September 11, 2003
TO: Fans, Friends, and Supporters of LSU Athletics
FROM: Dan Radakovich, LSU Senior Associate Athletics Director
This Week:
The LSU football team had an impressive win last week in Arizona, but just as impressive was the presence of LSU’s fans. An estimated 8,000 Tiger fans made the trip to the desert to support LSU and see the resounding 59-13 victory.
We’re back at home this week in Tiger Stadium, and because it’s our last game before opening the SEC season next Saturday, Skip Bertman asked me to take this week to talk to you again about non-conference football scheduling.
This week’s game against Western Illinois came about because Marshall cancelled their scheduled appearance in Tiger Stadium. ESPN offered Marshall a television appearance, and it was worth it to them to pay the buyout fee in our contract.
That left us in a precarious situation in January, trying to find an opponent for a game less than eight months away. We spoke with 25 to 30 schools. There are so many variables that come into play when scheduling a game on short notice that there were few schools that had a date available when we needed to play.
In the end, we scheduled Western Illinois. Although we were trying to schedule a Division I-A opponent, we certainly landed one of the best I-AA opponents in America. Western Illinois is ranked No. 1in Division I-AA going into this week’s game.
Scott Rabalais of the Baton Rouge Advocate wrote an insightful column in Wednesday’s newspaper about the difficulty of scheduling football games. We would like nothing more than to attract some “big name” non-conference schools to come to Tiger Stadium. We’ll continue to work toward that goal, but there are factors that make it difficult:
SEC REQUIREMENTS: We are required to play eight Southeastern Conference games, four at home and four on the road. In most seasons, we’re allowed to play only 11 games. So with eight SEC games locked in, that leaves us just three non-SEC games.
HOME-AND-HOME SCHEDULING: Bigger schools won’t pay a visit to Tiger Stadium unless we promise to play a home game at their stadium as well. Even schools in “non-BCS” leagues, like Conference USA, sometimes demand a home-and-home agreement before they will commit to playing in Baton Rouge. Of 117 Division I-A schools, 63 of those are affiliated with the Bowl Championship Series, meaning they are of the size that is unlikely to play anything but a home-and-home series. That leaves us just 54 schools from which to negotiate a single appearance in Tiger Stadium.
FINANCIAL CONSIDERATIONS: There are financial factors as well. Each game in Tiger Stadium means about $1.8 million in net revenue for LSU. Because football is the biggest revenue generator for our department, that revenue is critical. A home-and-home agreement means at least one game away from Tiger Stadium. And that’s one less home game for our season ticket holders.
12-GAME SCHEDULE: In years when we are allowed by the NCAA to play 12 games, we can schedule attractive home-and-home matchups. That’s why we played Virginia Tech last year and Arizona (who was scheduled in 1999, the year after the Wildcats went 12-1) this year. That’s why you are seeing games like Oklahoma vs. Alabama and Southern Cal vs. Auburn this season. Unfortunately, we can play 12 games only in those years when the calendar has 14 Saturdays during the traditional football season. In the next two decades, we can play 12 games only in 2008, 2013, 2014 and 2019.
OPPONENT COOPERATION: There’s also the fact that some schools don’t want to play LSU, whether in Death Valley or at their home stadium. Some schools feel that allowing LSU to play in their area gives LSU a leg up on recruiting student-athletes in their own backyard. That was the information we received from Texas A&M when we inquired this summer about renewing that series. So some schools don’t want us to play at their stadiums because of recruiting, and they don’t want to play here because you, the fans, make it the toughest place in America to play for a visiting team.
LACK OF RIVALRY: LSU does not have a traditional non-conference rival to enhance our schedule. Some schools have yearly non-conference shoot-outs, such as Georgia vs. Georgia Tech, Florida vs. Florida State, Florida State vs. Miami, Kentucky vs. Louisville or Clemson vs. South Carolina.
Another factor affected our schedule this season. To schedule a game before we traveled to Arizona, we landed UL-Monroe to play our season opener. That created an oddity I don’t believe will happen again: two Louisiana opponents on the schedule the same year. We had Louisiana Tech scheduled, and UL-Monroe was the school we were able to schedule on August 30. (At least we kept a lot of guarantee money in-state this year.)
I invite you to take a look around the country and see the non-conference matchups that take place on a weekly basis. Other than the games in 2002 and 2003 that have been created by the unique 12-game schedule, I believe you will find that our non-conference schedule is very similar to those of other schools our size.
We certainly understand the desire to bring marquee non-conference teams into Tiger Stadium. LSU already plays in one of the strongest leagues in the country, and that’s why you’ll see the likes of Georgia, Florida, Auburn and Arkansas all playing in Tiger Stadium this fall. But we will continue to negotiate with the top schools to bring you the best entertainment in all of college sports.
Beginning next week, we’re going to bring you these Cyber-side Chats every other week. We want to continue to hear from you, so write to us at LSUvision@etigers.net. Although we cannot guarantee a response to every e-mail, please know that they will all be read. Thank you for your continued support of LSU Athletics.