You can't drink all day if you don't start first thing in the morning. That's not verbatim the message LSU head coach Lane Kiffin is sending his school's fanbase heading into Week 2 of the season, but it's one he's implying.
Fresh off a 51-10 thrashing of Clemson to open up the Kiffin tenure in Baton Rouge, the Tigers welcome Louisiana Tech to town on Saturday evening. The atmosphere with the Bulldogs in town will pale in comparison to what was witnessed in Death Valley for the season opener against the Tigers.
Kiffin knows that, but it isn't stopping him from challenging the fanbase to show up and show out.
"Don’t let the opponent dictate how you are a fan. We challenge our players to do that, so, the fans, too," Kiffin told reporters on Monday. "If you’ve got to have a mock Saturday or put up a stage of 'College GameDay' — whatever it is. Come out here early; come out here and start drinking at 7:00 a.m.."
"Everything’s got to be the same as last Saturday," he continued. "I challenge our fans the same thing. The fans were electric. The whole walk, the beginning of the game, the first quarter – you could feel it coming down on the opponent. People who have been here a long time, they said it was the loudest, intense feelings they felt ever."
Kiffin urging fans to come and support his team against a not-so-flashy opponent is nothing new, nor is it a tactic exclusive to him. The 51-year-old coach issued the same sort of statements during his tenure at Ole Miss when the Rebels welcomed smaller, out-of-conference opponents to Oxford.
Most other coaches of Power Four programs face the same challenge of having fans show up – which translates to spending their money – at games that aren't exactly circled on the calendar.
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Louisiana Tech certainly falls into that category for much of the LSU fanbase, with the contest sandwiched between the home opener against Clemson, which can only be described as a dominant party, and the Tigers' trip to Ole Miss next week in what is undoubtedly one of the most highly anticipated games of the college football season.
As for Kiffin's joke about LSU fans pouring a cocktail at 7 a.m. before the Tigers kick off at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday against Louisiana Tech, that's a challenge plenty of fans in Baton Rouge will accept.