LSUChicageaux

Yep. There literally aren’t enough 18yo or “customers” who could or would go to UA. Football powered the brand nationally. Alabama has to spend money on kids not just because they can (and maybe couldn’t at one point) but because they have to…that doesn’t mean all the other schools shouldn’t either, it “just means more” because it’s existential. The school will close unless they throw money.

The demographics don’t favor any colleges but LSU seems to have weathered it, still seeing 50k+ applications annually.

Dat’s me too, cher.

You raise something I’ve thought and thought about for a long time as someone who loves LA and home.

I tried to describe it once as having a chip on our collective shoulders, but it’s airbrushed and only moves when someone says we can’t throw a good party.

It’s an insistence on stupidly fighting stupid battles with no appreciation that there’s even a war we could win. See chip, shoulder.

Maybe it’s being proud to be from a place, not of a place.

I’m just waxing philosophical, which is different than philosophical waxing.

I don't think there are many professional experiences that prepare you for the job of this kind, even in higher ed. Being a "university president" is close, but not quite it.

I think "educator + researcher + fundraiser turned administrator turned lobbyist turned organizational enabler turned visionary founder turned evangelist" is the closest description.

The scale of the entire enterprise is enormous. From the HSCs to the Ag Center extension offices to the facilities and campuses and athletics and the fundraising and the students and their parents and the alums and the donors and the Board and the state and national policies and politics.

Just in BR, there are 3-4 "campuses" (individual units) alone: A&M, Law, Ag Center, and PBRC. Just A&M has 40k students, 1500 faculty, and 5000 staff - and that's one campus. It's a massive regional and state employer, but it's not really thought of that way.

In short, it's a wild job.

GOOD LUCK SABAN

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National optics are horrendous right now

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The line between provincialism and charm gets blurry here…

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Remember when you could come here and talk about LSU sports? Good times.

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To be fair, it *was* a place to talk about LSU sports and not explicitly the Governor until he began talking about and explicitly involving himself into LSU leadership and sports, thus inextricably linking the two, at least for the foreseeable future.

So we can debate the merits and impacts of those arrangements, but it ain’t going away until those dynamics change.

I would argue the firestorm of stuff isn’t really Kelly or Woodward or the next HC - it’s those dynamics. Again debate whether they are good or bad but one thing they are most certainly not is normal.

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Could you people just stop with these shitty comments.
Whether they're true or not, it's getting old.

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My comments are the things that are getting old? Not the crushing, ever-present malaise and dysfunction? Not the low-budget small town carnival orgy of madness wrapped in sweating boudin skin?

To be fair, this new dysfunction is gloriously polished and shiny. May we put it as a hood ornament on our brand new Hyundai. Thanks, Carmax.

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I think behind the scenes things are more stable.

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They are, as in filled with horse shite.

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It would be 100% on brand for Landry to politic to get O back at the helm.

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We need to as a country stop as a country doing that thing where we reward mediocracy. I believe that's "government by medio."

Mediocrity, too.

We need to promote excellence. Preferably on the Pat McAfee show.

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u were always flirting with me

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Indeed, but it was a forbidden love, and the torment of it all made me stop posting. I'm not that upset you picked the scab off the wound, but putting it in your mouth and calling it "skin jerky" was maybe a little much.

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Loved the Trough.

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Thanks. I really appreciate that.

I loved it too, and then killed it. Out of love or something.

Not really...I keep the ol' server lights blinking: The Trough