LSU Band To Play South Carolina’s Fight Song And Alma Mater During Saturday’s Relocated Game

Bogey Wells10 years ago

Yes, it’s true. There are events bigger than college football.

Due to the devastating effects of Hurricane Joaquin, officials made the call Wednesday to relocate Saturday’s LSU vs. South Carolina football game to Baton Rouge after it was originally scheduled to be played at the University of South Carolina. Severe flooding in and near Columbia forced the game out of Williams-Brice Stadium and to Baton Rouge, where LSU will play the game as the “home” away team. The Tigers will occupy their usual home sideline and locker room, but they’ll instead be wearing their tradition road purple jerseys for the first time in decades.

It will likely appear as a home game filled with purple and gold on whichever channel ESPN selects to broadcast the game, however, officials at LSU are doing their damnedest to ensure the Tigers do not take advantage of the plight endured by South Carolinians.

Because of the suddenness of the decision – which was announced just three days from kickoff – South Carolina’s band will be unable to travel to Baton Rouge, leaving the Gamecocks with very little semblance of a home game. After a week of chaos, the Gamecocks are surely seeking any sense of normalcy, and as announced Wednesday afternoon, the LSU band will show them a gesture rarely seen in the midst of cutthroat SEC competition.

On top of instructing their band learn and perform USC’s traditional songs, LSU will donate all proceeds from the game back to South Carolina and the Red Cross will have locations set up around the stadium collecting donations for the victims of Hurricane Joaquin.

The precedent for this move was ironically set by LSU in 2005 when a scheduled home game versus Arizona State was moved to Tempe while LSU’s campus was being used as an evacuation point in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. If anyone knows the feelings flowing through Columbia’s faithful, it’s Louisianians..

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