting the Tigers to go to Shreveport for a game at 52,000-seat Independence Stadium.
Still, with an 11-game schedule and just four SEC home games, LSU is looking for all of its non-conference games at home. In coming years when LSU does play non-conference foes on the road -- at Virginia Tech in 2002 and at Arizona in 2003 for example -- those will be 12-game seasons as allowed by the NCAA.
"We don?t want to (go off campus), unless it?s a Notre Dame or a TV game like a Virginia Tech or an Arizona," Radakovich said. "I wouldn?t see where it would be in our best interests to home-and-home with Baylor, for example."
The main reason, of course, is money. According to Mark Ewing, LSU associate athletics director for business, LSU grosses $2.5-3 million per home game.
Only in 2005, when LSU goes to Tulane in an 11-game season, do the Tigers have just six home games. And even with that game, Radakovich hinted at the prospect of trying to bring it back to Baton Rouge.
"There?s pressure on a lot of different sides," Radakovich said. "There are the economic realities we have and Tulane has. Between now and then I?m a firm believer we?ll be able to make sure it?s a good deal for everybody. Because it is a good game."
"They ought to play as many games in Tiger Stadium as possible," Oakes said. "The question is do they have an obligation to play state schools or other (NCAA) I-A members?"
"I don?t know if I would say it?s a responsibility," said Bruce Hanks, athletics director at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. "Every school has to look at what they?re trying to accomplish with their scheduling.
"We would like to be a consideration, but I?m not saying they owe it to us."
State schools like ULL, ULM, Tech and Tulane can point to games with other schools of LSU?s caliber and what BCS teams in other parts of the country are doing to accommodate in-state opposition.
ULL plays at Minnesota on Saturday, while ULM is at Florida. Minnesota returns the game in Lafayette in 2002, where Alabama and Texas A&M also played in the 1990s.
When Saban was at Michigan State, the Spartans played Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan and Central Michigan on a rotating basis. Ohio State follows a similar pattern with Akron this year and regular meetings with Miami (Ohio), Ohio, Bowling Green, Toledo and Cincinnati.
"It?s a chance to keep the guarantee money we pay teams in state," Ohio State Sports Information Director Steve Snapp said. As for the prospect of a loss to an in-state team that could be particularly damaging to recruiting, Snapp said: "You take a chance every time you play."
The question remains will LSU be taking that chance anytime soon.