LSU Football - Photographic History, pre-1980

Hoping to see quite a few older LSU football related pictures. Pictures of the stadium, games, tailgating, old ticket stubs, magazine articles, newspaper clippings, etc. Lets see what ya got from years prior to 1980!

Here's a couple to start:

LSU Team Photo - Christmas Day, 1907 - Havana, Cuba


LSU At Goal Line - Vs. Havana in 1907

 

Here is a photo from the late 1940s. The player wearing the I is Y.A. Tittle.

 

Very nice! Keep them coming. I've never seen that photo of Tiger Stadium in the horseshoe days in the snow. What year is it?

 

I believe "G" is Ray Coates, Jesuit High NOLA.!!!

 

1958 Chinese Bandits

 

"T" is Dan Sandifer, "I" is Y.A. Tittle, "G" is Ray Coates, "E" is Jim Cason, "R" is Rip Collins and "S" is Al Heroman'

Ray Coates returned to coach at Jesuit from the 1950's to the 1970's. For the football banquet in 1967-68, the speaker was his old Tiger teammate, Y.A. Tittle.

Tittle told some great stories about their days at LSU, including the one about Y.A.'s almost TD run against Ole' Miss that ended when his pants fell down around his ankles after an Ole' Miss player grabbed his belt and it broke. The worst thing was none of his LSU teammates gathered around him while he tried to pull them up but just stood and laughed at him.

The names of all these players came from Pete Finney's book, The Fighting Tigers. If you want to see some great pictures of LSU from before the 1980's try and find a copy of his book. It's out of print but maybe your local library has a copy.

 

When Ray Coates was our coach, we ran the single wing offense, but we did a lot more out of it than the way coaches now run the wildcat. There were directional snaps in which the tailback would catch the ball on the run and a lot more passing. All I see nowadays is the tailback running up the middle or handing off to the wingback.

I tell you, Russell Shepard and Trindon Holliday could be utilized to the max out of that formation. Maybe Miles ought to confer with Ray Coates about some other plays from the wing.

I'm pretty sure Mr. Coates is still alive.