By Hunt Palmer
Money rules collegiate athletics.
In some respects, it a good thing. Coaches make great livings. Players can be paid for their outstanding talents. Networks are able to televise and/or stream far more games so the fans have more access to their teams.
It’s not all good, though.
Conferences have been ripped apart. Legal battles headline the sports pages weekly as folks fight over every dollar.
And football games like Saturday’s in Tiger Stadium have to take place. LSU and Southeastern Louisiana shouldn’t be playing. It’s not a fair fight.
FCS programs only have 63 scholarship players. This year, the Power Four conferences have 85. That’s one disparity, but it’s not the greatest. That’s talent.
Southeastern Louisiana has produced two NFL Draft picks since 1984. LSU sends a cavalry every spring. This year will be no different.
There’s a reason boxing has weight classes. Don’t want to take my word for it? How about Southeastern head coach Frank Scelfo’s?
“I’m not ok with a game like this anytime,” Scelfo told Matt Moscona on After Further Review. “You’ve got to be kidding me, right? Here’s what it is. Five years ago, they told us we couldn’t play again. You can’t play football. They took away the game from us (for COVID-19). Nobody could play. Then they let people play with empty stadiums. It just wasn’t the same. When we got a chance to bring it on back and start playing again, you can never pass up an opportunity to do what we do.”
Southeastern does get an opportunity on Saturday night. Strawberry Stadium, home of the Lions, seats 7,408. Tiger Stadium holds 13 times that many.
“Look, we’re going to maybe the most iconic stadium in the country, especially on a Saturday night,” Scelfo said. “We’re going to play one of the best teams in the nation, the No. 3 ranked team in the country against an outstanding staff that I know most of them personally. Got players on the team that we recruited, that we know. The familiarity, I’m from this state. Obviously, I want LSU to win a national championship this year because it’s good for the state when LSU wins. We know that. Everybody knows that. But our opportunity to do this? Man, I’m not backing away from it. I’m excited about it. We look forward to it.”
Scelfo was born and raised in Abbeville, Louisiana. He attended Northeast Louisiana in the 1970s, was on staff for great Tulane teams in the late 1990s and was the offensive coordinator at Louisiana Tech. He knows the state inside and out and has seen football from the high school level to the NFL where he was a quarterbacks coach with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
He can embrace the opportunity while understanding the assignment.
“People out there, you look at the Power Four schools, those are all-star teams now,” Scelfo said. “The two-deep on those depth charts, those are great players. I turn on the film, and I’m watching LSU play Clemson, and those are two just below NFL teams. They’ve got some great players. LSU against Florida, the same thing. There are great players on both sides of the football.”
His roster is just not as big, not as fast, not as strong. Every Saturday in September, we see the same script play out. Three years ago, LSU led Southern 37-0 in the first quarter en route to a 48-point win. A year later, the Tigers beat Grambling State 72-10.
“Look at the scores when you see what’s taking place with Ohio State hangs 70 on Grambling,” Scelfo said. “Northwestern (State) getting beat by 70 at Cincinnati and Minnesota. Florida State doing the same thing to East Texas A&M. The teams in our conference are playing the Power Four teams, and we know why we do it. You’d just like to find another way to raise money except off of the backs of our players.”
Southeastern will receive $750,000 for playing the game. That’s an important chunk of the athletic budget annually. Money always rules at the end of the day. That’s no secret.
“We know why we’re doing it, but we also don’t say we’re going to back away from this thing,” Scelfo said. “We’re going to embrace it. It’s hard. Men play this game. It’s hard to be a man in today’s world. To be a man, we’re going to do our thing on Saturday.”
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