Texas_Aggies

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If you guys are our 12th game, it either means we'll be playing you guys on a VERY short week, or will have had to move the bye week into the week before, which would mean we'd have played 11 games in a row to start the season...every year. While I don't really care what this does to A&M's chances of winning the SECW, I actually DO care about what it does to LSU's. Much like the completely asinine 6-1-1 conference schedule the BAMAphile SEC has conjured up to keep BAMA/AU/UGA/UT happy, this will cause an undue burden on parts of the conference and will benefit others. At this time, BAMA is LSU's biggest obstacle to Atlanta. Which would you prefer if you care about winning the West each year? Play a normal schedule with the bye week someone in the middle and play your last game against a tough opponent on the final Saturday with the normal amount of prep days, or play 11 straight games and get your bye week second to last and play on Thanksgiving Night, or have your bye week earlier and play against a quality opponent on 4 1/2 days rest to play Thanksgiving Night? Which do you think BAMA's coach would prefer?

I'm not seeing, at all, why this would be a good move for anyone other than the rest of the SECW.

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I am completely perplexed by your concerns, of which I was equally perplexed by other LSU posters earlier in this thread.

We've been playing on T-Day for a long time. t.u.'s bye and our bye have always come earlier in the season, so both we and the sips always had a short week, same with the Cowboys and the Lions, except they always play at home on T-Day, so the other team always had to travel on a short week. With LSU and A&M, one would have to travel on a short week one year, and the other one the next year, etc., ad infinitum. How do you see this as a disadvantage? It's not. We've been doing it since way back in the SWC. These are the years that either t.u. or we won the SWC:
1915-1922
1924-1932
1935-1943
1945-1954
1956-1958
1960-1963
1965-1989
1991-1993
1996

Clearly, the SEC is more difficult today that the SWC was back then, but also, clearly, it didn't hurt us too much to play on Thanksgiving. It's equal for both teams, guys. As long as neither team gets their bye the week before the game, it's even, and you can put your bye whenever you want, or, whenever the scheduler gives you, usually about midway through the season. Furthermore, if that's your last game of the regular season, you'd get an extra couple of days rest before the SEC Championship Game.

Again, I just don't understand why this is a problem for some of you, but then we've been doing this for a very long time, so we've a lot more experience with it.

Note: There were some effed-up years when the game was on the Friday or Saturday, after T-Day, but most of them, to my memory, were on T-Day.

Great post, Ghost, and yes, I do understand that any change to such an important a holiday as Thanksgiving will be especially burdensome on rearranging family planning. Here's my attempt at a 'most salient point' I can make:

Look at Texas....look at how the state completely embraces having a big game (in our own state, anyway) on Thanksgiving night, and also with the Cowboys playing during the day, in the afternoon slot. Please notice that I'm not coping some kind of 'attitude' here, or putting anybody in LA down. I'm saying....look at Texas. Look at how important it is to us. I'm saying that people in LA are every bit as in love with their football as we are....Saints/Cowboys....LSU/Aggies....if it happens, then you guys will adjust to it. And when you do, you will freakin' LOVE it.

It's so important to us that there was a lot of despondency when the t.u./A&M rivalry went away. 'What the hell are we gonna do on Thanksgiving?' many of us asked ourselves, and that's still with the Cowboys playing on that day. I am not so arrogant as to tell you how Louisianans are going to react long term, because your incredible and unique culture is your own, and completely separate and distinct from any other state-culture in our nation....so I really don't know how it will develop. But I ask you to simply 'look at Texas,' and see how Thanksgiving Day games are completely a part of or culture, who we are, what we do, what we're about, and how we spend our holiday together. Over time, I strongly suspect that you might find it the same, and then eventually say, 'How were we ever satisfied with playing on the Friday or Saturday after Thanksgiving? It's special, it's unique, and it's our own.'

If we lose this, it's nobody's fault but ours, because we didn't make a big enough push until the very end. I'm more than a little pi$$ed off.

BTW, this is my first post on this board, I just signed up, and I - like many Aggies - are thrilled and grateful to be a part of our outstanding conference. I wished we'd joined back in '91 with Arkansas, or in '94-'95 instead of going Big 12, or perhaps that we'd never left in 1915 when we decided to join a bunch of other teams that eventually became the SWC.

Bottom line, we're thrilled and proud to be with you. God Bless.