The 2014 season is still a little bit down the road, but LSU has already “gotten over on” one of its SEC West rivals.
As the football program is in the final stages of an expansion of the south endzone, LSU announced that it has increased its stadium capacity to 102,321. Such a capacity would push LSU past Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium (101,821) and into third in the SEC behind Texas A&M’s Kyle Field (106,511) and Tennessee’s Neyland Stadium (102,455). It also moves Tiger Stadium to sixth nationally.
(Writer’s note: that placement is based on A&M’s Kyle Field moving to No. 3 nationally and tops in the SEC once a multi-phase expansion project is completed sometime in 2015.)
Now, LSU didn’t necessarily add 10,000-ish seats during the expansion. Instead, and in addition to the increase in seating, the program changed its accounting procedures to fall in line with how others “in its peer group” compute their numbers.
“We are listing a stadium capacity now rather than seating capacity, which is in line with what other schools in the SEC are doing,” LSU associate athletic director for tickets operations Brian Broussard said in a statement provided by the school. “The stadium capacity takes into account ancillary groups, such as media, game management and concessions staff.”
So, there’s that.
And, in totally unrelated news, the 2014 college football season will begin in earnest in 47 days with Abilene State-Georgia State on a Wednesday and a day later with Texas A&M-South Carolina in Columbia at Williams-Brice Stadium (capacity: 80,250, No. 24 in the country).
And, yes, both of those games can’t get here soon enough.