The invasion is under way. Jake Landry, a Louisiana native who lives in Seattle, saw the unmistakeable evidence early and often this week of LSU's trip to the Pacific Northwest for the season-opening game Saturday night at the University of Washington.

"Some of these guys are so freaking big," Landry said by telephone this morning. "I have never seen people so thick. They are huge. They're like a whole other breed of human beings."

Note: He hasn't seen the LSU players yet.

"No, these are the fans," he said. "I saw some guys that were like 6-5 and probably 300 pounds, and it was all muscle. They're just so big."

LSU opens its fifth season with Les Miles in charge, taking on the Washington Huskies at 9:30 p.m. (CDT) Saturday in Husky Stadium in Seattle.

It's LSU's most faraway place to play a football game, but that hasn't stopped its fans from making their presence felt in a way that is impossible not to notice.

You can find LSU fan reports from Seattle here and elsewhere on this site.

Landry, whose family moved to the Seattle area in the late 1980s, returned to his hometown of Lake Charles in the early '90s, then settled back into a Seattle lifestyle about four years ago. The arrival of fans from his home state shocked even him earlier this week.

"I've never seen so many people wearing purple," he said, fully aware it's the University of Washington's primary color.

Landry, a street musician whose 27th birthday is at the end of the month, said the swarm of LSU fans, with their "Tiger Bait" and "Geaux Tigers" chants in midseason form, are everywhere, especially in the popular Pike Place Market.

"They have blown people's minds," he said. "The whole state of Louisiana is here. I've heard 18,000 people are coming. I've heard 20,000. I've heard 25,000. I think they're all here now. They started coming in on Tuesday."

The purple he sees is LSU purple, not the UDub variety.

"Nobody cares about sports much up here," Landry said. "There are a few people who care about it and might have a jersey or something, but there aren't fans like there are fans back home. Plus, the whole state of Louisiana gets behind one college team. Here, it depends on where you live.

"I'm sure people in other parts of the state go for the Huskies, but someone in eastern Washington is not going to fly to Louisiana to watch them play. That ain't going to happen. People in Louisiana are poorer than people here, but they're willing to spend half their life savings on a jersey and a plane ticket."

LSU jerseys. LSU hats. LSU shirts. LSU jumpsuits.

Jumpsuits?

"I'm not kidding when I say jumpsuits," Landry said. "There are people in LSU jumpsuits, like they're about to jump out of a plane. It's kind of freaky, man."

Perhaps some of them did jump out of a plane, possibly part of a low-fare deal made on the Internet. Whatever the case, the Tiger has landed in Seattle.

Landry said he told buddies to sing "Hold that Tiger" between their regular playlist. The street musicians and craftsmen at the Market are still experiencing culture shock, he said.

"All the vendors are like, 'What the hell is going on?' The people here are baffled," he said.

Landry gave them some advice.

"Be on their side," he told a street vendor, "because they'll be your best friend. If you're against them, boy, you're against all of them."

That said, he hasn't noticed the invasion being an economic boon to the folks who ply their trade at the Market. Not yet.

"They're really not buying anything," he said. "I talked to all the vendors, and they said, 'They look through all the stuff, and they say, "That's nice. Bye." They're cheap.'

"I said, 'They're not cheap, they're broke. They spent everything just to fly out here and stay here.' I think if they had more money they'd spend it more, unlike some of the people who come up here. I just think the economy down there isn't what it is up here."

LSU fans who don't know each other except by the colors they wear are encountering each other in Seattle and immediately breaking into the back-and-forth "Geaux ... Tigers ..." that marks their appearance in airports, tourist spots and, really, just about anywhere they find themselves outside home base.

"They're out here in droves, and they're out here to prove a point: that they love LSU, and LSU is going to win," Landry said. "I have never seen people care so much about a team."

Landry said he put "Geaux Tigers" on a sign in the area where he and his band perform.

"They just looked at me like I was trying to profit off of them," he said.

He's struck up friendly conversations with those who noticed him playing Louisiana songs, including the Cajun staple "Colinda" and some Bourbon Street blues. The older folks have stopped and asked who he is and where he's from.

He's a Louisiana boy, and right now he's in the middle of an LSU hurricane swirling around Seattle, wave after wave in anticipation of the start of another LSU footballseason.

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Carl Dubois has written or blogged about LSU sports since 1999. His phone interview with Jake Landry of Slimpickins wasn't hard to arrange. Jake is his nephew. The last thing he told Carl was "I'll call you if anything crazy happens." Carl is expecting the phone to ring. Often. You can contact him at carl1061 'at' gmail.com.