re: Louisiana St. vs LSU

I’m not sure but I love a classic “TOUCH DOWN LOUISIANA STATE!” On a CBS Saturday afternoon. It’s nostalgic.

I'm an old geezer and it's been called LSU all of my life.

Louisianans called Louisiana State University A&M LSU long before I was born.

The polls always showed LSU as Louisiana State even in the 30's.

Just like Florida State University was known as FSU until much later.

USC was one of the first known for the shorter from of it's name.

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Late 1970s is when they started putting LSU on the football helmets.

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cool pic for helmet and years reference... the numbers (57, 64, 71) were from around the mid 60's to 1971. The round sticker with Tiger face on top of LSU was from 1972-1976. LSU bold capitol letters with round Tiger face sticker & grey face mask was from 1977-1979. In 1980 the helmet changed to a purple face mask (bottom row of helmets)

You talking about Monroe or Laffy? It's comical that ULL thinks of itself as the only University of Louisiana.

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The polls always showed LSU as Louisiana State even in the 30's.

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Ironically, the basketball team had "Louisiana State" jerseys as late as 1981.

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I promise you that LSU has always been called LSU, since before Huey Long was governor. And my wife has a photo of her dad as a freshman in 1954 wearing a sweater that says LSU. And I went to LSU in the 80's and I can promise you that we were referred to in the media as LSU. The endzones have always said LSU.

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The school has been known as LSU for generations in the state and region. Rarely would anyone use anything else in the region. The national sports media, however, until relatively recently, were pretty consistent in their use of “Louisiana State.” Outside of the SEC territory lots of people just weren’t familiar with LSU, and if you referred to “LSU” you would have to clarify. I think the national recognition and shift in the national media came when LSU was in the national spotlight in football in the early 2000s. Now hearing or seeing “Louisiana State” is pretty rare. Doesn’t hurt to have several former LSU players as commentators having national exposure on ESPN and the opportunity to talk about “LSU.”

Since Louisiana is the only state that starts with an L, there is no confusing it with another university when referred to as LSU. Florida also is only state that starts with an F, so FSU makes sense. Georgia, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Utah also fall in that category.

I found in the dark days of Archer and Hallman, when we had 6 losing season in a row, Louisiana State was the preferred name the media used. When Dinardo started a winning tradition and Saban took it to a higher level, LSU has replaced it as the preferred name. Winning changes everything.

It goes even further back. In the Cholly Mac era, for example, Louisiana State was the norm for the national media.