Just Play Football, LSU
Nov 13, 2026 04:49PM ● By Kelsey Swire
By Jim Gazzolo
The Lane Train is quickly racing off the tracks.
When LSU sold its soul to land Lane Kiffin as its football coach last December, it seemed like an early Christmas present for Tiger fans.
They cheered, began counting future national championships, and the big-name boosters started writing checks.
But close losses on the road at Ole Miss and then Kentucky…KENTUCKY… began to lead to some rumblings.
Still, Alabama in Death Valley, surely Lane would right the ship.
Nope.
Bama 31, LSU to the Music City Bowl.
But wait, Tiger fans believe that just seven days later there is a chance for redemption.
They are right, but…
Texas looks like it might be the best team the Tigers have played, and they are coming to Baton Rouge for LSU's last-chance game. A win and the Tigers’ playoff hopes, while not great, are still alive.
A loss and the season is over before the turkey gets stuffed.
That’s not what LSU fans signed up for, or what Tiger brass paid for when they opened up the state’s vaults and paid Brian Kelly to leave and Lane to come over from Oxford, Miss., instead of taking his old team into the playoffs.
Instead of winning football games, LSU has gotten a clown show under its big top.
There have been lots of celebrity sightings on the Tiger sideline this season, and even a few dunking players after touchdowns. Even Kiffin hit a long-range jumper that made for good television.
But winning football, getting down in the bayou mud like LSU fans love, not so much.
Texas gives the Tigers a chance, maybe their last one this year, to show the rest of college football that they are still a true national championship-caliber program.
It is time to leave the toys at home, let the celebrities buy their own tickets, and proclaim LSU the kind of program that's taken seriously again.
You don’t do that by mugging to the cameras and by embracing folks from Hollywood.
You do it by simply winning big football games.
It’s time the Tigers do that before this season is over.
Their championship clock is racing toward midnight.