Link: "No LSU football" scare tactic for LA budget

Snuffy Smith said:

Didn't we try to do that last year with UAB?

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It was a rare moment of a university facing the reality of the situation. However, for reasons that still perplex me, they responded to the outpouring of affection from Tennessee and Auburn fans and brought that waste of money back. Meanwhile South Alabama's average attendance last year was well below that of a Donald Trump rally. Their average attendance dropped by over 1,000 to 16,038. But that's almost besides the point, this isn't about cutting waste, it never was, it's about the power of the purse.

Trying hard to stick to football and not politics (Moderators, I'm trying to be careful!).

What the Governor said was that without revenue, the school closes in April. (You can believe him or not, but assume it to be correct for discussion purposes.) Since the semester is incomplete, no one gets grades or credit for spring classes. (Again, assume that to be a correct statement of grading policy.) Student-athletes in all sports who need those grades to be eligible aren't. When fall rolls around, yes the football program has money, but do you have eligible student athletes to actually play the games? And the Governor is not going to highlight ULL or ULM because fewer people care. (In the Federal Government, they call it closing Yellowstone or the Washington Monument; people care.)

State universities, including our own UA, receive almost all of their revenue from tuition, state appropriations, and endowments. If you have a significant shortfall in state appropriations, you can't stay open because you can't pay your bills. Again, this isn't saying the athletic department lacks money.

How you close those gaps is definitely a candidate for the NS board and I won't go there at all.

B1GTide said:

You need to work on your reading comprehension.

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I've been following and it seems redundant. It's very obviously a threat and most likely one that would never be carried out even if new taxes are not approved. It's starting to look like you'll go to any length to try to win your argument. The point you are making is hardly worth the argument.

BadgerTidefan said:

I've been following and it seems redundant. It's very obviously a threat and most likely one that would never be carried out even if new taxes are not approved. It's starting to look like you'll go to any length to try to win your argument. The point you are making is hardly worth the argument.

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No one group can put a state in these dire straits. Everyone is to blame - especially the voters who put people in office who promised to pursue their interests. This is political grandstanding, as was pointed out earlier in the thread, but it does not convey threat. In most cases, states are now required by law to shut down non-essential services without a budget/money. It is not a threat to point that out, or to point out the consequences. If there is a threat, it is that a single group will be blamed for those consequences later, but the reality is that EVERYONE will carry that blame and be run out of office if that happens.

You guys, in this thread, have demonstrated why saying something so simple works. You have taken sides and started throwing stones instead of actively considering the problem - the budget. So will the voters. They will call their congressmen and demand that the budget be passed immediately to save their beloved Tigers, with no thought to the financial future of their state. Both sides, democrats and republicans alike, will blame their representative if it doesn't happen.

So, it is a politician pushing a political button, like democratic candidates did for decades with social security. Scare tactics work because the masses are too easily distracted by this slight of hand. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that all parties involved got together and asked for this scare to be thrown out there so they could get their budget passed with the acceptance of the people.

Smoke and mirrors, and you guys aren't even looking for the guy behind the curtain.

My second and last post on this. I disagree, but I won't be drawn into your endless back and forth over your point, you have stated over and over your argument and it looks like you are pretty much alone in your opinion.

CrimsonForce said:

And that's the real reason Les is still employed at LSU - they couldn't justify firing Les and paying his buyout plus his assistants buyout. All of that on top of paying an incoming coach's buyout plus the salary for the new coaches. What a mess..

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Well no, that is not the issue. The Athletic Department has the money to do all of that and more. The issue is the school, not the Athletic Department.

Bamabuzzard said:

Dude's a real peace of work isn't he? Let's cut funding for TOPS to save money but rescind restrictions on welfare recipients so it makes it easier for them to get and stay on welfare without having to look for employment. BRILLIANT!!!!

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TOPS was funded by tobacco settlement money. Didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that wasn't going to last forever. So, it wasn't just a matter of cutting funding, it was a matter of not adequately providing for the funding to continue the program when the original funds dried up.

BadgerTidefan said:

My second and last post on this. I disagree, but I won't be drawn into your endless back and forth over your point, you have stated over and over your argument and it looks like you are pretty much alone in your opinion.

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Doesn't make me wrong. And being alone on this board does mean that I am alone. Have a great day.

B1GTide said:

Doesn't make me wrong. And being alone on this board does mean that I am alone. Have a great day.

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Actually you aren't (wrong or alone). People need to recall that as much as we may love college athletics, it still isn't the reason for LSU or the University of Alabama to exist.

Talk about posturing![emoji23][emoji23][emoji23]


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PaulD said:

People need to recall that as much as we may love college athletics, it still isn't the reason for LSU or the University of Alabama to exist.

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That still does not account for the fact that it is poor practice to shut down something that makes money because you don't have enough money! Furthermore, one can easily argue that these universities should be able to operate on a balanced budget without the need for external funding.

KrAzY3 said:

That still does not account for the fact that it is poor practice to shut down something that makes money because you don't have enough money! Furthermore, one can easily argue that these universities should be able to operate on a balanced budget without the need for external funding.

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I hear what you say. At the risk of being NS in the Football section (but still being nonpartisan), I have 35+ years in the DoD, both military and civilian (with 16 days to go, hurrah!), so I know something about government budgeting rules. Insufficient funding in some programs can have knock-on effects in other programs, even when those programs have funding. So many things are interconnected.

I suppose that a state university could be budgeted to operate without appropriations, but then it would have tuition at the levels of private universities.

I suspect that the mods may close this thread down soon as it's proving impossible to keep it on football, so I'll add a final point. I think the real value of this story is less whether LSU has eligible student-athletes in any sports in the fall, than a reminder that athletics, no matter how well funded they are, are still a part of an educational institution which must be adequately funded to execute its core mission, education. When the funding isn't there, for whatever reason, the thing that many people care about the most, athletics, can be placed at risk.

The issue isn't the college football, the issue is that you can't have college football without a college/university. If they run out of funding on April 30, Louisiana State shuts down, students get incompletes, and - I believe - the athletes are effectively ineligible for Fall 2016 until they can complete those credit hours.


With all that said, there is 0% chance they let their flagship university (and other public universities) shut down. They'd never recover from that...couldn't tell you the amount of attrition they'd face from student enrollment and faculty/staff.

I realize this refusal to raise taxes is showing loyalty to Grover Norquist. Does anybody know whether Norquist converted to being a Muslim when he married the Muslim woman a few years ago?

Here's the thing that anyone with a tiny bit of common sense dislikes about this scenario. It is not, raise taxes or lose LSU football. Even with government at their incompetent best, that is not the only choice. Period, end of story.

States could effectively separate the budgets of academics and general government functions to avoid situations like this one but they'd lose a huge piece of leverage in the process. Notice how the whole nation paid attention when they warned of shutting down the state scholarship fund and putting Fall 2016 college athletics at risk.


You can't replicate that kind of bargaining chip.

ALA2262 said:

Well no, that is not the issue. The Athletic Department has the money to do all of that and more. The issue is the school, not the Athletic Department.

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I didn't say the athletic department didn't have the money to do it. I said it would be almost impossible to JUSTIFY in the current financial/political environment..

KrAzY3 said:

Here's the thing that anyone with a tiny bit of common sense dislikes about this scenario. It is not, raise taxes or lose LSU football. Even with government at their incompetent best, that is not the only choice. Period, end of story.

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Amen - this is where the discussion needs to be directed. This is why the smoke was blown out there, but all may see is the smoke (threat). Forget the smoke. Stop talking about the smoke. This is not about football, and never was.

BamainBoston said:

Half a billion dollars of their shortfall is due to the fall in energy prices alone. I know you are trying real hard to make this simple and one issue. It's not. The real problem is that the state was rolling in money after Katrina due to federal dollars flowing in and the energy boom. So like all good governments, they dramatically increased their spending, while also cutting taxes. (do one of these and you are fine, do both and you are going to be in trouble.) When the bubble burst and the money stopped going in, they were stuck with a big budget and low tax revenue. Dramatically raising taxes on your state during a crisis--which is what the energy slump is for Louisiana--is probably not the best road to recovery, but neither is massive budget cuts.

But I'm glad the Democratic governor is taking the high road. He didn't just totally destroy his credibility. Not at all.

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All that and you never addressed my question. Is Norquist a Muslim like his wife?

B1GTide said:

Amen - this is where the discussion needs to be directed. This is why the smoke was blown out there, but all may see is the smoke (threat). Forget the smoke. Stop talking about the smoke. This is not about football, and never was.

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Pretty sure most here are smart enough to know it is all smoke. But, it is the only smoke that will get the attention of, and give cover to, useless, gutless politicians.

It is politics. Which is pretty much smoke and mirrors to begin with. For crying out loud, they just elected yet another Edwards, as gubner. That alone speaks volumes.