re: Optimism Surrounding LSU Athletics

LSU football is strange in the sense that the Ops (training) building, the football administration building, the academic (and I assume athletic dining hall) facility, and stadium are so damn far apart.

Football players usually DGAF about the academic side of the university, and on recruiting visits they don’t even talk about it. I specifically ask, what are the ACT requirements for admission. At a school where the average incoming freshman average is 34…they say you’re required to ‘have a score’. Football average is ‘around 20’. I’m not even sure how football players pass classes immersed in that kind of student body.

A place where my son is offered boasts 100% graduation rate for football players who exhaust their eligibility. Not even sure how that’s possible.

ETA: Baseball players probably care a helluva lot more about the academic numbers.

Give it time like Novocain

quote:

---

Unfortunately for the Will Wade Fan Boys, that’s not how NIL works. If HE would have been paying players it would have still been a violation (especially if he was still stupid enough to do it out of a personal checking account).

---

Well, it was never proven he paid any player(s) out of his personal checking account, so continuing to bring it up is irrelevant.

quote:

---

Yep. Given Will Wade’s stupidity and the recent NC’s along with football’s upward trajectory, Scott Woodward can take as long as he needs and wants to fix men’s basketball, for all I care.

---

If you are not a basketball fan, that's fine. But having this mindset is dumb. Basketball should be (and maybe still is) the second highest revenue generating sport on campus. The one that produces the second highest profit behind football. LSU is fortunate that baseball produces a small profit, but that is not the norm. Point being, having a struggling men's basketball program is leaving a lot of meat on the financial bone. These big TV contracts only worry about two sports: Football and men's basketball. Everything else is just a pile of irrelevant activities for the TV networks...though some are slightly less irrelevant such as WBB and baseball. A good men's basketball program helps ALL athletic programs at the school.

No one is expecting McMahon to compete for a national championship this year, or really in the foreseeable future. But following up finishing dead last in the league with the (tied) worst conference record in school history with a mediocre year should cause the AD to seriously assess where the program is going. Because there are so few players on the team basketball is the easiest of all sports to turnaround/rebuild in the freedom of transfer age. While it is an extreme example, all one has to do is look at the other basketball occupant of the PMAC to see how quickly it can happen. People need to get out of the antiquated mindset of "slow rebuilds".

FWIW, in speaking with a member of the basketball staff recently they are optimistic things will be much better this season. Then again, every coach feels that way in the offseason. But I think there may have been some cohesion issues in the locker-room last year. That wasn't the ONLY thing that led to the terrible results (McMahon seemed very overwhelmed by the step up in competition), but it didn't help. This year they are more confident they have the "bodies" to better compete. Of course, one of those "bodies" is Jalen Cook who is a BIG part of the plan this year. Whether he is actually eligible will be something to monitor.