re: Maason Smith suspended Game 1 VS FSU according to Wilson Alexander

So it would clearly take more than Maason to beat FSU but now the game is already lost because we do t have one guy on the Dline? It does suck but it’s not like last year. We can win without Maason. We could end up blowing them out but if we lose I would have a hard time believing it’s because we didn’t have him. There are plenty of ways to win a game and plenty of ways to lose a game. It sucks but there’s no point in worrying. Next man up.

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According to On3, LSU tried to schedule a week 0 opponent to avoid the FSU suspension. Apparently they couldn’t get that worked out.

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We tried to move the Grambling game to this weekend and we couldnt get it done

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We tried to move the Grambling game to this weekend and we couldnt get it done

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This bothers me a bit, how much depends on when we knew about the suspension and tried to actually do it. There are a TON of logistics that go into a game day in Tiger Stadium. Besides all the support staff (police/security, concession workers, ushers, ticket takers, etc…) that have to be on campus, the 1st home game of the season will have people driving in despite it being a lesser opponent in Grambling, so hotels have been booked by out of town LSU fans and a ton of Grambling fans for a while now.

Were we really trying to move that game up 2 weeks to August 26th when the high in Baton Rouge is 102 and there’s “red flag” and “excessive heat” warnings until 8 pm JUST so Maason could play next week against FSU? I mean, if we tried to do this in the spring or even early summer to both have Maason available AND to stick it to the Noles a bit by scheduling our own Week 0 game, I guess I get it. But if we’ve only been scrambling the last 2-3 weeks to move mountains JUST for Maason, that doesn’t inspire a whole lot of confidence.

Hopefully they’ve known for a while and the attempt to move the game up happened months ago. I do think they’ve planned for the possibility of this in practice probably most of fall camp, though, getting Guillory as many 1st team reps as possible, and trying to develop some depth behind him and Wingo. It sucks that he’s not playing, but it’s a lot better for House to have had even a few weeks to plan instead of having to adjust on the fly after the 1st defensive series of the year.

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Nothing. Kelly did an interview with Sports illustrated. They exhausted all legal action known and will go ahead with the suspension.

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Don’t have time to read that interview right now—I appreciate you linking it, though—but did he give a timeline on when all this happened?

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let us pick the game

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I don’t think the NCAA has ever let anybody “pick the game.” Those suspensions come from the schools themselves (ex. a failed drug test) or maybe the SEC. We want the NCAA to be consistent. To do that, their suspensions should be immediate (after they’re handed down or whatever appeal process there might be is exhausted) without any consideration to opponent. It sucks for us and Maason, but the last thing we want is some bureaucrat arbitrarily deciding which games are “big” and which aren’t. Now, whether they should have taken his missed season last year into consideration is another story. But I’m “ok” with it as long as they are consistent when similar situations arise in the future.

I hate the NCAA as much as the next guy and agree that this suspension is ridiculous. But just to play devil’s advocate a bit, the NCAA has a new administration this year lead by the former Governor of New Hampshire or Massachusetts or somewhere up there. And from what I’ve read and heard him say, he seems to be aware of the perception problem they have. They appear feckless and to levy punishments arbitrarily without consistency or transparency. If the President is trying to change that perception, they’ve got to be consistent with their punishments and transparent with the schools. And they can’t go back on a punishment that was handed down previously, even if it was done by the prior administration or even if they don’t agree with it. Because that’s when the arbitrariness and perception of favoritism appears. If they waved Mason’s suspension, what about all the other penalties that were handed down in past seasons?

Again, it sucks and seems ridiculous now that NIL is in full swing. But if we’re gonna be a member of the NCAA—and we are—I’d prefer them be consistent with all member schools. It looks like they are at least trying to do so by at least being more strict and denying immediate illegibility after 2nd transfers instead of granting them all willy nilly like the previous administrations were. I also like that he’s pushing for federal legislation to help govern NIL. A lot of people think Congress should stay out of college athletics, but I disagree. It’s a multi-billion dollar a year industry, and trying to get all schools on as even and fair a playing field as possible is in the best interest of college football and all other sports. Granted, I don’t know what that legislation looks like or if it’s even possible, but I like that he, appears anyway, to have fairness as his aim.

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Can someone please explain how Manziel got a half game suspension a decade ago; however, Maason gets a whole game?

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Inflation.

LSU will be without star defensive tackle Maason Smith for its top-10 season opening showdown against Florida State, but not for lack of effort on the part of the Tigers.

Smith was suspended for one game by the NCAA over impermissible benefits stemming from a summer 2021 autograph signing.

The program filed an appeal of the one-game suspension with the NCAA but was denied, with the NCAA noting that there would not be a grandfather clause extended to Smith.

Not only that, but LSU also attempted to look into scheduling a Week Zero game so that Smith could serve his one-game suspension then, rather than against Florida State, according to a report from Yahoo! Sports’ Ross Dellenger. They simply couldn’t make the logistics work in time.

“We looked at all the options out there, certainly, and wanted to make sure that we examined everything that was possible,” coach Brian Kelly told Yahoo! Sports. “We looked at everything. We looked at a Week Zero game to bring in another opponent prior to Florida State. We looked at every imaginable option, but time ran out.”