Breakfast not on LSU’s menu

Published 7:00 pm Friday, November 10, 2017

This would have been back in simpler football days, with two old friends seeking a basic, some would say more pure, version of the game.

They were both quirky like that.

But for some odd reason — happy hour may have been a factor — J.B. and Buddy suddenly got their hearts set on attending the blood rivalry football game between Johns Hopkins and Gettysburg, which was a college a good 30 years before it was a more famous battlefield.

The game doesn’t get a lot of play down in these parts, but, yes, both play football and apparently when they knock heads with each other it’s a big event on either campus.

That year’s game was scheduled for Gettysburg, out in the quaint countryside, but it was just a couple of days off and both gentlemen knew it would be a tough ticket — or “ducat,” as Buddy liked to call them when he was ready to “dust somebody up” and throw some money (“goggle eyes”) around.

As luck would have it, J.B. had an old friend fairly high up in some capacity of the Gettysburg College administration, and so he was enlisted to make the phone call.

“Don’t be afraid to dust him up,” Buddy said.

So when J.B. called the old friend and explained their plight, he added that money was no object for the trouble they were surely causing in pursuit of tickets.

“We’d be willing to pay $100 a ticket,” J.B. told him, though in truth he was prepared to go higher.

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

“A hundred dollars?” the Gettysburg friend asked. “American money?”

“Yeah.”

“For the John Hopkins game?”

“Yeah.”

“For a hundred dollars, uh … what time do you two want kickoff to commence? Your choice. And we’ll send a limo for you.”

There was another, far spicier follow-up punch line, but newspaper decorum decrees that you’ll not hear it from here.

Bottom line: Buddy and J.B. got into the big game, with fine seats.

Even their penchant for tall tales (lies) kept them from suggesting that they actually moved the kickoff time for their convenience.

But in a roundabout, far simpler way the story does kind of illustrate why LSU is kicking off in Tiger Stadium at the god-forsaken hour of 11 a.m. against the Arkansas Razorbacks come Saturday.

That’s a good time for bacon, perhaps, but not for LSU football. Tiger Stadium doesn’t do breakfast very well.

Money, of course, is at the bottom of it. When it comes to college football television does most of the dusting up.

It could be worse.

When the SEC Network came along, I assumed that its ravenous programming appetite would usher in the SEC Thursday Night Game of the Week.

Take a deep breath. If that was going to happen, it probably would have happened by now.

But of course, as it is this is still quite the dilemma for the average LSU fan (tailgater). 

It was former coach Bill Arnsparger who once noted that it “takes our fans a little longer to get ‘prepared’ for the game.”

Make of that what you will.

LSU kind of fought it, although the Tigers had to know they were in a losing battle. Athletic Director Joe Alleva made it a point to get the word out that he knows fans don’t like it and he doesn’t like it either.

LSU even says the SEC office, knowing the Tigers preference for late-night entertainment, tries to work with them and steer the cameras away from Tiger Stadium at these bewitching hours.

But, face it, these tragedies are going to happen from time to time.

It looks like the second-earliest game ever in Tiger Stadium. LSU researched it back to 1969. TV was barely invented then, so I’m good with halting the search there.

The only earlier game needs an asterisk. It was the 10 a.m. start of the 2008 season opener against Appalachian State, which was moved to get the fool thing in and everybody home before Hurricane Gustav hit Baton Rouge that night (Florida should have taken notes).

Get used to it. There will be more of these eye-openers.

Head coach Ed Orgeron, is Cajun born and bred, and understands the crisis even better than Arnsparger.

“Drink some coffee,” he suggested, “put a little something extra in it.” Probably not talking about cream and sugar here.

But he did note that LSU’s Citrus Bowl game with Louisville last year kicked off at 11 a.m. (10 a.m. Louisiana time) and “we played one of the best bowl games we’ve played around here in a while.”

“It’s tougher on the fans. Everybody has their little routine … The players, we adapt.”

It’s a trade off. If you want the networks to dust you up, you’ve got to dance to their tune occasionally, even if means robbing fans of the true Tiger Stadium experience, not to mention the festive times in the parking lots.

Fans can adapt. But Orgeron is probably dreaming when he says, “I’m hearing we’re going to have a great crowd.”

It’s a necessary evil these days.