LSU's Next Home Game Will Have a Live Tiger Present

In October of 2016, a familiar face to Louisiana State University football fans passed away. That familiar face belonged to Mike VI, a tiger who appeared at LSU games to bolster the home team and, assumably, not leave the crowd terrified that he might break loose and start eating them. As his name suggests, he was the sixth tiger to bear his name and spent a total of nine years as perhaps the most imposing mascot in American sports.

There is a successor to Mike VI — named, you guessed it, Mike VII — but he resides on the university’s campus (complete with a live feed) and doesn’t put in appearances at games. And yet when Louisiana plays Alabama this weekend, there will indeed be a tiger at the stadium. So reports Intelligencer’s Matt Stieb, who has more details on a plan that sounds like some surreal blend of Friday Night Lights and Tiger King.

The idea didn’t originate with LSU, but instead is the brainchild of Louisiana governor Jeff Landry. According to Intelligencer’s reporting, Landry had originally sought to bring Mike VII to the game; however, the university was opposed to the idea. That’s when Landry got the idea to go to a place where tigers can be procured: the state of Florida.

That, in turn, is why there will be a tiger named Omar Bradley at this weekend’s game.

“[W]e’re honoring those Mikes and no one is going to take away the honor and the respect and the love that we have for Mike the Seventh,” Landry said in a recent interview. “Our hope is that maybe that we can get this tiger to roar a couple of times and that’ll indicate how many touchdowns we’ll have and it’ll be more than Alabama.”

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Let’s hope that Omar Bradley reacts well to large, noisy crowds — Tiger Stadium holds more than 100,000 fans. As Intelligencer reports, Omar Bradley has been a well-behaved tiger, but two other tigers owned by the same company have escaped. Hopefully this tiger’s appearance will be mishap-free.