LSU-Virginia Tech Football
Tigers, Hokies Carry Bitter Memories of Hurricanes, Campus Shootings
College football has had few teams struggling with the off-field traumas that the LSU Tigers and the Virginia Tech Hokies brought into the 2007 season. The fact that the two teams were matched early in the season only added to the drama.
Going into the 2007, the Tigers still carried the memories of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, which wrecked many of their communities, ruined some of their homes and forced reshuffling in their 2005 schedule.
The fact that they turned in inspiring performances in both the 2005 and 2006 seasons did not mean the two 2005 hurricanes were off the Tigers’ minds. Even as the 2007 season started, the New Orleans area was still recovering from Katrina and the flooding that poured tons of water into thousands of homes. Many evacuees were still living in other areas, unable to return home for lack of jobs, transportation or a place to live.
The Hokies, meanwhile, opened their 2007 season against East Carolina September 1 as Virginia Tech struggled to recover from the loss of 32 students in the worst mass shooting in recent American history. Days before the game, the grieving was aggravated by accusations that some of the April deaths could have been prevented.
The students killed in the April shootings were remembered in an emotional ceremony before the East Carolina game at Blacksburg.
The September 8 game between the two teams at Baton Rouge presented unprecedented challenges for Coach Les Miles of LSU and Coach Frank Beamer of Virginia Tech. Getting their teams ready for their openers, LSU against Mississippi State, and Virginia Tech against East Carolina, was tough enough. Both the Tigers and the Hokies won those games.
But preparing players to tear into each other the next week, when both teams knew the other had experienced severe trauma, presented different problems. LSU planned special ceremonies to remember the 32 killed Virginia Tech students.
The experts expected both teams to ride their emotions to successful seasons, just as LSU had done the previous two years. In preseason polls, LSU was ranked second in the nation and Virginia Tech was ranked ninth. The Sept. 8 game would change one of those.
The LSU ranking was somewhat surprising since three of the 2006 Tigers were whisked away in the first round of the National Football League player draft, an indication of how much they meant to the team. LSU also lost its highly acclaimed offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher.
Virginia Tech’s opening game against East Carolina reminded the Hokies, and national television viewers, of another distraction. Sitting high up in Lane Stadium was a banner honoring Michael Vick, one of the most acclaimed players in Virginia Tech history.
The week of the game Vick pleaded guilty to involvement in a cruel dog-fighting enterprise that was likely to send him to jail, cost him millions of dollars in salary and sponsorships and perhaps end his professional football career with the Atlanta Falcons.
