How Well Do You Know the Rebels’ Opponent? LSU Edition
OXFORD, Miss. — It is time for this week’s edition of “How well do you know the opponent?”
LSU comes to Vaught-Hemingway with a 4-3 record and a lame-duck coach. Pretty much every Rebel fan knows those two facts, but how well do we really know the Tigers?
Did you know? LSU wears purple and gold because they are two of the colors of Mardi Gras. Tulane wears the other two, light blue and green. Legend holds LSU wanted the color green, but its fans could not find any green ribbons to wear to the game because fans of Tulane had bought them all.
Did you know? LSU is in Baton Rouge because it is the state capital. That makes sense. Florida State is in Tallahassee, Alabama State is in Montgomery, Georgia State is in Atlanta, Tennessee State is in Nashville and Kentucky State is in Frankfort.
It makes one wonder if the people in Starkville thought a silo was the dome to the Capital building.
Did you know? LSU is known as the Tigers because they wanted to copy other schools? In 1896, LSU went 6-0-0 and it was noticed powerful teams like Princeton used the Tiger nickname, so LSU pilfered it as their own.
Yet others say the name came from a group of Confederate soldiers at the Battle of Shenandoah known as the Louisiana Tigers due to their tenacity.
Did you know? There have been seven Mike the Tigers? The first got to Baton Rouge in 1936. The Bengal Tiger was purchased from a zoo in Little Rock, Ark., for $750 which was raised from 25-cent donations from students.
Anyone up for a yawning contest? Is that a thing? pic.twitter.com/nqo7OT8a04
— Mike VII (@MikeTheTiger) October 22, 2021
It was named Mike after LSU athletic trainer Mike Chambers and served as the mascot for 20 years.
The current tiger, Mike VII, came to LSU from a sanctuary in Okeechobee, Fla. It is kind of weird the pride of LSU athletics arrived on campus from a place a mere 210 miles from Gainesville.
PETA is not thrilled about LSU having a live tiger on campus, but Mike does not seem to mind. His habitat was built at a cost of $3 million.
Did you know? LSU once lost a national championship to a team named for a flower? The LSU football team has won four national titles and the baseball team has won three. The basketball team claims one. In 1935, LSU claimed the national title in that sport in the years before there was an NCAA Tournament. At least two organizations took exception to the claim and gave the title to the New York University Violets with a record of 19-1.
Did you know? LSU has one cool tradition. Tiger Stadium still employs the old “H-style” goal posts so the players can enter the field under the crossbar and between the uprights. There was a hiatus from 1984-93 when LSU used the more-standardized “T-style” goal posts, but part of the old crossbar was saved and mounted in the tunnel that leads LSU to the field.
Florida State also uses the “H-style” goal posts.
Steve Barnes
Steve Barnes joins The Rebel Walk staff as a senior writer and brings a trifecta of journalistic experience. As a writer, he has covered college sports for Rivals.com, Football.com and SaturdayDownSouth.com as well as served as a beat writer for various traditional newspapers.
He has been a broadcaster for arena football and several national tournament events for the National Junior College Athletic Association as well as hosting various shows on radio.
A former sports information director at Albany (Ga.) State University and an assistant at Troy and West Florida, he has helped host many NCAA conference, regional and national events, including serving five years on the media committee of the NCAA Division II World Series.
Barnes, a native of Pensacola, Fla., attended Ole Miss in 1983-84, where his first journalism teacher was David Kellum. The duo has come a long way since that time.
He will bring a proven journalistic track record, along with a knack for finding the out-of-the-ordinary story angles to The Rebel Walk.
Barnes continues to reside in Pensacola a mere ten minutes from the beach because he does have taste and a brain.
