re: What are LSU's colors for realz?

From Eye of the Tiger by Marty Mule. 1993.

“Coates said the morning of November 25, 1893 - the day of the first Tulane game - he and several of his players went to
Reymond's store to buy colorful ribbons with which to adorn their uniforms, and found that two Mardi Gras colors (purple and old gold) were in the most sup-ply. The other primary Carnival color, green, had not yet come in. That is how, legend
says, LSU got its royal colors of purple and old gold. But there are a couple of problems with this scenario. First of all, why would there be such a plentiful supply of Mardi Gras colors in November when the event doesn't take place for weeks after-ward. In 1894 Mardi Gras fell on February 6, a month and a half after the Tulane game. Indeed, two days before the alleged trip to Reymond's store, and the chance procurement of those particular colors, the New Orleans Times Democrat reported, ‘all the young ladies are preparing purple and old gold streamers for the occasion.’
Actually, seven months before, when the LSU baseball team defeated Tulane,
10-8, in the first intercollegiate athletic competition for both schools, although David French Boyd chose blue and white as the school colors years before, the LSU team wore ribbons of purple and old gold.
Actually, LSU's purple-and-gold colors, like its nickname, may be rooted in the Civil War.
Nearby the original campus, on Third Street, was a watering hole renamed at the start of the Civil War called ‘Sumter's Saloon’ to commemorate Louisiana's succession. The place was decorated in bunting of purple and old gold, perhaps to match the piping of a fighting unit. A Confederate cannon was half buried in front, and is said to still be there, though now fully covered.
At the very beginning of the Civil War, the Seventh Louisiana regiment was presented a beautiful flag with a pelican on a dark field by the Pickwick Club of New Orleans. More than 20 years later, in 1883 - a full decade before LSU ever kicked off a football - the corps of cadets was presented a flag by a ladies' organization in Baton Rouge, perhaps the same one, or a replica, carried by the Seventh. It bore the image of a pelican and the state coat of arms. The reported description read: ‘The flag is of handsome purple silk, fringed with gold.’