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The Advocate
The phone lines have been burned through between Baton Rouge and Birmingham. The billboards have gone up in Birmingham, too, near the too-close-for-comfort to the Alabama campus headquarters of the Southeastern Conference. They message is the same, resounding, strident: “Free Devin White.”
Unless you care nothing about LSU football (if so, why are you here?), you know by now that the Tigers’ All-American linebacker was ejected in the fourth quarter of this past Saturday’s 19-3 LSU victory over Mississippi State for targeting Bulldogs quarterback Nick Fitzgerald.
The ejection carries with it a mandatory first-half suspension in LSU’s next game, which only happens to be the mother of all showdowns on the No. 4 Tigers’ schedule: No. 1 Alabama on Nov. 3.
All the calls from LSU athletic director Joe Alleva to SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey and all the billboards, while all well-intentioned, will not change the indelible decision: the suspension will stand, and White will sit for the game’s first 30 minutes.
The wave of indignation that rose from Tiger Stadium from the moment White got tossed to now has been an unabated virtual tsunami of emotion. LSU and its fans feel jobbed, again, by the SEC, rightly or wrongly — and with LSU about to oppose the Empire and Darth Nick Saban, no less.
Grassroots talk has stirred up of LSU fans wearing white to the game, white being LSU’s primary jersey color and to support Mr. White (and not the one from “Reservoir Dogs).
As for LSU, Alleva indicated the focus is on having Tiger Stadium be as loud as possible.
“Our focus is on the entire team right now because it’s always about the team for us,” Alleva said in a statement. “But, it’s obvious how much our fans love Devin White. He’s earned that affection as a player, person and leader and it’s great to see.
“Officially speaking, we are promoting that our fans create constant, unrelenting noise for 60 minutes in whatever color shirt they want, as long as it’s not crimson, and ideally has a whole lot of purple and/or gold on it.”
From the LSU perspective, it would look like thumbing its nose at the SEC and could detract from the Orgeron message that the focus needs to be on the team and beating Alabama. Orgeron on Tuesday made clear his displeasure with the ejection but also the need to focus on an uber-talented opponent.
“It’s important for the fans and for us to let that go,” Orgeron said Tuesday while speaking to the New Orleans Quarterback Club. “We can’t use that as an excuse. We can’t let it affect us. We’re going to get the next guy up, and we won’t blink.”
Like Alleva, Orgeron stopped short of endorsing a white-out.
“I love our fans,” Coach O said after practice. “They’re passionate. They’re going to do what they will do. I understand they frustrated. But we’ve moved on from that.”
A few thoughts come to mind:
1. The targeting ejection rule, in college football and the NFL, needs to change. Everyone is for player safety, of course, but there must be more common sense employed when it comes to ejecting players.
2. The SEC has taken the position behind the shield of this being an NCAA rule, and there is literally no avenue for an appeal. Alleva’s calls to Sankey were rendered ineffectual even before he picked up the phone Saturday night. As is often typical of college-related issues, the targeting ejection rule is a long road paved with good intentions but a short dead end when it comes to common sense. A better sense of intent to injure must, somehow, be added into the rule.
3. Imagine White comes into the game to start the second half a snarling ball of fierceness, and he sacks or hits Alabama quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and forces him to fumble, turning into a scoop-and-score for LSU. Were that to happen, Tiger Stadium may crack like the Liberty Bell.
4. Lastly, a white-out in Tiger Stadium is exactly what LSU fans should do. It would, at least for a few moments, be a distraction to Alabama to start the game. Nick Saban would rather you drop a pinch of fiberglass inside his shirt collar than distract his team.
If that is not enough reason for LSU fans to bleach the stands white in Tiger Stadium next Saturday, I don’t know what is.
Rabalais: 'Free Devin White' billboards a nice distraction, but officiating the real issue
