LSU is going with a unified marketing campaign for all teams this year.
The biggest news of the week broke last night as the Times-Pic reported that Penn St. QB Rob Bolden visited LSU over the weekend. Due to Penn St.'s NCAA penalties, Bolden would be eligible to play immediately anywhere in the country. For what it's worth, Penn St. has confirmed to local press that Bolden is no longer a member of the team. With fall practice starting this week, LSU could announce that he has joined the team as early as today. More from Dan on how Bolden would fit later today.
ATVS may be going Olympics crazy, but with the exception of opening round pool play for the Women's basketball team, LSU doesn't start it's participation until Friday when the bulk of the track events start. TeamSpeedKills is keeping track of all the SEC athletes participating, which this year includes a surprising amount of Aggies.
Les Miles gave his annual speech to the Baton Rouge Rotary Club and while Snoop Dogg did not make an appearance this year, it was still vastly more informative than his talk at SEC Media Days. Among many topics, Miles reiterated that while she will be given the chance, Mo Isom has a tough road to climb to make a spot on the team.
Fan Day has been set for August 11th.
While on ESPN last week to discuss the sanctions against Penn St., NCAA president Mark Emmert was asked (7:30 mark of this video) about a quote he had made back in his days at LSU, where he said "Simply put, success in LSU football is essential for the success of Louisiana State University." Emmert then goes on to say that LSU Football's graduation rates at the time he took over (mere weeks before Gerry DiNardo would get fired) were the worst in the SEC. The problem is that is simply not true. Coach DiNardo himself was quick to call out Emmert's error on twitter and on Baton Rouge radio.
LSU-A&M being the final football game of the season seems like a done deal at this point. Too bad nobody told Arky.
In baseball, LSU had a good showing in the Cape Cod All-Star Game with Nick Rumbelow pitching a scoreless inning and Jacoby Jones winning the league's Home Run Derby. The BR Advocate caught up with 2013 commit RHP Alden Cartwright who's throwing for Marucci Elite in a U-17 league. With the new rules, LSU's biggest win in the MLB draft comes from SS Alex Bregman.
2011 NCAA Women's individual champion Austin Ernst is leaving the LSU program early to start LPGA Q-school.
Michael Brockers is gearing up for his rookie NFL season.
Les Miles is a sadistic driving instructor.
The SEC basketball schedule for next season has suddenly changed from what it was agreed to be at the spring meetings and some of the coaches aren't happy about it.
If your trying to get your football team focused in fall camp for the season after a few bad years both on and off the field, what do you do? If you're Derek Dooley, you pack up the whole team and get them out of Knoxville.
Ole Miss wants to remind you that "Our Mascot is totally a bear now, you guys!" (and apparently they have a problem with getting people mere yards away from the stadium to actually go to their games)
You havent really lived until you've pretended to be a Bama fan at SEC Media Days.
Last week was very, VERY bad for football uniforms. In descending order of terribleness we have Miss St. in the Texas A&M 70's throwbacks, Northwestern in the "run over by a purple tire", and Nebraska in the "Dear God, what were they thinking" (and while we are on the subject, what's going on with the Saints uni's?)
Does Curtis Johnson have a chance to turn Tulane into a winner? (LOL, of course not)
We are done with the conference media days, and none was sadder than the WAC's. The true victim of realignment, the WAC will be down to just 2 teams in the 2013-14 season and the 50 year old league is contemplating hanging up football for good after this season. That would force the remaining teams New Mexico St. and 2012 LSU opponent Idaho to brave FBS life as independents or, more likely, drop down to D1-AA.
Speaking of conference changes, thanks to various moves the Southland Conference is now 50% Louisiana teams.
The Advocate has announced plans to publish in New Orleans on the days that the now trimmed down Times-Pic will not.
Rosenblatt is being torn down as we speak.
This is unrelated to anything and it has Bear Bryant on it and it's still awesome.