Hobbs column: There will be light in TIger Stadium

Just an educated hunch here, but I’d say that when LSU and Ole Miss convene in Tiger Stadium Saturday night, Las Vegas likely has it as a 50-50 prop bet.

Even money, in other words.

Forget the game score , where at last glance the Rebels were favored by 3 1/2.

These even odds we speak of — flip a coin — would be on whether, in the midst of the grand and official celebration of 100 years of Tiger Stadium, there is any actual football permitted to break out between the Rebels and Tigers.

If so, the action might be incidental, certainly an afterthought. It might get in the way.

Now, this border rivalry predates Tiger Stadium — it’s even older than most of the multi-redshirted quarterbacks in the transfer portal. It goes back to something like 1894 when LSU squeezed in game with the Rebels between a battle royale with the Natchez Athletic Club and Centenary.

Fast-forward …

Currently, LSU is ranked No. 10 in the coaches’ poll, Ole Miss is No. 8, so it’s actually the first top ten matchup between the old adversaries since 1962, when Tiger Stadium looked a whole lot different.

But never mind. Not really pertinent. Surely, don’t let any silly game get in the way of the real fun.

Tiger Stadium will celebrate its first full century by attempting  audience participation night.

True, the fans in Tiger Stadium have long been a part of the lore, mostly for the racket and ruckus they can dust up, occasionally all the way to earthquake decibels.

They know that drill.

But Saturday LSU expects them to follow directions, and good luck with that. What could possibly go wrong?

At least the school, a prominent Flagship University,  has done most of the thinking for the fans.

All the paying customers have to do is go to their seats, where waiting therein will be a high-tech wrist band, gadgetry suitable for wearing on one’s wrist. The wrist bands will be armed with LED lights which have been programmed to, well, do something very electronic — probably things never imagined when the stadium opened in 1924.

Actually, if I’m reading the literature right, only the patrons in the stadium’s lower bowl will have their special wrist do-dads  waiting when they get to their seats. The cheap(er) seats in the various upper decks will be wrist-banded on a first-come, first-serve basis while passing through the concourses en route.

No idea why.

But this also brings to mind former legendary Major League Baseball owner Bill Veeck’s observation that “knowledge of the game is usually in inverse proportion to the price of the tickets.”

However, apparently there’s a responsibility that comes when entrusted with a wristband.

Just read the handy instructions: “Fans are reminded to wear the wristband that is placed in your seat and” — this is extra important, apparently — “are asked not to trade with wristbands with fans sitting in other locations.”

Explanation: “The wristband lightshow is choregraphed based on sections in the stadium.”

The LED wristbands “will be synched with the new lights in Tiger Stadium, providing an in-game experience never before seen in Tiger Stadium.”

Not in the last 100 years anyway.

Those new stadium lights have already turned the old joint into a pretty good imitation of a Star Wars battle extravaganza.

One can only imagine how this latest high-tech wrist wizardry will amp up the proceedings. Veteran fans may be ducking for cover.

But it figures to be non-stop from the bands’ entry to the team’s arrival to halftime to the end game and seemingly all points in between: “The wristbands will be triggered for a number of songs throughout the game.”

The instructions were unclear on when (or if) they plan to work in any real football into the night.

Maybe they will. Perhaps it’s in the plan somewhere between laser-light ricochets.

Someone, surely, has noticed that this is the key game of the season for LSU, Ole Miss too, the kind of night Tiger Stadium has always thrived in, without gimmicks.

It being Ole Miss at night, maybe they could pump in some fog for the game, just for nostalgia’s sake.

Perhaps they’ll get around to it. The game itself almost seems irrelevant, competing with enough computer power to invade Jupiter.

I’m thinking cue up American Pie: “…and when the players tried to take the field, the LED lights refused to yield …”

Probably harmless fun.

But here’s my prediction: Already the school’s young computer-science whiz kids — key word, “kids,” i.e., mischievous— are surely working on a program that would hijack the system and, heh-heh, spell out some naughty words with those LEDs for family fun and hijinks.

It’s only a matter of time.

 

 

 

 

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