Editor’s note from Alex: This week’s newsletter comes from Adam Henderson. He is an LSU alum living, working, and tailgating in Baton Rouge. You can follow him on Bluesky @dimmadome.bsky.social and Instagram @franklymydearidontgiveadam.
We asked Adam if he would join us to explain the ins and outs of his LSU fandom experience during a time of, let’s say, “athletic turbulence.”
Here’s Adam. If you’re not on this email list, you can join here for free, and we’ll know you appreciated the newsletter as we consider making more of these! And if you want to support this independent CFB media operation, you can become a paid subscriber for $10 a month.
Thank you for being here! Without further ado, we now turn it over to Adam.
If you’re getting tired of LSU dominating every other headline of the past nine months, I assure you: LSU fans are even more tired of it. We knew what we signed up for when we tied the knot with Lane Kiffin. Where he goes, drama follows him like a shadow (see: the Vanity Fair Ole Miss racism incident). That’s the bet LSU made: The loud, ostentatious sports car is going to end up wrapped around a light pole at some point, but when it does, there will be a national championship trophy in the passenger seat.
But even knowing that, 2026 has seen an outsized amount of–and this is a scientific term–constant bullshit, only some of which has been related to the football program. After the 24-hour news cycle does what it says on the tin, it’s easy to lose track of every individual episode. So, here’s a general accounting of some of the bigger headlines, and how the LSU fanbase feels about them in general:
The NFLSU Roster Saga
Arguably the most notable news item is the one that came out last: LSU football signing players from the class of 2022 who saw an avenue to return to college football due to the NCAA’s “five for five” and tried to take advantage of it. As a result, the SEC threatened LSU with expulsion before cooler heads prevailed. Have you seen this? Have you heard about this?
Frankly, there are much worse eligibility offenders than guys who didn’t make an NFL roster trying to come back for a fifth year: namely, two former LSU quarterbacks who started games during the COVID season and are STILL kicking around college football. Like other schools, LSU went after players who thought going pro was the only option available to them, before it wasn’t. I just can’t get worked up about a backup tight end.
This whole mess could have been avoided entirely if the NCAA had a modicum of foresight or situational awareness. But most people are not mad at that; they’re mad that Lane was the one who made the most noise doing so, because of course he did.
And yet, the only thing dumber than adding guys who were cut from NFL training camp was the SEC threatening LSU’s membership over it, something the SEC had never once had half a thought to levy against LSU for its various egregious Title IX violations during the Les Miles era.
I don’t think expulsion was ever truly in the cards, but the fact that it was even floated in the first place is the cherry on top of how big of a farce this whole thing is.
Will Wade’s Return from Elba
Men’s basketball coach Will Wade—who has never done anything wrong, and was just too early—returned to Baton Rouge after four instantly forgettable years of Matt McMahon. The governor-led ouster of ex-AD Scott Woodward facilitated this move.
Whatever the maximum amount is that fans have ever celebrated the hiring of a coach whom the same school had fired for cause, this was it. In a world where Bill Self got to sign a lifetime contract with Kansas after Shoegate, LSU fans rightfully have no reservations about Wade’s previous “transgressions,” besides maybe getting caught too easily.
What IS a problem for the fanbase is that as of writing, there are only four players on the roster, which you will note is one shy of a starting lineup. Lane Kiffin may have gone shopping on the waiver wire for depth, but Wade was building his foundation.
Wade had four players who were fighting for eligibility, but after the football team seemingly backed off from rostering class of ‘22 players, one must imagine the basketball team will follow suit. Wade also secured commitments from five international players, but with two months to tip-off, they are not listed on the roster, and not a word is being said about their eligibility.
Kiffin’s rostering of former pros (even if only in name) was a loud distraction amid his first season, but Wade doing so may tank his own.
I Got Five on It
Somehow even dumber than the NFLSU saga was Jayden Daniels sending LSU a cease-and-desist telling them to stop using his image and likeness to promote the program over issuing the No. 5 jersey.
As far as anybody can tell, Daniels (or somebody in his camp, as I believe) is upset that Kiffin honored a promise Brian Kelly made to cornerback DJ Pickett that he could wear No. 5, which the program had soft-retired since Daniels’ 2023 Heisman season.
The Daniels party felt aggrieved that the LSU program and fanbase were not holding him in the same light as Burrow. We don’t! But that’s not a slight to Daniels. Burrow led LSU to the coolest single season in college football history. He came out on senior night with his nameplate spelled “Burreaux” and capped a perfect season in New Orleans. No team they played that season had the ball in the fourth quarter with a chance to take the lead on them.
Daniels’ Heisman season, in comparison, will always be chased with fans spitting on the ground at the mention of Kelly’s and defensive coordinator Matt House’s names.
Look, LSU fans loved Jayden Daniels! This is purely anecdotal, but I’ve seen more kids wearing Commanders jerseys than Bengals jerseys in Tiger Stadium.
Here’s how much of an unprompted own goal this was by Daniels: He made LSU and Lane Kiffin, if only for a fleeting moment, look like sympathetic figures.
Through the memes and the trolling, LSU still showcases Jayden in their NFLSU in-stadium segment. He now gets booed and is buried in the middle of the segment, but LSU still shows him. I hold out hope that the hatchet can be buried.
Kim Mulkey’s Pepsi Moment
This offseason, Kim Mulkey signed Anna Minaeva, a player from Moscow, while LSU had a player on the roster, Kate Koval, who is not just Ukrainian but the daughter of a ranking member of the Ukrainian military. Whoops!
To make matters even worse, Mulkey said Minaeva and Koval could be “ambassadors” for friendship. It’s clear that women’s basketball is an ascendant sport, but it’s not quite to the level where it will win the hearts and minds of bitter enemies à la the documentary Rocky IV. This story continues Kim’s track record of being weird when it comes to Russia. (You will recall the time she offered barely tepid support for the greatest player she ever coached while said player was locked up as a bargaining chip in a Russian prison.)
As a result, Koval transferred out (to Mulkey’s old school, Baylor).
I think all LSU fans, even the TigerDroppings contingent, know the score about Mulkey. Many people in Baton Rouge do not love Mulkey and will not love Mulkey, but they do love the winning, and the prospect of a title is plenty of sugar for the pill.
A Quick Aside About Baseball and the Transfer Portal
I know college baseball is a niche sport that LSU fans care about an outsized amount in contrast to the rest of the nation, but stay with me.
After cruising to a second national title under Jay Johnson in 2025, LSU baseball cratered in 2026 and just barely held on to a .500 record, going 9-21 in SEC play and missing the postseason tournament entirely.
What’s interesting about that is that Johnson was surprisingly naked and honest about how the roster fell short of expectations:
“I made some mistakes in constructing the team and trying to replace two guys that were irreplaceable. We should have looked for replacing them through guys that were already in the program… We won’t make that mistake again. The power moving forward will be from players that start their career here.”
Most coaches have embraced the portal with open arms while few (see: Swinney, Dabo) are staunch portal holdouts and only do it through gritted teeth. But I don’t recall seeing a coach embrace the portal, literally get Paul Skenes and win a national title because of it, and then reverse course and openly admit that they were too reliant on it.
When Brian Kelly was fired, I wrote, “LSU football can lose games. LSU football can even be bad. But under no circumstances can LSU football be boring.” The entire athletic department has taken that message to heart, quickly. Welcome to 2026.
A woman I went to HS with has a daughter who is a high level basketball recruit and is considering LSU, and I desperately want to say that this woman won’t have her back, and that history proves that out.
We ride.