Eye of the Storm-The 2005 LSU Tiger Football Season

Saint Will said

Obviously nobody is arguing that point.

But it's comical to hear some LSU fans act as if they were saving the state by playing that football game that night. Real comical.

People affected by Katrina THAT DIDN'T GO TO LSU OR WERE FANS PREVIOUSLY OF KATRINA did not care about the game. They weren't sitting by their TV's saying "Man, my house is destroyed and my car is gone but damn I hope LSU wins to cheer me up!"

Fact is, most of the state is not full of LSU fans. If you don't believe that, it may be time to branch outside of Baton Rouge.

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Nobody claims that LSU "saved the state" by playing or that LSU made anyone forget that their homes were destroyed. But, being the flagship school of the state, most of the students and alumni come from, and live in, Louisiana. So, it's not hard to imagine that a lot of people in the affected areas have ties to LSU as either students, alumni, or just longtime fans. In that case, watching them play in 2005 was a pleasant diversion...it didn't restore any losses that they suffered but, much like watching a movie, it allowed a nice escape for a certain period of time. It was a sense of normalcy that people craved and LSU provided it in 2005. The Saints were in another state and most of the other programs were in a serious state of disarray.

Sure, the media may have engaged in some hyperbole but they did the same thing for the Saints in 2006 and nobody objected (if you're aware of one person whose house magically repaired itself after the Falcons game, feel free to correct me). The difference was that in 2005, the Saints owner was in the process of trying to skip town and the team itself was having a horrible year so, in that respect, LSU was the only true national representative of successful Louisiana football. The team played well (and a lot of the players took on family members as evacuees) and the team really made an effort to represent the state and do a lot of charitable things for people that really needed it.

It's silly to say that the team didn't make a positive impact on the psyche of some of the state's residents.