The LSU Tigers football program, also known as the Fighting Tigers, represents Louisiana State University in college football. The Tigers compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the Southeastern Conference (SEC).
LSU ranks 16th best in winning percentage in NCAA Division I FBS history and claims four national championships (1958, 2003, 2007, and 2019), 16 conference championships, and over 40 consensus All-Americans. Three players for the Tigers have won the Heisman Trophy: Billy Cannon (1959), Joe Burrow (2019), and Jayden Daniels (2023).
The team plays on the university's campus at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The program's current head coach is Lane Kiffin.
History
Early history (1893–1954)
Dr. Charles E. Coates, a chemistry professor at the university known for his work on sugar, and former football player at Johns Hopkins, assembled a group of students to create the school's first team. Coates' plan for a football team dates back to the autumn of the previous year, when he assembled a team and held one or two scrimmages before shelving the idea for the following autumn. The team wore makeshift uniforms with purple and gold ribbons for its first game, a 34–0 loss to Tulane and the only game played by LSU that year. The game was played in front of a crowd of 1,500 at Crescent City Base Ball Park in New Orleans. The game sparked a rivalry between the schools that lasted well into the 20th century. Future Louisiana governor Ruffin G. Pleasant was the quarterback and captain of the LSU team. According to legend, purple and gold were chosen because they were Mardi Gras colors, and the green was sold out. The game was the only one Coates ever coached, and the only football game Pleasant played in. Pleasant was later inducted into the LSU Athletic Hall of Fame.
LSU achieved its first victory by beating Natchez Athletic Club 26–0 in 1894. Samuel Marmaduke Dinwidie Clark has the honor of scoring the very first touchdown in LSU history. The first football game played on the LSU campus was at State Field on December 3, 1894, a loss against Mississippi. LSU's only touchdown in that game was scored by the head coach, Albert Simmonds. This was the first year of play for William S. Slaughter who lettered as an end for 5 years (1894, 1895, 1896, 1897, 1898). Slaughter was LSU's first five time football letterman. By 1895, LSU had its first win in Baton Rouge. In 1896 LSU hired Allen Jeardeau of Platteville, Wisconsin. LSU went undefeated, winning the school's first conference championship in the school's first year as a member of the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Association (SIAA), the first southern athletics. conference. Tulane was forced to forfeit for its attempt to play Hall of Fame Penn back George H. Brooke."Baton Rouge Wins Without Winning". The Daily Picayune. October 25, 1896. pg. 8. This was the first team to be called the "Tigers." The mascot was reputed to be named after the "Fighting Tigers," the name of the 9th Louisiana Infantry in the Civil War. Coach Jeardeau returned for his second but final year at LSU in 1897 for two games in Baton Rouge. A yellow fever outbreak throughout the South caused the postponement of LSU's classes starting, and the football season being cut back to only two games.
Another outbreak of yellow fever similar to the one in 1897 caused LSU to play only one game in 1898. By the time LSU was able to play its only game of the season, Allen Jeardeau had departed from the school as head football coach, and no provision had been made to replace him. The job of coach then fell to the team's captain, Edmond Chavanne, thus the first LSU alumnus to coach the team. New coach John P. Gregg led the Tigers to a 1–4 season in 1899, including a loss to the "iron men" of Sewanee. The only wins were in an exhibition game against a high school team (which LSU does not officially record as a win) and against rival, Tulane. It was the first year of play for LSU's second five-year letterman, John J. Coleman (1899, 1900, 1901, 1902, 1903).
Chavanne was rehired in 1900, posting a 2–2 record. Chavanne was replaced by W. S. Borland as head coach in 1901, leading the team to a successful 5–1 season. After the Tulane game, a 22–0 loss, LSU protested to the SIAA, and alleged that Tulane had used a professional player during the game. Several months later, the SIAA ruled the game an 11–0 forfeit in favor of LSU. The seven-game 1902 season was the longest yet for the Tigers and also featured the most games on the road. LSU upset Texas, avenged last season's loss to Auburn, and lost only to Vanderbilt, which claimed an SIAA title after the win. The 1903 season broke the previous season's record for most games played (seven) with nine games. Dan A. Killian coached the Tigers from 1904 to 1906. Back René A. Messa made some All-Southern teams in 1904. The 1905 team went 3–0.
In 1907, LSU became the first American college football team to play on foreign soil in the Bacardi Bowl against the University of Havana on Christmas Day in Havana, Cuba. LSU won 56–0. John Seip ran back a 67-yard punt return.
The 1908 team posted an undefeated 10–0 record. Quarterback Doc Fenton led the nation in scoring with 132 points, posting then school records of 36 extra points and six field goals. Mike Lally was his running mate in the backfield. LSU beat Auburn 10–2, Seip going over for the first touchdown. Auburn's two points came on a safety, after T. C. Locke blocked Fenton's punt. Fenton could not recover the fumble because he was knocked unconscious by a spectator's cane. The National Championship Foundation retroactively awarded 1908 LSU the national championship though it is not claimed by LSU. This season also led to an SIAA championship; but was clouded by accusations of professionalism from Grantland Rice and rival school Tulane. Auburn and Vanderbilt were among those listed as alternative conference champions. Both Fenton and Seip were inaugural inductees into the LSU Athletic Hall of Fame. 1910 was a disastrous year for the Tigers. After a strong 1909 campaign under coaches Joe Pritchard and John W. Mayhew, which saw their only conference loss come to SIAA champion Sewanee, the team lost some star power; Stovall, Lally, and Seip had all graduated.
Pat Dwyer, an assistant at Auburn in 1908, was hired in 1911. He once used guard Tom Dutton for a "kangaroo play" in which back Lawrence Dupont would crawl between Dutton's legs; supposedly very effective in short yardage situations. The 1913 team lost only to SIAA champion Auburn by a touchdown. Fullback Alf Reid made All-Southern. LSU's largest loss margin came on October 31, 1914 in a game against Texas A&M in Dallas, Texas. The final score was Texas A&M 63, LSU 9. In 1916, Walter Camp gave Phillip Cooper honorable mention on his All-America team. Irving Pray and Dana X. Bible also served as the Tigers coach in 1916 Washington's Wayne Sutton coached the 1917 team to a 3–5 record.
Irving Pray coached full seasons in 1919 and 1922, the inaugural season of the Southern Conference (SoCon). Branch Bocock led the Tigers for the 1921 season, in which they were beaten only by Tulane. Mike Donahue came from Auburn to be the seventeenth head football coach at LSU in 1923. The biggest win in Donahue's tenure was probably the 20–14 victory over Indiana in 1924. The final game of the 1924 season saw the first game played at Tiger Stadium, with an original seating capacity of 12,000, on Thanksgiving Day against Tulane. 18,000 fans managed to fit into the stadium to watch the Green Wave defeat the Tigers 13–0. In 1925, the team's first full season in Tiger Stadium began with shutout wins over Louisiana Normal and Southwestern Louisiana. The following week coach Wallace Wade's national champion Alabama blew-out LSU in Tiger Stadium, 42–0, which was at the time the worst home loss in school history. The 1925 team also beat John Heisman's Rice team, but ended the season with a second straight shutout loss to Tulane. Donahue resigned after the 1927 season, less than two months after signing a six-year contract extension with the team. LSU compiled a record of 23 wins, 19 losses, and three ties while with Donahue, which included a 5–14–2 record in SoCon games.
Vanderbilt coach Dan McGugin recommended Russ Cohen for the LSU job. Cohen's best year at LSU was his first, in 1928. Led by All-Southern captain Jess Tinsley, Tigers posted a 6–2–1 record, suffering losses to Arkansas and Wallace Wade's Alabama Crimson Tide. Star halfback Percy Brown broke his shoulder against Alabama. The tie was to Bill Banker and rival Tulane, which was as good as its ever been from 1929 to 1931. In 1931 LSU played its first night game in Tiger Stadium, a 31–0 victory over Spring Hill. Under West Point's Biff Jones, the 1932 team tied for the Southern Conference championship in its last season as a member of the conference. The 1933 lost no games and was led by track and field athlete Jack Torrance. Jones resigned after the 1934 season after a heated exchange with noted LSU supporter, Louisiana senator Huey P. Long. In the last game of the season, Long was displeased after the team had lost two straight games and were trailing at halftime to Oregon. Long decided to give a motivational speech to the team at halftime, but was turned away by Jones at the locker room door. The ensuing argument ended with Jones declaring to resign, effective at the end of the game. Gaynell Tinsley, the cousin of Jess, has a profile at the College Football Hall of Fame which describes him this way: "Tinsley was a magnificent athletic specimen, standing 6-0, and weighing 196-pounds, size he used equally well as a defensive stalwart who was a blocking master." As a sophomore in 1934, Tinsley had a 65-yard pass reception, thrown by halfback Abe Mickal, against Southern Methodist University, which stood as a record for several years as "the longest pass in Southern football history."