Next time you get the urge to "help out" our in-state bretheren while at the same time destroying our SOS, read this first: http://www.latechbbb.com/index.php?...c&t=5677&sid=74f1a32d6a3124da124f9d6984d0efbd
They are out ULLing ULL now. They have never been a rival to LSU, so it can only be jealousy (or penis envy as one of their reasonable fans posted) that fuels their hatred.
Skip will obviously want to renew this amazingly fruitful and highly successful scheduling system, in which our in state brethren take our money, take an ass beating, and then help take away any SOS advantage we may find ourselves with while locked in a fight for the 2nd position in the BCS standings... I hate to say this, and by no means am I assigning total blame...but, this was a perfect storm... The best season in a generation of LSU football, and the silliest scheduling tactics and philosophy to be seen in a generation... The buck stops with the AD on that one. If it turns out SOS could have helped us, then Joe Dean and Skip Bertman will be partly to blame for the contract writing that allowed teams like Marshall and Bowling Green to back out, as well as rescheduling Troy State, which would have been much better than a Western Illinois, etc... We bring in the coach, but our leadership is still playing a role in hamstringing us and stunting our progress... (sighs)
Now hold up a minute folks. 1) Let the Tech fans pitch their fit and don't take it personally. They are about to fire their coach and the last two seasons just haven't gone quite the way they wanted. If you had just given up 672 yards of rushing to Rice, you'd be PO'd at the world too. 2) Marshall cancelled on US! I don't know what the answer to that is. Perhaps we should insist on multi-million dollar buyout clauses. But the fact remains that they did cancel on us. 3) We rescheduled Troy State and ULM in an attempt to play it safe because of Virginia Tech's running out and scheduling a tune-up game on us and then Arizona doing the same thing. Perhaps we could have gotten by without doing that. Arizona was that bad. And furthermore.... Arizona was scheduled in 1998. They went 10-1 that year and were Pac-10 co-champs, but UCLA went to the Rose Bowl. There was no way we could know they were going to tank on us. Louisiana Tech was scheduled in 2001. They went 7-4 and were WAC champions that year. Again, there was no way we could foresee them totally collapsing the way they have the last two years. I'm just as upset about how the schedule went as any of ya'll. But the point is, NONE of us can tell the future and foresee cancellations, or good programs having bad years all of a sudden. That's just the way the ball bounces sometimes. The best we can do now is hope Skip can get a decent 1-A opponent to replace Va. Tech next year so that this doesn't happen again. I say whatever it takes, even if it means one less home game next year. PLEASE, no more 1-AAs.
Jetstorm, ULM wasn't scheduled to prepare for VT...VT wouldn't have come to Baton Rouge until NEXT year, friend... ULM was the latest in the rotation of "LSU AD benevolence fund" donations to in-state D1 football program operating budgets...NOTHING ELSE. SKIP BERTMAN IS SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT. The Marshall game was a contract that was written by the CURRENT ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT'S ADMINISTRATION. If Marshall backs out, it is ON THEIR BACKS. Contract writing is a part of being an administrator in the Athletic Department... If they backed out of their contracts, then that means the contract wasn't ironclad enough to BIND THEM TO A GAME. If this season teaches you anything, it should be that weak contractural wording has COST THIS TEAM A POSSIBLE SHOT AT A NATIONAL TITLE.
I agree with Jetstorm. It is upsetting, but nothing can be done about . . . short of seeing the future. Anyone we schedule can tank, but I hope the days of LSU scheduling Div 1-aa teams is over forever. I don't think we need to schedule Miami, Okla, etc to prove anything . . . but decent Div 1A teams should be enough with the SEC schedule. I also don't mind playing in state teams, but we should limit it to one a season. Heck, even playing Tulane would be better SOS wise and atleast the game would have some national interest (since it is a long standing rival). Let's remember, SC didn't exactly set the word on fire with their SOS either. I think the single most damaging game we have this season is the W Ill game. Other than that, our schedules would be pretty similar.
Regardless of SoS issues there is no excuse for their petty jealousy besides a lack of class. We have no history with them unlike Tulane, Ole Miss, Auburn, Ala, even ARK..etc. They are not a rival and up until the week of our game with them I actually pulled for them, but since that week I have learned more than I wanted or needed to know about at least a large number of LaTech fans. I do not remember this much pettiness from opposing fans going against ULL last year.
TE, ULM got scheduled so LSU could have a tuneup game before traveling to Arizona. The reason we did this is because Arizona had a game before we played them and we didn't want to get caught with our pants down (like last year at Va Tech). We tried to get Troy State to move up but they could'nt, so we called ULM. Looking back on it, I think that we could have beaten Arizona without the ULM game. I guess it's better to be safe than sorry.
I hate to point this out, but, if our 'A' team had shown up for the Florida game the only thing we would be bitching about right now is that we would be #1 ahead of OU except for our SoS.
