GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
Thank you, God.
And you, too, LSU coach Brian Kelly, who has decided that the Tigers will have no spring football game on the last day of spring practice on Saturday, April 12. Instead, LSU will hold an open practice at Tiger Stadium on that morning at approximately 10 a.m. with an autograph session afterwards.
Gates will open at 9:30 a.m., and attendance is free. Hopefully, they won’t close the gates and make people stay.
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For decades, LSU’s spring games have been sparsely attended usually by under 20,000 actual spectators, even after national championship seasons at the 2004, 2008 and 2020 spring games. Meanwhile, places like Alabama and Ohio State have drawn over 100,000.
Let those goof balls have their fun, because spring games are not real games, and LSU football fans know that because they know football. And they know that’s not played in the spring.
Or maybe they were not seen as worthwhile entertainment in South Louisiana because there are so many other things to do in April – such as the French Quarter Festival or the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival or the Festival International in Lafayette.
Or perhaps it’s because LSU has been home to the greatest college baseball program in the country since the mid-1980s when coach Skip Bertman built a program that won five national championships from 1991-2000 and two more in 2009 and 2023 since his retirement in 2001.
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Regardless of why, spring football just hasn’t caught on in these parts.
LSU media members have also complained about having to cover the “games.” In fact, those writers and broadcasters who got to cover the LSU men’s basketball team at the 2006 Final Four in Indianapolis found themselves particularly fortunate. Not only was it a chance to cover the Tigers at a Final Four for the first time since 1986, the spring “game” was that day in Baton Rouge, and they got to miss it.
Many will have to cover the final spring practice of 2025, however. Oh well, at least it likely won’t last as long as the spring “games.”
And at least, LSU is being honest and calling a practice a practice now.
“We’re talking about practice,” as former Philadelphia 76er star guard Allen Iverson said. “NOT A GAME! We’re talking about practice.”
In recent years since the start of the instant-gratification NCAA Transfer Portal in 2021 with no wait time for athletes between schools, college coaches have been even more adamant about keeping spring games boring by not showing what their team can do for fear other schools would try to nab well-performing players via the portal.
“I think that there’s more of a, ‘Why don’t we just keep our business a little bit more closely guarded than being so public about it, especially with the ability to transfer so easily?’” LSU coach Brian Kelly said recently. “I think that there’s much more of a sense of that.”
LSU previously announced it would have a spring game on April 12, but Kelly had been leaning away from that since the end of last season.
The Tigers started spring practice last Saturday and held their fourth practice Friday morning. They will practice again Saturday morning.
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