By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
The late, great Skip Bertman, the former LSU baseball coach and athletic director, would have loved the Tigers’ 35-6 win over Texas A&M on Saturday night in Tiger Stadium. Timing was everything with the great Bertman, who passed away at age 88 last Aug. 14. Particularly timely hitting.
Since “Walker, Texas Ranger” went off the air in 2001 as the 8 p.m. Saturday night stronghold on CBS since 1993, Bertman would have probably gone to the LSU-A&M game. After his first national championship as the Tigers’ baseball coach in 1991, Bertman won the next four during the show’s reign, including the 1993 title with College World Series MVP Todd Walker (no relation). During the 1999 football season, I happened to ask Bertman if he was going to the LSU-Ole Miss football game that Saturday night.
“No, man,” he said. “My Saturday nights are full.” And then he paused and added with emphasis, “Walker, Texas Ranger, baby.”
I’m sure he really liked the show, but LSU’s football team under coach Gerry DiNardo was also 2-5 on the season and 0-5 in the Southeastern Conference at the time, having lost five straight following a 4-7 season the previous year
“You’re not going to see me,” Bertman said.
Bertman loved football. He played on the offensive line at Miami Beach High in the mid-1950s. While athletic director from 2001 through 2009, he often sat and watched LSU football games with media members in the pressbox. He was AD when coach Nick Saban won LSU’s first national championship since 1958 in the 2003 season.
That was an extremely well-timed national championship, because that previous August Bertman dramatically raised the cost of purchasing football season tickets at LSU through a progressive season-ticket licensing plan. For the first time in LSU history, Tiger football fans had to pay several hundred dollars to more than $1,000 dollars to something dubbed, “The Tradition Fund” just for the right to buy the tickets. It could’ve been career suicide for Bertman, but just a little over four months later, Saban and LSU won it all. And two weeks later, Tradition Fund and season ticket order forms went out in the mail. And LSU started making a lot of money so it could afford to build new athletic facilities or enhance old ones.
And nobody complained about the sudden inflation to deal with to go to Tiger Stadium on Saturday nights. That’s what you call timely hitting … of your customer’s checking and savings accounts.
LSU has had one losing season since the 1999 season, and the season ticket order forms keep flowing back to LSU every year.
But football season tickets and Tradition Fund money do not pay as many bills anymore – not in the age of Name, Image & Likeness, the NCAA Transfer Portal and huge buyouts to fired coaches by LSU. In fact, lately, bills are not being paid around the college athletics landscape at all. Major college football brand names are going in tremendous debt to try to stay in the game.
Since last February, Tiger Rag has been reporting on the LSU athletic department’s projected deficit of more than $30 million for the 2025-26 fiscal year.
Last week, Tiger Rag contributor Piper Hutchinson reported LSU’s budget shortfall for 2025-26 at $44 million and the projected shortfall for 2026-27 at $26 million.
Part of the reason for LSU being in the red is all the green that first-year LSU football coach Lane Kiffin is making – $91 million over seven years, or about $13 million a year. And LSU is paying a $54 million buyout to the guy LSU fired – Brian Kelly – last year to hire Kiffin.
So when Kiffin took the field Saturday night against No. 23 Texas A&M after a loss at No. 8 Ole Miss last week, he needed to show a little something for the effort, as Bill Murray said in “Caddyshack.” A little return on that investment in him was due.
And he showed the money with a beautiful, 35-6 win over the Aggies – their worst loss to LSU since 50-7 in 2019 when the Tigers last won a national title. The win Saturday was LSU’s most lopsided in a Southeastern Conference game since a 48-18 win over Auburn in 2023.
Kiffin, who is LSU’s first true offensive coordinator to be its head coach, and his offense rolled up 506 yards against the Aggies. LSU reached 400 yards in an SEC game once last year in a 20-10 win over South Carolina. In 2024, the Tigers never scratched 500 yards either.
Texas A&M may be a bad team this season, but it was still something to see. Explosive plays from LSU kept lighting up Tiger Stadium. The No. 11 Tigers (3-1, 1-1 SEC) looked like a national contender again.
There was one play in particular that seemed to hit LSU fans like a touchdown pass from Cupid right through their collective hearts.
It was fourth-and-one from the LSU 43-yard line with just over 11 minutes to play in the third quarter. The Tigers were in firm control of the game, but it was only 14-3. And the Aggies still had a chance. Just don’t do anything stupid. And Kiffin considered punting.
“Our defense was playing so well, I almost punted the ball,” Kiffin said after the game. “Then I caught myself at the last second. I knew that we had that play available. It had been sitting there for a couple weeks for that type of situation, and it popped open. So, I was like, ‘Okay, that’s not how we roll. It’s not how we talk to our team, being conservative.'”
And Kiffin went for it. Running back Dilin Jones aligned for a direct snap with quarterback Sam Leavitt right next to him. The Tigers have used that formation often this season on the goal line and run the ball successfully. Everyone faked like a power run was about to happen, and Texas A&M bit like a cruel Aggies joke. And Leavitt threw long over the middle to an all-alone Jackson Harris for a 57-yard touchdown and 21-3 lead.
It was over.
“Yeah, I’m glad we did that,” Kiffin said. “That’s kind of, I feel like, probably part of why we were hired here – that aggressiveness.”
That was the Kiffin LSU hired – a daring offensive coach who made going for it on fourth down very cool at Ole Miss, albeit not always successful. He’s a little more careful now, but not too careful.
“I did really feel there was some team momentum in that,” Kiffin said. “Like, ‘Okay, this is who we are. We go for it. We’re aggressive.’ We take shots in these situations, even though we’re ahead.'”
The play showed perfect timing for that moment, for some return and promise toward LSU’s tremendous debt, and for the dawn of the Lane Kiffin era on the field.
“I loved it,” Harris said. “My heart started pounding when he called the play. I knew it would work. We’d been repping it all week. That’s a credit to coach Kiffin and coach Weis (offensive coordinator and play caller Charlie Weis Jr.). Just aggressive play calling.”
4th & 1
— LSU Football (@LSUfootball) September 27, 2026
Lane knew before anyone. Don’t miss the latest episode of the Difference Tuesday night on @LSU_plus pic.twitter.com/w6Q6jJsjFD
As Harris raced toward the end zone untouched, Kiffin performed his patented touchdown sign with both arms up on the sidelines that he made famous while Alabama’s progressive offensive coordinator from 2014-16. Then he took off running down the sidelines as if he was a wide receiver.
This was the guy LSU hired. This first true offensive coordinator/play caller to ever be LSU’s head coach. And he was answering the call.
“You just had the sense with Lane Kiffin this week that they were feeling it,” ABC play-by-play announcer Joe Tessitore beamed. “That things would be much different. Oh, is it ever!”
There it is again, the “different” mantra. The real Lane Kiffin, not the coach who was a little too relaxed in the first half of the Ole Miss loss last week.
“Vintage Kiffin,” Tessitore cried as Kiffin threw his fist out on the sideline and signaled No. 1. “When he knows it, punch it up Lane!”
Touchdown for the new and different Tigers.
What a timely hit.
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