BATON ROUGE — LSU football completed the category on Skip Bertman's grand experiment Saturday, completing the first cycle of LSU hosting the state's other (wink-wink) Division I-A schools. All four — Tulane, UL-Lafayette, UL-Monroe, Louisiana Tech — have now come to Tiger Stadium over the last three years. Do we really need the scheduled second round? It was a noble gesture, Skip. But it's powerfully ugly football, least ways if you prefer some suspense and competition with your ticket. The Tigers' 49-10 victory over Louisiana Tech was just the latest installment in what is now a combined pillaging of LSU 194, Rest of the State 34. Congratulations, Tulane. You stayed the closest — 48-17 in the debut installment two years ago (LSU didn't play much defense back then). In this state school series, the Tigers have scored 49 points twice, 48 in the other two, which is quite a trend. It has been almost as hard for LSU to avoid going over the 50-point mark as it's been to reach the brink of it. But LSU has been up to the chore. Saturday, for instance, they really had to slam on the brakes. The Bulldogs were already road kill in the first quarter. It was not only 49-3 at halftime, it was 49-3 with six minutes remaining in the first half. So what's the point? It's hard to see how it's helping the state's other I-A programs any. Saturday, for instance, the four of them lost by a combined total of 205-37. Average score: 51-6. And at least one of them could have been a whole lot worse, if not for the sheer benevolence of LSU. Money? True, more of the $400,000 checks that non-conference opponents traditionally get for their trouble in Tiger Stadium are staying in state now. Yet last spring Tulane president Scott Cowen came within a whisker of shutting down the entire Green Wave athletic program for lack of cash. Fan interest? Tech was the first of the four to sell out their visitors' allotment of tickets. When they return again in 2007, the novelty of it will be gone. For that matter, tailgaters before the LSU-Louisiana Tech game were a lot more interested in the Florida-Georgia game than what was in store for Tiger Stadium. So maybe this week, as we analyze the destruction, it isn't the best of timing for I-AA Southern University to threaten a request for a game of its own with LSU. Not to worry. The Jags' 65-0 victory over something called Allen University notwithstanding, cooler heads will prevail there. It was a little harmless grand-standing by a Southern board member and no doubt the solution will be to turn it over to some, joint, bilateral committee that will never quite get around to meeting. If they do, send them a tape of the first half of Saturday's LSU-Louisiana Tech mismatch. Someone might even suggest that Southern blow the dust off a contract it already wiggled out of and take a shot at McNeese first. That would create some honest state-wide interest for both programs and a little spending money, too. An even better solution might be for Southern to take LSU's place for the second round of this "See Tiger Stadium" rotation and let the Division I-A's all play the Jags instead. It couldn't be much less competitive than the fare we've seen. You could say these trips to Tiger Stadium have been a subtle reminder that all might be more comfortable going back to Division I-AA. As is, the only argument for finishing the rotation is that, given the current scheduling landscape, if it's not UL-Whatever in Tiger Stadium, LSU will just find another over-matched opponent. Maybe it's not fair to lump Louisiana Tech in with the others, however. The Bulldogs have shown in the past they belong in Division I-A. If they were perhaps the least competitive of the four in Tiger Stadium, keep in mind that none of the other state schools had to play an LSU team like the one the Bulldogs drew. The Tigers have been a different bunch since losing to Florida, putting together as impressive a three-week run as any in memory with routs of South Carolina and Auburn to go with Saturday's clinic. LSU might even want to throw in a little extra tip money to Tech for the kind words the Bulldogs had afterwards. With first-hand knowledge from a 48-9 season-opening loss to Miami, they suggested that LSU was tougher to deal with than the Hurricanes. That testimonial might even have been a factor in the Tigers waking up Sunday morning ranked No. 4 in the nation, their highest climb since 1987. So it really was a win-win deal for LSU. But you still have to wonder what the state schools are getting out of it.
