LSU, Tulane switch home games in series

• By SCOTT RABALAIS
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Jul 19, 2008 - Page: 1C - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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LSU has called an audible in its recently revived football rivalry with Tulane.

Seeking a seventh home game for its 2009 schedule, LSU has gotten Tulane to agree in principle to switch home games in their series.

The teams will still play on Halloween night, Oct. 31. But instead of meeting in the Louisiana Superdome, LSU and its oldest athletic rival will meet in Tiger Stadium.

“We’re pretty much there,” Verge Ausberry, LSU’s senior associate athletic director who handles football scheduling, said Friday. “We’ve mutually agreed. Now we just need to get the papers signed.”

To compensate Tulane for the move, LSU is now slated to play the Green Wave in the Superdome in 2010 and 2011. As part of the agreement, the game in 2010 will be moved up from Oct. 30 to LSU’s season opener on Sept. 4.

Tulane plays at Tiger Stadium this year on Nov. 1. It is the third game of a 10-year home-and-home series that revived the rivalry in 2006.

A message for Tulane Athletic Director Rick Dickson on Friday was not immediately returned.

LSU and Tulane suspended their annual series after the 1994 season. Between 1994 and 2006, the Tigers and Green Wave met only twice in football (1996, 2001).

Moving the 2009 Tulane game from New Orleans to Baton Rouge became a financial imperative for LSU after the Tigers scheduled the first meeting of a home-and-home series with Washington.

LSU will play the Huskies in Seattle to start the 2009 season on Sept. 5.

With the Tigers annually committed to four Southeastern Conference road games, the games at Washington and at Tulane left LSU with just six home games next year.

LSU now grosses just more than $4 million for a typical home game, and after expenses can clear as much as $3 million.

Next season, LSU will play in Tiger Stadium against Vanderbilt, Louisiana-Lafayette, Florida, Auburn and Arkansas. One more home opponent, for Nov. 14, must be determined.