Joey Galloway’s first-ever night covering LSU at Tiger Stadium was already shaping up to be a memorable one before the game even began. A long lightning delay, questions surrounding the required 90-minute warm-up, and an eventual 51-10 LSU rout of Clemson. However, for the ESPN analyst on the sideline, the weather had one more surprise waiting.
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Late-afternoon storms brought rain and lightning to Baton Rouge on September 5. NCAA rules stopped play when lightning sat inside an eight-mile radius. The original kickoff had been set for 7:30 p.m. ET. Teams later got their required 90-minute warm-up starting at 8:10 p.m. ET. The game finally kicked off at about 9:40 p.m. ET. Even after the storm moved on, the air did not feel easy.
Galloway talked about it on the Nonstop EP. 21 podcast with Kirk Herbstreit. Herbstreit had already warned him that a night in Tiger Stadium would be brutal. And he quickly learnt what he meant.
“I was sweating up in here. Yes, in here. You were right. Sweating the entire time,” Galloway said. “You get back home, and you’re soaking wet. By the time I got to the plane Sunday morning, that’s when you finally cooled down, but it was a blast. Humidity. I love it. That was my first time for the night experience there.”
Galloway’s clothes were still wet after he got back to where he was staying. It was also his first time working a night game in Baton Rouge. He had been to Tiger Stadium before but never done it under those prime-time conditions.
The temperature dropped to around 77 degrees, but humidity stayed near 96%. That is not the 100-degree bake other Week 1 games saw. The problem was the sticky night air, especially for anyone standing on the sideline for hours.
That same night is why Kiffin’s delay decision mattered. After the lightning cleared, officials asked if LSU wanted to shorten the 90-minute warm-up. Kiffin said no and wanted Clemson in the visiting locker room as long as possible.
“That locker room su*** over there,” Kiffin said after the 51-10 win. He was talking about the visiting side at Tiger Stadium and the edge he thought extra time there created. “And when you sit in there, the longer you sit in there — No, it’s a real thing.” Kiffin treated the delay as part of the fight, not just a weather problem.
“When they said, ‘Hey, do you want to shorten it?’ When we come back, I’m like, ‘No, leave it all there, we’ll go out at midnight,’” Kiffin said.
That is why Clemson stayed put for the full warm-up window. ABC also noted that Clemson coach Dabo Swinney insisted his team get the same 90 minutes.
Kiffin then tied the choice to how he approaches winning, including the week-long fight over Wright and Harris. Those two former Ole Miss players had court rulings in their favor but were not activated for the opener.
“If you haven’t figured out my competitiveness in order to win, if I’m gonna go through all that other stuff for two players, nationally, I’m certainly gonna,” Kiffin said. “If I think 90 minutes is gonna help us win the game, we’re gonna sit in the locker room for 90 minutes.”
LSU still rolled without them, and the Tigers piled up 644 yards and a school-record 38 first downs. Kiffin even told Holly Rowe at halftime, with LSU up 31-3, “Imagine if we had pro players.”
Swinney saw the delay differently. His issue was not the humidity, but he called the lightning delay “frustrating.” He said he would have preferred to stay at the hotel, watch extra film, and do another walkthrough. LSU had first said there would be no delay, which later proved wrong.
The LSU-Clemson night was only one piece of a weekend full of weather chaos. South Carolina beat Kent State in about 95-degree heat, with the heat index climbing much higher, and cut the fourth quarter to 10 minutes.
Georgia’s opener hit around 100 degrees at kickoff, and Alabama and Texas also saw heat indexes above 100. Arkansas kept live mascot Tusk VII out on vet advice.
College GameDay, in town for its 500th road show, had already been forced indoors that morning to the LSU Student Union auditorium because of lightning. LSU still announced 102,321 once fans came back for the late kick.