quote:

The LSU Administration, specifically their president should have major influence in BR, not so much Scott Woodward but most definitely William Tate. I'm not sure why they don't put pressure on the Mayor and City officials to step up and do a better job?

So.....this is 100% speculation, but Woodward and Tate are still relatively new to LSU, and despite the fact that LSU Athletics is entirely self-funded, you don't just drop the cool $200 million or so that LSU has spent on coaches in the last couple of years without handling politicians with kid gloves. Politicians in Louisiana think every dime belongs to them, especially the ones that don't.

Secondly, LSU has shown a lot of poor judgement over the last decade on the athletics side and academic alike. Joe Alleva, F. Scott King, Les Miles, Will Wade, Ed Orgeron - those names all have some extra legal baggage attached, and I appreciate Tate and Woodward playing it cool.

Finally, you can't disregard the racial aspect of this crime and the demographics of LSU, Baton Rouge, and Louisiana as a whole. If Tate goes in hard on those perpetrators, convicted or not, the congressional black caucus will declare war on him. I'd much prefer that he quietly speak to Baton Rouge area politicians at every level and allow them to make this a partisan issue.

In the public eye, in a place like Baton Rouge, the nature and violence of the crime is secondary to the races of perpetrators and victims.