LSU Coach Will Wade Expresses Displeasure With SEC Scheduling Ahead of Florida Game
LSU coach Will Wade warned the media of his impending rant.
“Y’all are gonna be glad you showed up today,” Wade said.
The reason behind Wade’s warning starts and ends with his frustrations with the Tigers upcoming schedule this week. LSU will take on Florida in Gainesville at 8 p.m. on Wednesday night and then has a home game with Texas A&M scheduled for 11 a.m. on the SEC Network.
Because of the late start time on Wednesday the Tigers likely won’t land back in Baton Rouge until early Thursday morning, meaning the team will have just one day’s worth of practice to prepare for the Aggies.
“We’re the only team in the league that’s had this turnaround,” Wade said. “So, this is the second time we’ve had this, which is just not right for our players.
“We won’t be back before 2 a.m. on Thursday, we got to go to class Thursday and won’t be able to do anything Thursday,” Wade said. “We don’t get any preparation hardly for A&M and A&M plays at 6 p.m. on Tuesday.”
The first time LSU had such a quick turnaround between games this season was just three weeks ago when the Tigers played an 8 p.m. game against Vanderbilt and had to play at Auburn at 11 a.m. just two days later.
“The only other team that’s had this [scenario] in the league is Auburn and they played two home games,” Wade said. “We’ve had three out of four road games with this same setup and it cuts our guys’ preparation time down. We talk about student-athlete welfare and all that; this is not student-athlete welfare.”
Wade did say he didn’t want the scheduling change to reflect his rant as an excuse. The team, Wade and every fan knows LSU shouldn’t have dropped that game to the Commodores in early February.
As the head coach, however, Wade said he feels he has an obligation on behalf of his program to express his displeasure with the scheduling that has put his team in this situation.
“We’re the only team in the league that has to do this and we’ve had to do it twice now,” Wade said. “That’s not how it’s supposed to be. It’s supposed to be balanced, the schedule is supposed to be balanced and that’s not right.”
“This stuff we can control. I don’t think any coach in the league would be happy,” Wade said. “It just so happens it’s me and I got to stick up for LSU and I got to stick up for our players. That’s my job as the head coach at LSU, is to stick up for our team and our players and our program.”
The SEC has control over the start times for games like the Vanderbilt and Texas A&M game on Saturday because they appear on SEC Network. Wade is hoping in the future, teams will have more say, or at the very least encourage the SEC to change its scheduling parameters, to prevent these quick turnarounds in the future.
“Hopefully, they’ll change their guidelines on how they schedule, but I don’t have any control over it,” Wade said.
With Texas A&M being a home game, Wade is hoping it’ll be a little easier to prepare for the Aggies.
“We’ll see, maybe it’ll be easier because the second one is a home game,” Wade said. “Shoot, you can’t do anything. We have to change our whole week, we have to change our whole preparation for A&M. A&M plays such a unique style that it takes time to prepare. We don’t have any time, we’re going to have one practice between our Florida game and A&M to prepare.”
