Tech week starts on a Monday. The NFL is two nights away.
Labor Day in Baton Rouge. Louisiana Tech is Saturday. The league opens Wednesday.
By Rhett Landry
Labor Day in Baton Rouge still smells like Saturday. Purple in the parking lots. Recaps on every phone. And LSU athletics’ official write-up still sitting there like a receipt: No. 11 LSU 51, Clemson 10, 644 yards of offense, lightning delay and all. Sam Leavitt’s debut was the loud part — 230 through the air, 113 on the ground, three total touchdowns. Dillin Jones matched him with 113 rushing and two scores. Winston Watkins Jr. got his chunk. Jordan Ross stole one and walked it in. That box already closed. This is Monday. This is Tech week.
Louisiana Tech is next. LSU athletics has it Saturday, Sept. 12, Tiger Stadium, 6:30 p.m. CT, and the public notes have it on SEC Network+. Same building that just swallowed Clemson. Different assignment. Tech opened by putting 80 on Northwestern State, per the Louisiana radio desk, which means theyre coming in hot and you’re supposed to care about that even when the whole state wants to skip ahead to Oxford on Sept. 19. Kiffin’s week is the boring one that keeps you 2-0: clean snaps, keep Leavitt upright, don’t let the Magnolia Bowl creep into the practice script before Tech’s charter lands.
Roster reality for this week is still the AP desk story from this morning: Dae’Quan Wright and Zxavian Harris stayed off the active sheet for Clemson while the eligibility fight keeps grinding. LSU didn’t need them for 51-10. Tech week doesn’t change the legal weather. It just means the guys who actually played Saturday get the reps.
National desk for a Tigers reader: the NFL opens Wednesday, Sept. 9 — New England at Seattle, Lumen Field, 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC, Super Bowl LX rematch, Seahawks defending. That’s two nights from this column. Jayden Daniels and the Commanders wait until Sunday, Sept. 13, at Philadelphia, 4:25 p.m. ET on FOX (club schedule). Wednesday for the league. Sunday for the Heisman kid in Philly. Baton Rouge will watch both with the remote already set for Saturday night in Death Valley.
Wear purple. Beat Tech. Then we talk about Oxford.