re: Off season topic- 1970's LSU football let's hear about it

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In 1961, Ferguson returned to LSU and broadcast men's basketball and football games. For a time, Ferguson was also the play-by-play commentator for the New Orleans Saints. The 1983 season was his last year as radio broadcaster at LSU. In 1984, Ferguson transitioned over to TigerVision, LSU's pay-per-view television network for football games and Jim Hawthorne took over as radio broadcaster for LSU baseball, men's basketball and football. Also in 1984, Ferguson was awarded the Distinguished Service Award in Sports Journalism from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association. He retired in 1987.

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Shame on you for copy-pasting from Wikipedia here.

And in your plagiarism it was failed to mention that Ferguson also was the "Voice of the Saints" for the 1990 season after Jim Henderson left to go work for CBS.

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ChiefCornerstone

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Never met him but I really like your dad.

I was there from 78-81. I agree that the atmosphere was much more intimidating back then. I remember my first Ole Miss game, when the entire Tiger Stadium crowd started chanting "Go to hell, Ole Miss, go to hell." It was not done in fun. It was pure hatred. We wanted the earth to literally open up and send Ole Miss down to the gates of hell. Good times...Charlie Alexander, Ensminger and Woodley alternating as QBs. I remember the excitement when Bo Rein was named the successor to Cholly Mac. He seemed like the hottest young coach in the country at the time. Who knows?....he might have been a dud, but he might have been for LSU what Bobby Bowden was for FSU. Everyone was devastated when he died. It seemed so senseless. It was reported that the plane passed right over Raleigh, where his wife and children still were, packing up to move to Baton Rouge.

And, yes, the USC game in '79 was probably the highlight of my time at LSU. The stadium was electric from the opening play. I was grad assistant with the band and as we were getting ready for halftime, I told Nick Rouse (Tiger Band director at the time) that we ought to ditch the halftime show and just do pre-game again. I was only half joking. I think the stadium would have gone crazy if we had done it.

Art Cantrelle

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Tiger Stadium with 68,000 seats was louder and more intimidating then than it is today.

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Someone correct me on the specifics but TS's capacity was expanded in '77 with the addition of the first west side upper deck to around 76K. We actually put 83K in TS for the '83 Washington game. Afterwards, the fire marshall implemented controls to preclude that from recurring.

The original west side upper deck was replaced in the early 2000s to match the since added east side upper deck.

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USC '79 still the loudest game ever IMHO. But all those 68,000 fans games were deafening.

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The capacity of TS in '79 when we played USC wasn't 68K. The original west side upper deck was completed around '77 that increased capacity to like 76K.

1970's best Tiger Stadium atmosphere ever, today can't compare to that, and LSU Vs. Tulane should have never ended. Bring it back, it was a great rivalry, but it needs to be played in New Orleans every other year.

79 season - my junior year. Went to USC game with this very cute gal who cried as the clock wound down. That same cute gal sat through a driving rainstorm with only a trashbag as cover as Bama beat us 3-0. She never once asked to leave. She became my girlfriend, then fiancee’, then wife. Married 42 years now. Those games made me sure that she was a “keeper!” We still get teary-eyed talking about it. ??