We decipher the latest on LSU’s new creative revenue-generating idea and discussions at the Governor’s mansion. Tigerbait.com’s Preston Guy previews Lane Kiffin’s first fall camp, and we look at how Will Wade could fill out his basketball roster with the new influx of eligible talent thanks to recent court rulings.
Here is the complete transcript of the show from YouTube. Tiger Rag apologizes for any AI generated mistakes:
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Y’all ready? Y’all ready? Let’s go. Come on.
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Tiger Rag Radio [music] is on the air. Let’s crank this thing up.
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We’re statewide breaking down the latest happenings with LSU athletics. This is up. Hear from the coaches. Our time is now with LSU basketball.
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The players having fun and we working, baby. That’s it, man. The recruits.
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One way or another, we’re going to make history.
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And those who cover the [music] Fighting Tigers of LSU and the SEC.
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LSU is the best job in it’s 2 hours of non-stop [music] LSU talk.
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I came here to win. We’re going to win immediately.
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Cumins. Cumins creates power solutions that the world depends on. Louisiana Beef Industry Council, Budro’s Electrical [music] Services, and Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation.
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Get ready to talk Tigers [music] with producer Case Kishnik and our hosts Todd Horn, Jeff Polalmo, and Glenn [music] Gilbo.
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Players are better people than they are players. This is Tiger [music] Rag Radio.
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Good afternoon. Glen Gilbo here, Tiger Rag editor filling in for Jeff Polalmo.
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He is on vacation with Todd Horn, our executive editor, and Case Kishnik, who got top billing there as producer.
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The way you said that, it sounded like I was on vacation with Jeff Polarmo.
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I’m sorry. Tom and Jeff Polmo were not on a beach in Dest, though I’m sure they’d like to, and I’d like to see those pictures. Just kidding. Uh, no.
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Jeff Polalmo is on vacation, but he keeps texting me about baseball trades.
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[laughter]
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Take some time off, Jeff.
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Uh, but uh, no, we’re filling in for uh, Jeffrey. And, um, actually, Case, you should go to Tiger Rag while you’re listening to the show. Tiger Egg Radio.
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case has a great story about the uh a recent judge ruling that frees up some fifth year seniors for the portal
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particularly teams who have openings i.e. Will Wade has many openings and there are some really good players in in
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in the portal available all of a sudden and they’re not available to all teams unless they have openings. So So Will
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has a shot to really enhance his uh his roster. Case has that story up now on uh tiger.com and and just like Will said in
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the opening, he’s he’s here to win. So So I if he has a great August, man, that that could make a a big difference. And and you know, he’s already got some
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decent players coming in. Uh he’s got five on the roster right now, not counting some commitments from overseas.
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And um but these are mainland players from the United States. And I only say that not to be anti-uro, but the if you sign these guys from the United States,
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there’s not as many difficulties with paperwork and so forth, which Wade has had with the um overseas players, but he’s probably going to get those guys in
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and by late August, we’ll uh we’ll know the roster. But um first of all though, we’re going to discuss um the uh the
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pow-wow at the governor’s mansion between the LSU mafia. I mean the LSU donors and uh and Governor Landry and
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and LSU’s uh new uh money plan and Todd is very well verssed on that. We’re going to discuss that in a second. Then
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at 6:30, we’re going to turn our attention to football with Preston Guy from tigerbait.com.
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as the Tigers have reported today for practice and they start practice tomorrow morning at 10 o’clock and that practice is open for a few periods.
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Tiger Rag will be there. Then at 7 tonight, we’re going to have Matthew Labort who is a CFO in the athletic
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department. He can talk to us a little bit about uh some of the money dealings going on uh at the governor’s mansion.
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He also works with scheduling with the football team replacing Verge Osbury there. uh when Verge moved up to the
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athletic director. Uh and at 7:30, Jay Johnson is going to talk about his
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surprise new player, um Schmidt. Um Logan Logan Schmidt. Yes, Logan Schmidt, who
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everybody thought was going to go to the Cleveland Guardians since he was a second round pick. They didn’t pay him enough money and he’s coming to LSU.
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But, uh, Todd, first off, if what do what do you think of what has been happening at the governor’s mansion and
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how do you think that is progressing for LSU’s new financial plans?
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Uh, you know, it’s been an interesting couple of days. They they met yesterday at the governor’s mansion uh for the first time and they’re going to meet again tomorrow uh for the final of that.
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And unfortunately uh we weren’t invited.
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Uh [laughter] so anything that I’m going to relate to you about this comes from secondhand sources and then actually the
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the way the story has evolved over the last 48 hours uh especially from the Tiger Rag perspective our perspective here at Tiger Rag has been based solely
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on uh anonymous sources through other reporters uh outside reporters
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um And today, uh, louisianaapasports.net, Matt Musona of AFR,
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uh, has a lot of firsthand information that kind of changes the perspective and
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the shape of what was reported by, uh, Redeye um, on Tuesday, I mean, on excuse me, on
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Monday, so I’m getting confused with the days already. Uh, on Monday, J.R. Ball of Redeye was on Talk Louisiana with Jim
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Inkingster and he had reported in the Redeye newsletter that he and Mughal Verma produce that it was um a basically
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a done deal that LSU would be when they were meeting with the the donors. They would have uh they basically closed up
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their their program that they were going to roll out. Um and it was
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without going in deep into the details, it was basically based on them giving uh raising a hund00 million through you
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know venture capital is what uh JR termed it uh which is a form of private equity of course but um and that would
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uh that would result in LSU having uh to give up 10% of their media rights
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according to what I understand JR had said over the next five years and then perhaps uh turning around and and getting those back. A lot of questions.
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There were a lot of questions. There wasn’t a lot of structure given, but there was a framework that could allow you to see how LSU could get the $und00
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million that they need or they want to be able to handle the the debt because this is all driven by the fact that LSU
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has a lot of dead money in terms of buyouts they have to pay. Brian Kelly, Matt McMahon, other assistant coaches,
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and then of course bringing in all the coaches and having to also absorb revenue sharing uh for the first time.
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So they were facing in 2026, fiscal 2026, fiscal 2026, a um
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a debt as we reported uh a deficit of 25 to 35 million. And we talked to Verge
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about that in February and it was in our money issue and it’s still online at tiger.com where you can get the full breakdown on
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that. What was interesting is that nobody else really talked about that uh for months um until they started talking
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about the fact they were going to have this donor pow-wow at the governor’s mansion where they were going to roll out this plan. So anyway, back to this
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week. uh people start talking about the deficit and how LSU needs to come up with with a
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a creative plan, a way to get money, but then it kind of freaked a lot of people out whenever everybody was talking about
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private equity because like Verge said when you and I spoke with him at length in February of this past year, you know,
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private equity, you got to consider everything, but private equity, Verge said, is scary because you basically lose control or tend to lose control and
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and that’s what scares most people whenever private equity comes into play.
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But anyway, Matt Muska today uh after talking to about 20 or or there were about 20 donors instead of 40 that
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actually attended the summit if you want to call it that uh on Monday and he had conversations with several of them and
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he reported basically that uh it’s it’s not traditional pro uh private equity at
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all. In fact, it’s a very creative uh program that LSU is trying to put
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together. Nothing is finalized yet at all. Uh we had reported uh via JR ball
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that it was it was closed or closing soon. Apparently, that’s not the case right now. But the the gist of it is is
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that it’s if if Matt’s reporting is accurate and if what was said on the radio today on his show uh from one of
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the the donors who was at the event, right? Do you remember what his name was?
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I can’t remember it right now. That’s why I didn’t say it. But the um if it’s accurate, the story is no longer about
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LSU selling any of its uh revenue at all. In other words, to raise the hund00 million, which obviously would come from
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a private fund, uh the $und00 million that they would get basically right away uh once this is finalized.
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But they’re not selling anything. In fact, what they’re probably doing, it looks like, is going to be setting up a separate LLC and a separate nonprofit
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that would become basically an investment company. Uh, that would be completely controlled by LSU and they
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would invest in other companies that were, you know, expecting to be profitable and they would earn profits
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off of that. So it would basically be an LSU holding company and structured within a nonprofit. Which brings into
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questions some of the things. The reason it’s not finalized yet is they have to still go through valuations
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because the assets have to be valuated uh for whatever that corporation’s assets are going to be. And also it has
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to go through they’re waiting uh Roose said there Wade Roose said they were waiting for the IRS to get back to them uh with specific uh tax questions that
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they have so maintain Charles Harvey was the guest. He’s president of the Southern Regional Medical Center.
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Yeah. And he’s a big-time donor. He’s a donor primarily it sounded like from for basketball. Uh but not that he’s not a
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football donor or an LSU sports donor, but he seems to seem like he favored uh well, they need that supporting basketball.
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And he he said that he’s given a million dollars of his own money over the last few years.
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Right. Right. That’s amazing. That’s that’s that’s the type that’s the level donors they have at this uh at this paw.
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And I guess there’ll be another 20 there Wednesday. And some of some of the same people will be there as well. and and and the thing that that he characterized
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it as and and Matt and Mosca and his reporting has characterized it as is they’re not asking for any money right now. Not that they’re going to quit
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asking donors for money, but as far as this creative plan goes, this is a perpetual revenue generating engine that
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they have conceived for LSU as an investment company. And it and there is private equity involved in a
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sense that uh Greg Jackson who’s affiliated with Michigan State and is a
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billionaire who’s involved with Acrier uh which is a private equity investment company. Um he would be involved.
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You mean Greg Williams? Greg Williams. Did I say Jackson? Greg Williams. Yeah. Greg Greg Williams.
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Uh would be involved. He would be on the board. But LSU the key point here is that uh LSU would maintain control
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right of everything right. So Greg Williams works with private equity.
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So so private equity will be somewhat involved. Obviously Greg Williams is involved but but how much you know remains to be seen.
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The thing about the thing about it is I think the term private equity scares people.
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Scares Verge Osbury. It scar Well, it scares people in general because because what it it implies is that is that
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they’re going to seek control and they’re going to try to dictate, you know, how the business is run and what what happens. And that is true any and
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I’ve been involved in private equity most of my career. Um they do have they exert control. They they take over the
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way a company is operated and run because they’re putting their money in.
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They want their profits out. But if you’re going to get money to fund
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anything on the private side, that’s by definition private equity. And it and it can be structured in a way that they
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don’t have that control. And it appears by coming up with this creative plan that LSU supposedly has according to
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Matt’s reporting um with an LLC that’s going to be an investment holding
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company. and uh apparently uh structured with a w with also a nonprofit in the mix so they can move funds and assets
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back and forth. Uh and that’s what they have to check out all the legalities on.
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But I’m sure that they’ve been working on this since February from what I understand.
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Yeah. And and uh I think um you know they probably had a plan set. They didn’t just start doing it at at the
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meeting. So I think JR’s that part was probably accurate. They may have been close to an agreement before the meetings even started and they have uh you know they still have work to do.
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I I think whenever JR said that it was closed when he was on Talk Louisiana, I don’t think he meant that they had finalized everything. I think he meant
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that the investment portion of it was closed. I think there’s a lot of detail that we’re not going to know until it actually is finalized.
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Okay. and you know and and you know you’re calling it private equity but whenever you have donors at any major
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program that are involved they’re always going to have somewhat of a say you know I mean if you know for decades you know
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I I guarantee you when they were deciding whether to keep a coach or not or which coach to hire you know that those donors were saying well you know I
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think we ought to get rid of the coach well I think that’s exactly the reason why that they invited the donors those particular donors to talk. They wanted
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they wanted them to understand what they were trying to do, right? And we’ll [music] be back with more discussion on that and uh and getting ready for uh football practice
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right right after this on Tiger Egg Radio. I’m Richard Fner, president of the Louisiana Farm Bureau [music] Federation. My brother and I grow rice,
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soybeans, and raised crawfish on our farm in Evangeline Parish. For a fourth generation farmer [music] like myself, Louisiana Farm Bureau is as much a part
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15 minutes, 33 seconds
of my life as checking traps or harvesting rice. Our organization is more than 145,000 members strong and [music] we’ve been around for more than
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100 years. The Louisiana Farm Bureau spans generations and we want you to join our family. Visit lafarmbureau.org.
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The Louisiana Farm Bureau Federation, the voice of Louisiana agriculture. Now back to Tiger Rag Radio.
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Welcome back to Tiger Rag Radio. This is Glenn Gilbo, Tiger Eagi with Todd Horn, Tiger Eag executive editor, and Case
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Kishnik, sports writer radio guy, producer, overall good guy. Um, so we’re
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going to have at uh 6:30, about 8 minutes from now, we’re going to have uh after another break, we’re going to have u uh who is our first guest?
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Preston Guy of Tiger Bait. We’re going to talk about LSU football which is starting practice tomorrow morning uh to
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kick off the Lane Keifin era almost call him Preston Gomez who is a former Astros manager but uh Preston Guy
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uh from tigerbait.com who’s uh in the know with LSU football. Preston had an interesting uh tweet tonight today. He
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was talking about the 2019 LSU Alabama game. and he said there was never been more talent on a foot college football
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field at the same time than in that game. He might have been talking about just LSU Alabama games, but it probably
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rivals any game. And I said, “Well, that 2011 LSU Alabama game, they put a lot of guys in the NFL, too.” Preston said 2019
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had a had a bit more than 2011. And you know, another great game that had a lot of draft choices, 1979 USC at LSU in Tiger Stadium.
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Yeah. And I think you could also point to the 2000 or 2001 Miami Nebraska game that had several too.
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Yeah. Yeah. And some other LSU Alabama games during the Les Miles Nick Sabin uh rivalry for sure. And the and the
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Alabama Miami National Championship game in the 92 season as well. So, what do
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you think about the talent on this roster? Uh, by the way, our our Tiger Rag uh preseason football guide is available on
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tiger.com and digital and it’s also available at locations throughout Baton Rouge right now uh in hard copy. It’s uh
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it’s got a lot of good good information in it. Um it’s a great season guide to to get you ready for the the season in in many ways. There’s a lot of short
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stories, long stories, information uh packed magazine to get you ready for the season. And Tiger Rag will be at
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practice tomorrow 10:00 a.m. And then after that, uh Lane Keifin has a press conference. And then
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they practice Thursday at 6:30 p.m. Uh we’ll also be at that one. And there’s more practices uh through the weekend. And then players are available on Monday, August 10th.
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So, we’ll be having lots of football in the U website next several days.
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What do you think what do you think Lane’s going to say tomorrow?
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Uh, well, he uh he’ll probably um pick up where he left off at the at the media days. I would I would think uh continue his filibuster.
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He will not have uh seen a lot. Uh you know, just just one practice. probably uh give an update on the players who are
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there and maybe some aren’t who recovering from injuries. Uh so, you know, there’ll be some news nuggets.
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We’ll probably ask him about Sam, how he’s doing, but he’s been saying Sam’s been good for for weeks now.
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What are you guys’ biggest questions heading into tomorrow? Just tomorrow. Just tomorrow.
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Hm. Uh, well, I usually on the first day of practice, you you want to just check and see if everybody’s there, if
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anyone’s missing, if there’s an injury that that maybe the coaches haven’t let us know about. Uh, and I’m looking at
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just the um, of course, this was already done in spring, but just looking at at some of the size of the players and and
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some of the true freshman that weren’t at spring. What about you, Case?
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Yeah, I think you said it right there at the end. and the true freshman that weren’t involved in the spring, Lamar Brown comes to mind immediately just seeing what he looks like out on the
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field. Um, you know, he’s a guy that is one of the top recruits to ever come to LSU and uh could be a real contributor
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as a true freshman in a seemingly almost wide openen uh defensive end room outside of Prince William. And so
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obviously you want to see, you know, that he is the the physical versatile beast that he’s supposed to be. And I’m I’m sure he will look like that even on that first day.
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Well, those are those are two interesting takes and both are very important, I think. Um, so I respect
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both of you very much. I don’t want you to think I don’t when I say this, but I’m going to walk straight over to where Sam Levit is and watch him because I think Sam Levit holds the keys.
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You’re going to take a look at his foot.
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Watch his foot. I’m going to ask him to lift his foot. I’m going to ask him uh why he chose to come to LSU, what, you
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know, how much money he’s making, uh how much pressure he feels, can he play in the SEC, and how soon do you think you’ll be escorted off the field? Right away. Okay.
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Right away. All right.
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So, I’m going have to hurry up and get all those questions in.
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By the way, have you guys heard Lane Keifin’s new uh Ford commercial? No.
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I just heard it for the first time today. It’s It’s funny. I didn’t re recognize his voice right off. He doesn’t sound like a typical coach in
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the truck commercial. You know, Coach O had one, Kelly had one, they all had one. Uh, but it’s it’s it’s kind of interesting. It’s it’s almost like he’s
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kind of acting, you know, like he’s saying, “Get your truck and go Tigers.” It’s it’s really kind of funny.
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[laughter] It’s like he almost said like Matt Matt McCehe, you know, MCA does all those Matthew McCat. Well, I call him Matt because we’re buddies. Okay. But uh
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you know some of his car commercials like he did the Lincoln commercial cuz he was the Lincoln lawyer. But anyway, if if uh they make a movie out of Lane,
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Matt McConey might be a good guy to uh to uh play him, I would say.
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Maybe. So all right. Well, we’ll be back after this time out with Preston Guy and go a [music] little deeper on football.
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The East Baton Rouge Parish Library believes that supporting the education of students is good for us all.
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That’s why we provide access to [music] live in-person online tutoring through homework Louisiana.
22:09
22 minutes, 9 seconds
Make available free test [music] preparation tools through Learning Express and Mometrics, plus [music] reference tools for all ages.
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22 minutes, 18 seconds
Get a library card. Get free education at ebrpl.com/homeworkhelp. [music] We now return to Tiger Rag Radio.
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Bad Company. I saw Bad Company at the Assembly Center in I did too. I did tell you like 1977.
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Actually, I saw him in the spring of 79. Okay.
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I was a senior I was a senior at Rumble and we we came it was that summer. It was the summer. Uh and that their album at the time was Desolation Angels. Y
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and I had a t-shirt Desolation Angels on the back. It was a great show, man.
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I saw Ted Nan at the Assembly Center in about 77 or 78. That was Cat Scratch Fever. That was the wildest [laughter] concert.
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Yeah, that was that was 77. Yeah. And and when Bad Company was doing the encors, um they they opened up one of the
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garages of the assembly center and backed up like this 57 Chevy convertible and they did their last couple of songs and they all got into the convertible
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and took off. It was it was so I’m sure all of our fans are Tiger Rag and LSU fans right now. They’re listening to this are very enthralled by this.
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Well, I mean there is an LSU connection.
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It was at the Assembly Center. That’s right. That’s right. And I saw Springsteen there, too. Great show. But anyway, we we’re are now joined by
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Preston Guy from tigerbait.com. Fresh off the tigerbait.com 30th anniversary party on on Saturday. I would have liked
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to have gone, but I had another commitment. And uh Preston, have you been were were you outside the governor’s mansion yesterday trying to
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find out what was happening? [snorts] No. uh and I’m not so certain that uh even if I was there I would necessarily
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understand what is going down there. Um but seems to be something related to private equity. Uh but then there’s a
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hard refutal of that. Um my best guess in terms of what’s going on here and I’ve read the explanations and the
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reports and all that jazz, right? It’s you know it’s like you know when when somebody says, “Oh, you lease this property.” No, man. I have a time share.
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You know what I mean? It’s kind of the same thing sometimes, but you know, there’s some structural fundamental differences that have pros and cons and
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advantages and disadvantages. That would be my best guess is this is some sort of manipulation of private equity.
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Well, you know, and I would just expand on that a little bit because I think you’re basically right, Preston, from what I’ve, you know, we don’t have any firsthand knowledge just like no one
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else does unless you were invited into the mafia or the mansion uh for the meeting. [laughter] But um I I I think it you know from
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what’s what Matt Mosana reported today and what we’re reporting on Tiger Rag that Matt Moscone reported um Thanks Matt.
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Yeah, thank you Matt. um is that it looks like it’s structured like they’re building a holding company that LSU is going to maintain control of and they’re
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just going to invest in other companies and uh create a structure that allows them to just make money off the money
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that they’re making and uh you know get some money upfront from private equity.
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Although people don’t want to call it private equity because private equity scares people, but that’s you know if it’s private money and you get equity that’s private equity.
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Yeah. And and at least it’s somewhat out in the open, too. You know, that that’s good.
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Yeah, it sounds a bit like an endowment to me, but I’m no financial expert. Don’t take my word on that.
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Well, okay. Well, tell us this. I mean, practice starts tomorrow. Is LSU going to be in the playoffs or what? That’s that’s all we want. LSU.
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[laughter] Now, that I can talk about.
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Uh, I think LSU is going to be pretty close to the playoffs. And I think that if LSU had Texas Tech schedule, I think that that would be a gimme. However, you
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don’t you have, you know, four teams that are ranked in the top 11 of the coaches poll, right? So, that means for
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you to finish better than eight and four means you beat some pretty good football team along the way if things pan out.
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Not to mention Tennessee’s on your schedule. So, there’s a realistic argument that if LSU were the 19th best team in the country that we’re looking
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at a seven and five finish, right? So, um, you know, I I think LSU is going to have a pretty good football team. I have
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some concerns. I mean, number one, 59 new faces on the football team. That’s a lot of new faces learning how to play with each other. I mean, you think about
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it. 12 out of 13 receivers are new to the team, right? Your entire quarterback room new to the team, right?
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So, especially on the offensive side of the ball, it’s a lot of chemistry issues. Then you start looking at the actual logistical issues we saw in spring and we’ll see if those hold up.
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Offensive line’s a big concern for me.
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Um because three out of the five of your starters were on roster last year and that was the most putrid offensive line in school history, right?
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Um I don’t know that plugging in a first round pick left tackle fixes all those problems, right? Uh you know, is Sam
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Levit healthy and can he perform in the SEC? That’s a huge question I have that we have not even an inkling of an answer to, although you would assume he will be
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a pretty good player based on his body of work. uh you know and and then can you run the ball because Lane Kein’s offense is highly predicated on running
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the ball. I took stats. In fact, Glenn still owes me dinner from uh for keeping stats for him during spring.
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Hey, you turn me down. I I had a time for you. You turned me down. I’ll still I’ll still get you. I’ll still get you.
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I did. I did. You got to give me more than 14 minutes. [laughter] Hey, man. It’s all about spontaneity, Glenn.
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Yeah. Yeah. But I would love to have gone. I’m not bad. I do love CRQ. Okay.
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Anyways, I kept stats during spring and basically in between the tackles, they averaged like two yards a carry, right? It was not good in between the tackle.
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So, everybody’s hyping up Dylan Jones, but the fact is when this when the scrimmages came, Dylan Jones wasn’t any more or less special than the other guys
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you saw out there. So, you know, I have some questions about running the ball in between the tackles and, you know, offensive line play and quarterback health and chemistry. So, we’ll see.
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So, Preston, the biggest thing that that I thought of when you were talking about that that running game and the two yards average between the tackles, um, I think
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that’s very interesting. Um, but I think that that would probably be a byproduct of the offensive line not performing
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more than the running backs. What would you say to that?
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I probably would be uh I would tend to agree. Um, I mean, especially, I mean, the first three yards is basically something that the offensive line gives
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you from most the part. Obviously, there’s vision and, you know, footwork that goes into it, but I I would argue for the most part your first three yards
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of a run is all about can you get a hole for the running back to run with some exceptions of course, but I I would agree. I would also like to argue that
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the front seven did have an impressive showing. Now, I’m not saying that, you know, they’re going to be a 2011 Bama LSU type front seven, but I I think that
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they did show some some some good looks during spring.
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LSU does not have a running back that really scares you that and they really haven’t had one of those since Leonard
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Fornette, Darius, I’m sorry, Clyde Edwards Heler was very good. But the really scare you, Leonard Fornette, I
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would say I think Dylan Jones is just a little bigger than the other two, but you’re right, he may have been overhyped. Sometimes a new guy gets gets
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overhyped. But Preston, I got to tell you, that was not the most putrid offensive line in history. I covered several of those [clears throat]
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LSU teams that had six straight losing seasons from 1989 through 94 and they had some bad offensive lines
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there for Curley. Well, and I’m not
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[clears throat]
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I’m not going to dispute that they were bad during Curley’s time, but I watched two games last week from last year on ESPN.
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Were they from 1989? They were from they were from last year.
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Last week and one of them was the Alabama game and I I think the other I think the other was Arkansas. They they were horrible. They were
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But at least those guys were decent recruits. There were some linemen in the early late 80s and early 90s that weren’t even good recruits. don’t blame
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it completely on the players. I blame it primarily honestly on the scheme and I think that that’s where this team I
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think that you know spring was short relatively speaking like Preston you know points out that was a lot to get done in the spring and they they all
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have you know mostly new new guys. They do have, you know, two or three coming back, but I think the fall, the first few weeks of fall are going to be
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imperative for them to develop a running game and to form an offensive line that’s able to compete and hopefully be formidable.
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Preston, we’re about out of time. Real quick, what’s the first thing you’re going to be looking at tomorrow when practice starts or when they start doing something?
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Quarterback. Okay. Yeah, me too.
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Quarterback and then if and then if you can run the ball.
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I hear you. All right. All right. Well, Preston, thanks a lot for joining us.
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Uh, and we will see you out there tomorrow morning at practice. I’ll see you soon, Glenn.
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All right, but we’ll be back with more Tiger Rag right after this. Tiger Rag Radio is back.
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Hello, welcome back to Tiger Rag Radio.
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This is Glenn Gilbo, Tiger Rag editor with Case Kishnik, Tiger Rag writer. Uh
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well, Case, what uh what are your uh thoughts as Will Wade gets close to uh completing his roster over the next few
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weeks? How many of these guys who’s who are listed in your story today that’s up on tiger.com that are fifthear seniors
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that are suddenly available in the portal by a judges ruling? You think Wade’s going to get a couple of those or is his is his roster close to being set
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already uh as far as uh you know the players coming in from overseas that technically on on the team yet, but he knows if they’re coming before they’re before they’re here.
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You know, I think he obviously got the guys that he wanted, right? Uh there were some portal players that he he missed on, but as far as the overseas
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guys, he feels really good about who that is. Now, that being said, he did miss out on uh Yamadar, I believe, is
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the the Israeli pro player who decided to stay and play the 25-year-old point guard, right? And and that was that was his decision. He decided to stay and play uh
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in that pro league. And so, there’s going to be some help that they definitely need. And now you’ve got this new influx of players. And I don’t know
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that there’s a power four program in the country that has more minutes to give out if you’re just looking at the roster
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as it is currently. You know, um there’s probably a little bit more depth uh on the current roster in the back court,
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but if he can get some some front court help uh with some big men that, you know, he’s relying really just on one or
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two uh foreign players and none of the or or only one of the new guys coming in really has any size. um he’s going to go
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for someone. Now, that being said, you can’t rule out the the top programs in the country, the the perennial Kucky’s, Dukes, you know, if they want a guy, they can probably still go get them.
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Obviously, I’m not familiar with their roster uh situations, what their limit looks like, how their financial situation looks, what resources they
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have, but you have to imagine that something’s going to get shaken here in the next couple weeks before school starts.
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Yeah. And you know, the uh the roster limit for men’s basketball is 15 if I’m not mistaken. It’s been 15 for a long
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time. And most teams don’t carry that many guys. You know, they usually carry about 13. So, if there’s some really good players in this group, some of the
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other teams out there that are might maybe at 12 or 13, they might say, “Hey, well, look, let’s let’s get a couple of these guys.” And I I think LSU needs a a
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true point guard if if there’s one out there. Well, the the first one that anyone’s going to talk about is Donovan Dent from UCLA. He was a guy that was at
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New Mexico for three years and even uh the year before last, he was a guy that like going into the tournament made New Mexico everyone’s favorite Cinderella
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pick because he he can do anything that you want from a point guard as far as playmaking, scoring. He went to UCLA, had a good season, didn’t put up quite
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the same numbers that he did at New Mexico, but still a very productive season at UCLA. And so he comes back, he
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actually retired from basketball after graduating. He said, “I’m not going to go to the uh NBA. I’m going to go back to New Mexico and develop youth
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players.” So because of that, he never signed an NBA contract. He’s still eligible to return. He put his name in the portal, and that’s got to be the top guy that you’re looking at there. I
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don’t know that LSU is targeting him, but he’s going to be a name that’s going around uh a lot of schools in the country.
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You know, it’s amazing. There’s there’s never been a time in LSU history where you’ve had so much roster in flux this
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late before school starts with the three major sports, baseball, football, and men’s basketball. You know, in the past,
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the men’s basketball roster is usually set. Even in the portal years, it’s usually set before now, but you know,
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extenduating circumstances with with Wade coming in, not getting all his targets early in the portal, going overseas. There’s delays with that.
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Baseball is always kind of in August.
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And Jay just got Logan Schmidt really enhances his roster, the the second round pick by the Guardians, who’s who’s
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staying at LSU. He had signed at LSU months ago. We’re going to have Jay on at at 7:30. And then the the football roster. This is the most new players in
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the history of the program, like 60 of them. Uh and and so Lane’s going to be getting that sorted out uh with his roster. He already started doing that in
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the in the spring, but now all his uh true freshman not going through the the spring are in. So man, there there’s
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just a lot of new players getting to know uh Baton Rouge. Of course, a lot of them have been here um all summer, but it’s going to be interesting to watch
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all three of those teams as they uh get the roster together, start the season, and then LSU’s got fall ball as uh the
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basketball team starts playing. It’s it’s going to be a lot of new faces out there.
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Well, that’s just kind of the state of college athletics at this point. You know, I was looking through those guys.
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There’s probably about 10 or so guys in the article that uh fifth year coming back entered the transfer portal and I
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think maybe one of them was at one school for their entire four seasons.
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Now these are guys that most people would point out and say see these guys did it right. They graduated in four years. Didn’t have any red shirts, didn’t have any COVID eligibility. This is, you know, traditional basketball.
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Only one of them was at and I I believe it was Clemson was at Clemson for four years.
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A lot of them were at four different schools in four years. Yeah.
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And that’s just that’s just how it is across all the sports, not just basketball, but LSU basketball in particular. It’s felt like they’ve been playing catch-up throughout the entire
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entire Portal era really because Will Wade kind of left or was forced to leave uh right complete empty roster,
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right? And there was what one scholarship player left for Matt McMahon, right? And that was right kind of at the dawn of the real Portal era as we kind
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of know it now. And then even with McMahon here, he was kind of rebuilding that roster every year because you bring in these Portal guys.
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They’re fine moving on again. And he couldn’t really establish a consistent way to build out of high school. Yeah.
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And you know, even now, Will Wade’s kind of been left to do the same thing. He comes in late. He can’t really build out that high school class and he’s going to be relying on the
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portal again. Now, that’s definitely going to change in the coming years, but they’re just playing catch-up.
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Yeah. And it’s funny, back in the day, like when Dale Brown was coaching and bringing in all kind of great players each year, those guys were here like in
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late spring, May, and they were playing basketball pickup supposedly with no coaches around like all summer at the
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fieldhouse and stuff. We could go watch them, you know, Stanley Roberts, Shaquille O’Neal, they played all summer together. These guys together are only
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going to have a few weeks before uh like they get together late August. They’ll have to about uh uh I think practice starts September 25th. Yeah, September
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25th. So, that’s a lot of that’s a lot of catching up to do. But uh the uh let’s see, it’s about time for our next
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break and uh we’re going to be we’re going to have uh another break before we’re joined by uh LSU CFO Matt Labour.
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We’re going to talk about some um football scheduling with Matt, but we’ll be back with more Tiger Rag right after this.
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We’re back to Tiger Rag Radio. Hello, welcome back to Tiger Rag Radio.
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This is Glenn Gilbo, Tiger Rag editor filling in for Louisiana Radio Network’s Jeff Polalmo is on vacation joined by uh with Case Kishnik, Tiger Rag staff
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reporter, also works for Louisiana Radio Network. Todd Horn has stepped out for a minute. He’s going to be back with us.
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Um, case, we uh we just finished a couple of weeks ago working on the uh Tiger Rag season guide. One one of the
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things cool about back in the day when you’re a sports writer, we had what was called the tab, which was a tabloid that
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came out which was like usually 120 pages at the Advocate when I used to work at the Baton Rouge Advocate football schedules, college, all kind of
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stuff. And one of and and basically what Tiger Egg has out now called the Lane Keifin reset. You can get it at news stands all over Baton Rouge grocery
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stores and it’s on the website uh the Lane Keifin Reset. The cool thing about doing these things is as you’re doing the stories, you start learning about
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the team, it kind of gets emlazed in your head and by osmosis and you figure out some things maybe you didn’t know.
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What What are some things you learned from doing your stories on this team?
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Well, I mean really it’s just getting a familiarity with the roster, right?
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There’s so much turnover this year. And I went through and I wrote, you know,
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30word bios on all 108 players. And now I’m not saying I can recall every single one of those. That was a late night. But
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it it’s just it’s really remarkable just how much of a a reset it really is. Um,
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you know, the wide receiver room always comes to mind for me that you’ve got a room of 13 guys and one of them was a Tiger last year. And you know,
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J Philip Wright, Philip Wright, he had one uh one catch for two yards and you’ve got nine new transfers coming in that could be
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anywhere from the number 13 guy in the portal to the number 259 guy in the portal. And there’s really just a lot to
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unpack there. And you know, you have an idea of the top four guys through the spring and who’s been getting these reps and this and whatnot, but it’s wide open really. And that’s something to keep an
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eye on through preseason camp, I feel, is just what does that rotation look like? Then you add in the fact that Sam Levit wasn’t the guy throwing it to him in the spring for the most part.
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And so it’s just going to be a whole new dynamic that really this offense has only had this summer and this upcoming fall camp to build,
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right? And hopefully Levit’s been throwing to the receivers over the summer, which is something kids always do. and because Sam has been able to to
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throw. But uh and so those bios, a lot of those bios that you worked on, we’re running just about a bio or two a day.
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We started a couple of weeks ago. We’re going to be doing um uh I think the number is 42. It’s not the whole team,
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but it’s mainly the first two uh depth charts. Uh first team, second team, and some other key players. We’ll be running
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those one or two a day, sometimes three a day, right up until uh kickoff against Clemson on uh September 5th. But um
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yeah, there’s there’s a lot in here. You really ought to pick it up uh in your hand uh at throughout Baton Rouge,
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grocery stores, all kind of barber shops, all kind of places, uh restaurants, and you can also get it on
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the uh Tiger Egg website. And um plenty of uh football on the Tiger Egg website today and there’ll be a lot tomorrow as
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practice starts at 10:00 a.m. and we’ll be having coverage uh all week right up into the U season opener September 5th
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against Clemson. And we’ll we’re going to be back after this break with uh associate athletic director from LSU, Matthew Leort. Back right after this with more Tiger Rag Radio.
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