To be an LSU fan is to embrace chaos. It is in the DNA of the institution and the state, really.
However, this summer has brought levels I cannot remember in my 30-plus years of sentience.
Consider that Tigers football coach Lane Kiffin is the lead face of a controversial movement to recruit NFL rookies back to the college ranks via an eligibility ruling giving players from the recruiting class of 2022 an extra year to play … and that his arrival in Baton Rouge from SEC rival Ole Miss came during the Rebels’ Playoff run last year … and that men’s basketball coach Will Wade is also engendering legal battles by recruiting a player who’s spent time with two NBA teams … and that women’s basketball coach Kim Mulkey, who won a national title three years ago, recently lost a Ukrainian player who objected to the program’s recruitment of a Russian player.
Whew.
All of it has turned LSU into the villain du jour. Kiffin has long been a needlepoint for college football fans, and it’s clearly something he embraces, if not even enjoys. This is the same guy who left Tennessee in a lurch, who got fired on a tarmac at USC, got pushed out of Alabama’s staff during a national championship run and departed Ole Miss during the best season in school history. He elicits big feelings.
The same goes for Wade, whom LSU fired the first time after getting caught on an FBI wiretap talking about a financial offer to a recruit (which is, funnily enough, allowed now). Mulkey vacillates between loved and hated nationally. And, in true Louisiana fashion, the state’s governor is deeply involved in all this.
It is, frankly, exhausting. I am a proud LSU alumnus and remain a Tigers fan, as any reader of my newsletter can attest. I will be in the stands Saturday as No. 11 LSU plays Clemson in the premier game of college football’s Week 1, but all of this gives me pause.
I keep coming back to a question I still don’t have an answer to: Is this all worth it? It sure would be nice to wonder how Sam Leavitt will look Saturday rather than whether LSU will be kicked out of the SEC. Am I in the minority on that?
There was a time when LSU, and in particular LSU football, felt quite ordinary. It was the mid-1990s, when a once-proud football program slid into mediocrity, its glory years long past despite strong fan support. Men’s basketball was on its way down, too, the height of the Dale Brown era fading quickly. Women’s basketball was also mired in a slump under another legendary coach, Sue Gunter.
I started attending games in Tiger Stadium in that era, at just 3 years old. My biggest memories are mostly blobs of sports misery.
The modern rise of LSU football is well-documented. Things changed. A guy named Nick Saban got hired as football coach, and the team has had one losing season in the following 26 years. Meanwhile, the women’s basketball program became a powerhouse. Men’s basketball … has had stretches of fun.
Now, all three have made LSU the nexus in college sports’ raging storm of change. There is a lawless feeling right now, where any rule can be litigated and overturned by the right judge. LSU’s aforementioned trio of coaches push the limits of doing whatever it takes to win further than anyone right now, which is saying something in 2026.
“I think if you talk to 10 LSU fans right now, three or four of them are completely fed up and frustrated with it, a couple have tuned it out completely and a couple think it’s a really bad look for LSU,” Hunt Palmer, a radio host in Baton Rouge, told me. “I do think all 10 are fired up for Saturday. Once game day is here, no one will be thinking about court cases, restraining orders or appeals. It’s Saturday night in Death Valley.”
Most of the fans I talked to in Baton Rouge welcome the villainy, at least in part.
Over a breakfast at Louie’s Cafe this week, steps from campus, all diners could talk about was Saturday’s game. Remember when LSU beat Clemson last year? Boy, I bet there will be a ton of folks here Saturday. I didn’t hear a thing about a court case, despite the massive one happening right down the road.
“I kind of like it. Some part of me feels like Kiffin and the program likes it. Nobody’s even talking about how they’re going to win,” Trey Carraway, a 2003 LSU graduate, said. “This is the most excited I’ve been for a season since 2019. Not even close. The hype around us, us against the world, it’s awesome.”
He’s not far off. This week, LSU displayed a sign inside the football facility that read: “If you want to win at the highest level, you have to become the villain in someone else’s story.”
It’s emblematic of the line LSU is toeing right now. Am I rooting for the bad guys? Or is my favorite team trying to win at any cost, more than any of its contemporaries?
“Students are accepting that this is what LSU is now. Lane Kiffin is going to push buttons and make this work,” Alex Sheesley, sports editor at the Reveille, LSU’s student newspaper, said. “LSU is trying to improve their team. LSU has a right to explore this. If it’s going to ruffle feathers, that’s how it’ll be.”
Again, are we sure this is worth the hassle? LSU is risking its conference affiliation for a few players that couldn’t make an NFL roster.
My colleague Stewart Mandel wrote this week that it’s not close to worth it. Fellow Athletic college football writer Manny Navarro pointed out that LSU had a $40 million roster before this. It’s a compelling point, even if Kiffin says he got permission from his current players to pursue NFL talent.
I’m tired, but I do have faith that the product, both at LSU and in college football overall, is still excellent. Kiffin, despite his reputation, is an excellent football coach.
“People see what Lane went through to get here,” Steven Bosworth, a 2015 LSU graduate, said, referring to Kiffin’s messy departure from Ole Miss. “We’re going to stand behind him.”
I suspect more than 100,000 people packed into Tiger Stadium will forget all of this, at least temporarily, if LSU wins Saturday. Is that good? I can’t say, but it’s where we are.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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