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Come on.

Hi, everybody.

Good morning.

Welcome to week one of the college football season.

And welcome to another edition of Game Notes here on LPB.

I'm Victor Howell, and it is great to have you with us this morning.

We have a full slate of college football throughout the state of Louisiana.

And it's all highlighted by the primetime game tonight, nationally televised LSU and Clemson from Death Valley and Baton Rouge.

And that's where we're going to start, but not on the field.

We're going to try to put a wrap.

It's all the news that they've been making off the field around this LSU program.

In my 36 years of sports television, I've never seen a scenario like what developed in Baton Rouge.

Two weeks after talking actual football at SEC Media Days, we saw a former Tiger try to eliminate the use of the number five he wore while he was at the school, then asked for his Heisman Trophy back.

And then the fun really started.

Thursday, all eyes were on the 19th JDC in downtown Baton Rouge, where a judge heard arguments to allow athletes who tried to make NFL teams the ability to return for one more year under the new five for five rule in college that didn't actually take effect until well after they thought their careers were over.

After four years.

Then a massive curveball was thrown into the mix as SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey was literally taking the stand in Baton Rouge news came out that the SEC filed a lawsuit in federal court in Alabama against LSU, its board, its president, its ad, and the head football coach.

I mean, what are we doing?

I talked to ESPN radio host Matt Moscone from Baton Rouge, one of 4.5, earlier this week to get his thoughts on what has developed with this ruling.

And is all of this now done?

It's not just LSU, it's players trying to go to a variety of different schools in a variety of different sports.

So but now if you're LSU or any of these schools, you have to make a decision.

Do we roster these players?

They have their injunction, but you put them on the roster because you put them on the roster.

The SEC saying will punish you, but can they punish now that the players have their injunction?

That's the argument.

So this is going to be appealed.

And if the SEC tries to punish LSU or any school that rosters players, there will be lawsuits there.

The other thing to keep in mind is let's say LSU chooses not to roster these football players.

I've had conversations with attorneys all throughout this whole proceeding, and the commonly held opinion is that if these players get an injunction, a court order that says you can play and a school says, we're not going to follow that, we're not going to play you, then you're opening up lawsuits from those players to sue for damages.

So now you're talking about a civil case where these athletes are saying, you took away my opportunity to make money, they're going to win against the NCAA, the SEC, the schools.

Who's going to pay that?

Again, this was a total lack of vision, a total lack of foresight from leaders at the NCAA and the university level.

They made a hasty decision and when you make a hasty rule generally that is going to spark legal action.

That's what's happened here and it's far from done.

So the SEC has threatened serious penalties if any school plays what they are considering.

Pro players with possibilities including suspending a coach for up to half a season, millions of dollars in fines to the institution and in this case specifically reportedly dismissing LSU from the SEC altogether.

In fact, the attorney general for the state of Georgia sent a letter to Sankey saying to do just that, kick a founding member of the SEC out of the conference early Friday morning, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry was on Fox business responding to the attorney general.

And for those making this out to be just an LSU issue, and this is important to understand, this is not NFL players that have been playing in the league for years, that are circling back, trying to get on college teams.

This is a group of athletes, 320 athletes around the country, that were basically told by the NCAA that they could not play another year, so they put themselves up for the draft, only to find out that in the summer, the NCAA changed the rule.

This is only being picked on because it's LSU and we need some adults in the room.

I mean, this is absolutely ridiculous.

Ridiculous.

Like courts in a law in Louisiana are not some check box for the staff in Birmingham.

Well, meanwhile they are playing actual football tonight on an actual field at LSU.

Lane Kiffin makes his Tiger debut as LSU host Clemson on a five time nationally televised game.

Sam Lovett will make his Brooklyn goal debut at quarterback, which is healthy and returns to the Tigers defense.

Will we see any of those players from the lawsuit?

Find out tonight at 630 on ABC.

The game is sold out and they will be squeezing bodies into Tiger Stadium tonight.

Well down off of Carbon Avenue in New Orleans.

The Tulane Green Wave are ushering in the real whole era.

After John Summerall left the Green Wave to take over in the SEC at the Florida Gators last season.

As you know, the Green Wave rolled their way to not only the American Conference championship, but a spot in the college football playoffs.

Unfortunately, the postseason appearance had a quick end with a blowout loss to Ole Miss, but the level of expectation for the green and blue has certainly hit new heights.

The team is in Durham, North Carolina, getting set to open the season this afternoon against the Duke Blue Devils, who they beat last season in New Orleans.

And for Hall, the focus has been extreme attention to detail, learning his system to meet the challenges ahead.

Starting with the Blue Devils.

I'm just blessed, man.

You know, thank the good Lord for for getting this job.

You know, I think these players, thank the administration.

You know, I'm excited that I'm the head coach here.

I also feel like I deserve to be the head coach here.

And now we got to make it happen.

You know, as a coach, you never.

If you've ever had a player, something happen to him in game that you didn't have him ready for like that knows that you if you're a really a good coach and you really care about the players.

So with everything we're doing, we're trying to make sure they're prepared for any and everything that could possibly happen.

And, but our guys are going to play hard Saturday.

I know that they're going to play their tail off for each other.

That's what we do at Tulane.

That's the type of young man we hire.

Well, here is the path for Tulane to repeat as conference champs.

They alternate away and home games all the way through mid-October.

And we might know a lot about this team by their tough road game at Kansas State and Army and home challenges against Southern Miss and Memphis, who has a new head coach and open the season last weekend with an impressive win at Unlv today.

Keep an eye out season opener for the wave.

It's a 230 kick at Duke, and you can watch it on the SEC network.

Well, coming off an impressive week zero win at home against Mississippi Valley State.

Tommy right back.

He has his Colonels from Nicholls in Manhattan, Kansas for week one matchup against Kansas State for the big 12.

These two teams have met only once previously.

That was back in 2019.

Wildcats won that one rather easily.

It's been a tough road as of late for Nicholls, when facing FBS teams.

The Colonels have lost 13 straight, the last wins back in 2018 against Kansas.

Can Tommy Wright back and get his first coaching win on the road?

Well, we'll find out tonight when they kick it off at 6:00 and call fans.

You can see all the action at ESPN plus.

Well, it should be a fun evening up at Joe Air Stadium in Ruston tonight when Sonny Cumbie leads his Louisiana Tech Bulldogs on to the field for the first time this season.

The Bulldogs will be looking to bark louder and start the season off with a win over a wounded Northwestern State team that lost to Louisiana College one week ago at home.

Last season was Tech's last in conference USA, and they went out with a bang after back to back losses with injuries to quarterbacks.

Tech was able to put together back to back wins to get to seven and five, then capped it off with an eighth win, beating Coastal Carolina in the Independence Bowl.

Now they are in the Sunbelt Conference and their season opening opponent is Northwestern State, but just down the road in Natchitoches.

A team coming off that tough home loss.

As I mentioned, Cumbie knows better than just looking at your opponent just by the final score, and he's telling his team they better stay focused They opponent again, they had 520 yards of offense.

They turned the ball over twice that almost really the way things could go.

It could have been a 40 to 7 game at halftime for Northwestern State.

And it wasn't.

And that's how fine of an error of margin that football games are.

And so making sure that our players understand that reality.

But ultimately it always points it points inwards to us.

And I anticipate our football team working extremely hard Monday through Friday because it's the first opportunity to play a game.

It's exciting to be able to play for teams from the state of Louisiana, and this is the first time, I think, that Louisiana Tech and Northwestern State have played, you know, a long, long time, the state fair game.

And, you know, just a huge rivalry between the two schools.

And so our players certainly understand that.

I think from a from an attendance standpoint, you think you gotta help, you know, being game at 630 on Saturday night, a team coming off eight wins last year is returning a lot of marquee players that are really good football players that, you know, we've had probably double the number of NFL scouts that have came through our practices throughout the first two weeks of fall camp, to see our players in practice.

And so, you know, I'm excited to see our community come out and rally around these guys and behind these guys and support them.

And so hopefully, you know, hopefully at the end of the season, not only can we be Sunbelt champs, but you look forward to being the Louisiana state champs.

Also.

The Demons and Bulldogs have built up a nice little history of playing against each other.

Coming off that mistake.

Sale disappointing loss at home to Louisiana College head coach Blaine McCorkle this week has been sharing the story of the Demons and Bulldogs 12 years ago in Ruston.

And you're seeing it right here when a field goal at the buzzer gave the demons a huge upset roadway.

In fact, a man who kicked that field goal addressed the team this week to try to share some inspiration and appreciation for demon football history.

My work has to know that and and and know that this is more than just a money game.

You know, this is more than just playing a regional FBS opponent to get a paycheck.

You know, there's a lot of history.

There's a lot of people take a lot of pride in this game, and I think our kids will do.

So, got to have a good work week, you know, and this is their opener.

So, you know, hopefully for us they go through some of those first game struggles that we went through and go out there, make a game of it and and see where we are in the fourth quarter.

Well hopefully there will be a good crowd for tonight for the Bulldogs and Demons with the schools not too far away from each other.

A little side note on Louisiana Tech.

Even though the university is returning to the Sunbelt Conference, tonight will be the first football game played as a member to the Sunbelt.

Didn't recognize football until 2001, and that's when tech left the Sunbelt Conference.

So they'll rep the SBC for the first time tonight at 6:00.

And if you're not going to stadium in Ruston, you can see all the action on ESPN plus.

Well, tonight in Lafayette, the Raging Cajuns kick off the school's 125th football season when they renew an old rivalry against a team just two hours west down I-10, hosting the Lamar Cardinals.

It will be the first meeting between these two programs since back in 2012, and the 35th overall since they first met back in 1923.

The Cajuns certainly have won streak going they'd like to keep alive.

They've made eight straight bowl games, but they certainly have their eyes on a bigger prize.

And that would be winning the Western Division and playing in the Sunbelt Conference championship game last year was a quarterback carousel for the Cajuns.

This year, Winfield starts the season as the guy calling the shots under center.

Winfield took over the starting role midway through last season, and his leadership was a big reason the Cajuns won their final four games and made a bowl game.

Winfield threw for over 1500 yards and 11 touchdowns in just eight starts.

He also ran over 700 yards and nine more scores.

In fact, he is the team's leading returning rusher despite getting to the bowl.

Though last season was a rough road, the Cajuns travel coach, Michael Desormeaux, though, told me at some point media days down in New Orleans back in July, those experiences from last year can carry over to help this year's team find more success.

There's no question, you know, I think when you go through a season like we had were, you know, we had 11 different starting lineups on offense in 13 games.

No one wants to go through that.

When you go through it, you come out on the backside of in a much better place.

You find a lot about your team, but your organization, whenever you're back's against the wall, you know, look, we had high expectations going the season coming off of the Western Division.

We felt like we had a team to do it again.

And, you know, reality of those things didn't go that way.

And, you learn a lot about the people that are in your building when you have that type of season and you see them rally around each other.

I don't know if I've ever been around a staff and our staff that's done a better job of just keeping the dream alive, man, and breathing life into that team and the players taking it and running with it.

I'm proud of the way that we finished the season last year.

I wish we started faster.

There's a lot of good things that came out of it.

I'm really proud of that.

Now it's taking that and from start to finish implementing that.

Well, here you go.

Take a look at the preseason rankings in the Sunbelt Conference this season, and the same two teams that won the divisions and went to the title game or pick to win it again, James Madison in the East and Troy in the West.

But there you see the Cajuns pick the finish second in the West.

And as you look at the team above them and the team below them, interesting note both of them will play the Cajuns in Lafayette this season, so the schedule might be a bit tight.

But first things first, as they open with Lamar tonight, they'll kick things off at 7:00.

If you can't make it out to Our Lady of Lourdes Stadium in Lafayette, you can watch all of the action on ESPN plus.

Hey, when you have 142 out of 162 young men on your roster from the state of Louisiana, and you're fresh off of an historic upset win on the road.

You've earned some love from all of us here at Game Now, so let's give it to you.

For Louisiana Christian, they swept players off the week honors for the Sooner Athletic Conference.

That's now yeah that's the conference they're in.

The Wildcats will play their home opener tonight in Pineville under the lights at Wildcat Field when they open up conference play facing Langston.

These two teams have played five times.

Louisiana Christian has won all five games.

Yeah.

I'm ready.

Give it a shot.

Okay.

Three.

Well, up in Monroe, the Warhawks are entering year three under Brian Vinson as head coach.

And this season, his team has his total attention.

See, last season he was coaching while also serving as interim athletic director.

Now, no excuses are being made by him or anybody on the team.

After all, his team did start the season three and one but then lost eight straight to end the year.

I caught up with Vincent in late July at the Sun Belt Media days down in New Orleans, and I asked him what he sees as a key this season for his team to start to turn that corner.

And for him, it starts with familiarity he has on his roster, and to be able to have the harsh retention of returning some Sunbelt schools, you know, back to back years was was huge because what college football is now, you you're you're rebuilding a team every year.

And when you have the retention, those guys bring those scars with them that we just went through, you know, and you go out, you start out and you start three and one and then, you know, you lose eight straight games and you can sit here and make excuses and.

Right.

But that's that's not who we are.

And that's not what we do to have the really your best players and a lot of your best leaders return when other schools are trying to pull them away.

But they believe, you know, they believe in the culture.

They believe in the mission of, you know, making history.

You have him turning this program around, you know, winning the first bowl game in school history while the Warhawks are waking up in Starkville, Mississippi, this morning, hitting set to open the season against Mississippi State out of the SEC.

It will be the first meeting between these two programs.

And look, something has to give.

Warhawks ended last season on an eight game losing skid.

The Bulldogs had a four game losing skid.

We'll see what happens when they kick things off at 630 tonight.

You can see all of the action on ESPN.

You over North Carolina North Louisiana Robert the Bramble Tigers look to make it two zero at home to start the season when they host Central State University.

Tonight it's family weekend for Grambling Tiger fans.

The Tigers had little resistance last weekend in beating Clark Atlanta by 42, and they're not expected to really struggle tonight.

But one look at the schedule and you can see things are about to ramp up quickly.

TCU, Prairie View, Alcorn State and Jackson State those are the next four games for the Tigers, so head coach Mickey Joseph wants his team focused on improving in some areas.

Tonight.

Well, I think the biggest jump in college football is from week one, the week two.

So I want to see less penalties.

I want to see better special teams play.

I want to see us get better, get better at the run game and get really better at the pass game also.

But I RPO game was there, you know.

And on defense I want to see us rush the pass.

I want to see I will I I will the line starts work.

I want everybody to be on the same page.

You know, I don't want to the palms up.

I don't want that because you know what's going on.

We call it the coverage.

You know what the coverage is?

You've been running it since the spring, so don't give me palms up when you when you don't get the signal.

Overall, you know, we we just looking for mass improvement on.

Well the offense was good enough to hit for just under 500 yards last week using four different quarterbacks.

But penalties were a major concern for Joseph and they've been a point of emphasis for the team all week long.

Ten of them one week ago for just under 100 yards.

Now.

As for their opponent, the Marauders lost their season opener to the Kentucky, a Kentucky State grab, a 41 to 14.

But for what it's worth, they are three and oh against Grambling.

The action kicks off tonight at 6:00, and if you can't make it out to Eddie Robinson Stadium, don't worry.

You can see all of the action on the Swac TV app.

Well, cleaning Things up was the name of the game this week over in Hammond as the Lions prep for their game tonight in mobile against South Alabama.

There were some really nice stat lines last week in the season opener against Houston Christian, but there were just too many mistakes to overcome to get past them.

A tough way to start the season and the conference at home to get the loss.

But head coach Frank Sophos, also looking to build off of the positives that he saw.

Obviously, the big one is the turnovers, the three time old Republic six times having a blocked field goal, the fourth down that we didn't pick up.

And when you looked at that, that's five turnovers.

But the three two, we actually had the blocked field goal and missed fourth down.

That's five turnovers.

And you just are going to win games like that.

I think the best part about our team was how we fought all the way to the end.

We got to the fourth quarter now 17 points and and maybe we had to make something happen.

And we did the, the way that our kids played, I think was the best part about the entire game.

And all the stats aside, them being able to, compete for the entire time.

We had some big guys for a while, but they kind of grew out of it.

And I think you saw that, kind of turn in the fourth quarter.

So a lot of things positive to bring forward, just like you would think, with a young team and experience team being able to move forward towards you as the season progresses.

Well, tonight's match up with the Jaguars will be just the second meeting between these two schools.

And there is a Louisiana connection on the opposing sideline as the Jags are coached by Major Applewhite, who was a standout high school player at Catholic High School in Baton Rouge.

They will kick things off tonight at 630.

If you're not making the easy drive down I-10 to mobile, don't worry, you can catch all of the action.

So many other games on this bus while the Tucky state soar branch well, they are in Baton Rouge for tonight's game against southern.

Jags are playing their home opener and making the coaching debut for new head coach Marshall Faulk.

Out on the bluff.

Faulk season debut came up short last Saturday in Birmingham to Alabama State in what was a game of really two opposite halves, a solid effort in the first half for the Jags.

More of a disappearing act, if you will, in the second.

Tonight's opponent might be a Division two team, but Faulk said he's not concerned about his team not taking the thoroughbreds seriously.

While his group of players are working on finding their own identity.

We don't have the right to overlook anyone you know in this game, we might be the underdog.

You know, a lot of these teams, they they've been together.

They have guys that that ha we don't have a core yet.

They were collection of guys.

We're not a team yet.

I can't tell him, hey, come out and support the team because we're we're we we are still in the building phases of us being a team.

We're learning how to do that.

We're learning how to play.

I'm teaching them guys how to play for not just yourself, not just for the name on the back of your jersey, but the name on the front of your jersey.

I told the guys, I said, man, we teased our fans with the first half.

We show we like I said, but that's us.

That's who we could be.

And we have that.

We have to take that what we did in the first half and apply it to the second half as well.

And we got to show people that we can do that.

But before we show people, we got to show ourselves.

Now, a little note for you on tonight's opponent in Kentucky State.

While they may be a Division two team, they're ranked number two in the country in the polls for their love.

It also asked Grambling fans if they can tell you how good the thoroughbreds are.

Last season, it took overtime and a controversial play at the end for the ground.

Tigers to get a win at home against Kentucky State should be a good challenge for the Jags.

The energy on the bluff should be electric, a fork making his debut kickoff at Munford Stadium is set for 630 on this game tonight can be seen on Swac TV, while the McNeese Cowboys over on Lake Charles are working on real estate acquisition to help their offense.

Last week against Stephen F Austin, the Cowboys basically needed binoculars to see the lumberjack side of the field.

And when you're playing a top 15 ranked team, despite some of the positives that you had in the game, that's not a really good recipe for success.

Positive, I guess.

You know, if you would have, you know, gave me 410 yards before the game, said you're going to have 200 yards rushing and 210 yards passing.

Without the turnovers, I would have took it.

So we did move the ball some.

We did make some plays.

The turnovers I thought really killed us.

Field position really killed us.

We ran one play from the 45 yard line touchdown pass to Smiley Edwards, and we did not run another play in their territory to the 408 mark of the third quarter.

And I mean you're not going to win that way stuff.

I mean everything was played on our side of the field defensively, the positives.

And we had ten tackles for loss.

We had three sacks.

That was positive.

The thing that we obviously have to improve on is they had nine plays of 20 plus yards.

It's hard to win that way now.

In that game last week against Stephen F Austin, quarterback Jake Strong got dinged up late in the first half with a shoulder injury.

He didn't play at all in the second half and he's not expected to play tonight.

So Devon Lippold will take the reins of the cowboy offense.

Last week, he threw for 118 yards and a touchdown in the second half.

They'll team up at 6:00 tonight inside of Navarre Stadium in Lake Charles.

Cowboy fans who can't make it out in person sit back and relax.

You can see the game on ESPN plus.

Well, earlier in the program, we gave some love to Louisiana.

Collins, let's talk about one of the other smaller colleges that will be in action tonight.

This will take place up in Shreveport.

The jets from centenary.

Remember, we focused on them a couple of years ago here on LPB and talked about them bringing the football program back there.

Now in the third season under head coach Byron Dawson.

And they will kick off the season tonight hosting Westgate Christian.

63 of 84 players play for Saint Mary's or from the state of Louisiana.

So a lot of interest for their families and what they will do tonight.

These two teams did play last year.

Westgate Christian came up on the short end of sinner, got that win by the score of 42 to 7.

So you take a look at everybody in action.

All the small schools up and down the I-10 corridor, five teams in the state on the big level all making their season debut tonight.

And as we mentioned in all caps off with the primetime action three LSU and Clemson coming from Tiger Stadium with the final put all the legal ease to the side.

And fantasy football Lane Kiffin make his head coaching debut in that it should be a fun full day.

Hopefully the weather holds off on the sunny so everybody can get out on the course in college football.

We certainly hope you do the same and we thank you for starting your morning here with us on LPB.

We'll take care of all of the action.

Enjoy your long weekend and we will see you next Tuesday for postgame notes.

Because of the holiday Monday, take an extra day to enjoy.

Will recap all of the action on Tuesday.

So until we get to see you then from all of us at LP B in Game Notes, I'm Victor Hall.

Thanks so much for joining us.

We'll see you next.

Major production funding for game notes is provided by Hargrove, Engineers and Constructors, is proud to support LPB.

Since 1995, Hargrove has been employee owned and relationship driven with 2700 teammates around the world.

Hargrove works as one team to go beyond expectations.

You have what it takes to begin your journey.

Curiosity.

Ingenuity.

Intellect.

Determination.

Through a vast portfolio of affordable and in-demand academic programs, hundreds of student focused activities and wraparound services.

Southern University meets you where you are, giving you the tools and support that lead you to a successful career in the sciences with the arts.

Begin with your goals anywhere.

Finish stronger at Southern University at Subiaco.

Edu.

The Ralph Pugh Agency is proud to support this program.

Based in Louisiana.

Ralph Peters provided marketing services nationwide since 1981, partnering with clients in health care, retail, automotive and more.

For more information, visit our agency.com.

With additional support from Lafayette Travel, the LSU Alumni Association and the Cook Hotel and Conference Center at LSU.

Louisiana Tech University, Northwestern State University, Red stick Sports, the foundation for Excellence in Louisiana public Broadcasting, and viewers like you.

Thank you.