After nearly two years without a tailgate, local football fans are ready to cheer again
Tiger Stadium has been described in many ways.
According to famed writer and former LSU player John Ed Bradley, “Tiger Stadium is haunted, and all the ghosts favor the home team.”
SportsCenter host Scott Van Pelt called it “the best environment I have ever seen for a sporting event in any sport, ever.”
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And former Florida quarterback Tim Tebow put it simply by saying, “LSU is just different.”
But when the COVID-19 pandemic struck last year—and the raucous crowds and vibrant atmospheres were traded in for a deserted campus and limited-capacity stadium—“different” took on a whole new meaning.
Words like “quiet” or “empty” aren’t typically associated with Death Valley on game day. But they became the new norm not only in Baton Rouge but on campuses across the country, changing the entire dynamic of a college-football Saturday night.
“It was not what I was used to, and it’s obviously not anything that LSU has been used to,” senior quarterback Myles Brennan tells 225. “Seeing an empty campus and getting to the (Tiger) Walk and there’s nobody on the barricades—it was definitely a different atmosphere.”
As challenging as it may have been for the players on the field—who have grown accustomed to feeding off the energy of the crowd—the impacts of last season’s safety protocols extended well beyond the concrete Coliseums of Tiger Stadium and A.W. Mumford Stadium.
Part of what makes the local game-day environment so special are the festivities that take place hours, days and even weeks before the opening kickoff.
From the over-abundance of food being prepared and drinks being consumed at tailgates, to the tens of thousands of fans who line Victory Hill for the Tiger Walk, to hearing Southern University’s Human Jukebox perform like no other band in the country, game day in Baton Rouge is a unique experience you just can’t find anywhere else in the country.
“I’ve been all over the world for work—and I’ve been to sporting events all over, as well—and I’ve never seen anything like a Saturday near Tiger Stadium,” says lifelong LSU fan John Richardson, who has been tailgating in the same spot on the Parade Grounds since the 1980s.
“After touring a lot of other SEC schools and games, there’s just something special about the beauty of the campus, mixed with the freedom that the tailgaters have actually got (from LSU) for so many years that allow it to become the greatest spectacle in college football. And that’s before you get into the stadium.”
To call tailgating in Baton Rouge a pastime would be selling it particularly short.
Around here, it’s an art form. It’s a lifestyle. It’s a lot more than just another way to spend your Saturday.
Families are formed at tailgates. Lifelong friendships are founded. Careers are cultivated.
And after a year of socially distanced, limited capacity events, game day is finally back in Baton Rouge.
OFF–SEASON TRAINING
“It’s going to be wild,” says Zach Rau, daydreaming about the first “normal” football game in Baton Rouge in nearly two years. “You’re going to have a lot of pent-up emotion and then just kind of a release.”
Rau, a longtime member of the DVA Tailgating—which stands for Death Valley Adventurers—sums up the anticipation that most people around town are feeling.
After what will essentially be a two-year calm before the storm, that first full home game back in Tiger Stadium on Sept. 11 will inevitably carry some extra weight for LSU fans itching to get back in the action. Campus will be brimming with excitement again, and those first tailgates will feel bigger and better than ever before.
And a performance like that—similar to LSU’s on-field showing—requires some much-needed practice time. That’s why Rau and his crew, probably not unlike many other groups, got together in early July for the first tailgate “practice” of the offseason.
The menu looked similar to what Rau might dish out on a standard Saturday: pulled pork, smoked drumsticks, corn grits, baked beans and smoked mac ‘n’ cheese, just to name a few. It’s nothing Rau had forgotten how to cook or hasn’t made in the past two years, but it did help him to “knock the rust off” as the group gears up for the fall.
“I hate to say it was nice to get a breather, but it kind of was,” says Rau, reminiscing in the wake of the long and crazy 2019 season that saw LSU make a 15-0 run to the national championship. “I mean, now I feel very refreshed, and I’m ready to get back at it. It’s going to be a wild season. I’m really, really looking forward to it.”
And he’s not just talking about the food, either.
Rau has the unique perspective of having formerly been a member of the Tiger Band while he was a student at LSU from 2008 to 2012. He’s seen firsthand some of the wildest atmospheres Baton Rouge has to offer, including several massive matchups throughout LSU’s run to the national title game in 2011.
He knows how rowdy the crowd can get, and he’s basked in the same energy the players feel walking down Victory Hill into Tiger Stadium before each game surrounded by a sea of purple and gold.
“(The Tiger Walk) was without a doubt my favorite part of being in the band,” Rau says. “You’re limited in what you can see because no matter what, you’re looking forward. So you’ve effectively got blinders on. And all you see … is just walls of people, and you don’t know how far back they go. It’s all on top of you, and it is an indescribable feeling. It’s something that if you could bottle it, you could sell it and be a millionaire.”
The only thing that rivals it?
The pregame march out onto the field, followed by the iconic “dun, dun, dun, dun!” that draws a unanimous roar from the crowd.
Without it, football in Tiger Stadium just simply isn’t the same.
“I mean, that’s game day right there,” Rau says. “And you didn’t have that last year. And I think no matter what—even though they played—no matter what they did in the stadium or outside of it, it was going to be a half-measure, just because it had to be.”
Thankfully, this season will be a different story.
By the end of the spring sports year, LSU had reopened its athletic venues to 100% capacity.
Because of the surge in cases of the delta variant, fans must show proof of vaccination or a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours of kick-off. Guests younger than 12 will not need to present a negative test, but those ages 5 to 11 will be required to wear masks at all times. Read Tiger Stadium’s full COVID-19 protocols here.
ON THE ROAD AGAIN
It’s not just Baton Rouge that will be back to its old self either.
Campuses across the country are opening up, and after months of travel restrictions, what better time to take a trip to see the Tigers play an away game?
Along with its standard SEC schedule of rotating opponents, LSU also makes its first-ever trip to the historic Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, California, on Sept. 4 to play UCLA for the first time in school history.
It’s a rare opportunity for the Tigers to play against an uncommon opponent in a legendary stadium, similar to LSU’s trip to Lambeau Field in Wisconsin in 2016.
The LSU Alumni Association’s Traveling Tigers group, which just celebrated its 35th anniversary, takes a little extra pride in planning these unique road trips. It’s not every day you get a plane full of LSU fans bound for Los Angeles for a weekend full of fun and football.
“It’s definitely a little more work because we don’t plan it every two years, like our other schedule. But for us, it’s a new city that we get to introduce our fans to,” says Vice President of Alumni Engagement & Marketing Sally Stiel. “We (work) with other (tourism) bureaus, hotels, restaurants and alumni-owned businesses in those cities. There’s a ton of LSU alumni located in most of these cities we travel to, so where it’s possible, we try to get them involved.”
For 2021, the group is planning trips to UCLA, Kentucky, Ole Miss and Alabama, offering packages of various sizes for fans. At the time of print, the UCLA and Kentucky trips were sold out, but the Traveling Tigers don’t just stop at traveling.
The group also plans tailgates on the road—as big and as elaborate as the kind you’d find outside Death Valley—so LSU fans can bring that little piece of Baton Rouge to the opponent’s city.
“I think everybody understands that home game feel and that you can’t duplicate that, but we do our best to bring that on the road with us,” Stiel says. “We want our tailgates to feel like you never left Baton Rouge—that energy, that passion, that purple and gold kind of chills on your arms when you walk onto campus on a game day.”
Even fans who don’t make the trip through the Traveling Tigers are welcome to attend the group’s tailgates. Ticket prices vary depending on city and location—some are even free to the public—and information will be announced a few weeks prior to the game.
It will be especially important to make people feel at home again, with some tailgaters traveling for the first time since before the pandemic.
“It’s in our culture to want to gather. I think that’s why last year with COVID—and still today—it’s so hard especially for people from (LSU) when we limit that kind of interaction,” Stiel says. “(That’s why) our goal is to replicate that on the road so you don’t feel any different no matter which campus you’re on. You’re feeling that purple and gold kind of passion.”
FIRST TIME FOR EVERYTHING
It feels like forever ago at this point, but not even a year and a half prior to the start of the 2021 season, LSU tied the record for having the most players taken in an NFL draft with 14.
On top of that, there were a handful of other departing seniors who went undrafted and a few additional players who opted out of the 2020 season due to COVID-19. All of that turnover resulted in the Tigers turning to a lot of newcomers to play major roles on the field.
True freshmen like Max Johnson, Kayshon Boutte and Elias Ricks became household names by the end of last year for their stellar performances, while transfers like Jabril Cox, Liam Shanahan and Ali Gaye all provided some added experience to the roster despite being first-year players in Baton Rouge.
But what none of these fresh faces have gotten to witness in person is the special game-day atmosphere that makes LSU such a unique place to play.
None of them had a chance to do a true Tiger Walk entering the stadium. None have gotten to the field with the crowd chanting every word to “Callin’ Baton Rouge.” None have heard the roar of 100,000-plus fans cheering them on after a game-winning touchdown or pivotal play.
After a frustrating 5-5 season that’s been compounded by several damning revelations about LSU’s off-the-field handling of sexual misconduct cases, the players and fans alike are more than ready to bring some good vibes back to campus.
And for all those new faces who are back in 2021, they’ll get to finally experience their first real dose of the real Tiger Stadium.
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“I’m really excited to see a full Tiger Stadium with a full Tiger Walk and a full campus with everybody in it supporting us,” says Gaye, who transferred in from Garden City Community College. “I feel like last year, I just had a little taste of it. It was sort of emotional for me because that was my first game, and (I was) thinking about everything it took me to get here and everything that I’ve been through. I feel like this is going to be a rewarding season on and off the field, just because of the mentality that I have now getting ready for a full season.”
This article was originally published in the August 2021 issue of 225 magazine. It was updated after publication to include LSU’s most current COVID-19 protocols.