ABC to televise LSU season opener vs. Florida State

BATON ROUGE – The Brian Kelly era of LSU football will begin with a prime time national broadcast as ABC will televise the Tigers’ season-opener against Florida State on Sunday, Sept. 4, in New Orleans, the network announced on Tuesday.

Game time for the Allstate Louisiana Kickoff at Caesars Superdome featuring LSU and Florida State is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. CT.

LSU is coming off a 6-7 season and an appearance in the Texas Bowl, while Florida State finished last year with a 5-7 mark.

It will be the first meeting between LSU and Florida State since 1991 when the then-No. 1 ranked Seminoles posted a 26-17 win over the Tigers in Baton Rouge.

LSU is 2-7 all-time against the Seminoles with wins coming in the 1968 Peach Bowl (31-27) and 1982 in Tiger Stadium (55-21).

LSU is 91-32-5 all-time in season-openers.

Tickets for the contest are still available and can be purchased at www.LSUtix.net.

Allstate Louisiana Kickoff Between LSU and Florida State To Air on ABC
National Showdown from New Orleans to Kickoff at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 4

NEW ORLEANS – The Allstate Louisiana Kickoff between LSU and Florida State on Sunday, September 4 will be televised nationally by ABC. Kickoff is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. from the Caesars Superdome in New Orleans. The game is being hosted by the Sugar Bowl Committee in partnership with the Louisiana Office of Tourism and Allstate.

“We’re pleased to have an exclusive window on ABC for the telecast of the Allstate Louisiana Kickoff,” said Jeff Hundley, the chief executive officer of the Sugar Bowl. “We feel confident that the game will be a sellout and we’re happy to showcase New Orleans and Louisiana to millions of college football fans as we celebrate the start of another great season.”

With Labor Day Weekend being a traditionally busy weekend in New Orleans, the Sugar Bowl has established arrangements with a wide-range of local hotels to ensure fans attending the Allstate Louisiana Kickoff have the opportunity to book rooms at discounted rates.

Ticket sales are being handled directly by the schools according to their own priority systems. The Allstate Sugar Bowl will NOT be selling public tickets to the Allstate Louisiana Kickoff.

While neither team is a stranger to the Sugar Bowl – LSU and Florida State have combined to make 19 trips to the Sugar Bowl – they have never lined up against each other in New Orleans. The Tigers have an all-time mark of 6-7 as their 13 Sugar Bowl appearances are the second-most all-time. The Seminoles have a 4-2 Sugar Bowl record.

The game ensures LSU a return trip to the site of its 2019 College Football Playoff National Championship – when it defeated another ACC foe, Clemson, 42-25, on January 13, 2020, in the Superdome. The Allstate Sugar Bowl was a key part of the local host committee for the CFP title game after spearheading New Orleans’ bid to host the game for the first time.

LSU also earned a pair of national titles in the Sugar Bowl itself – it posted a 7-0 win over Clemson in the 1959 Sugar Bowl and won the BCS Championship in 2004 when it defeated Oklahoma, 21-14. The Tigers also won a national title in New Orleans in 2008 when they defeated Ohio State, 38-24, in the 2008 Allstate BCS Championship game – that first stand-alone BCS Championship was hosted by the Allstate Sugar Bowl, six days after the annual Sugar Bowl Classic.

Likewise, Florida State has captured a national championship in the Sugar Bowl – the Seminoles capped their first undefeated season with a 46-29 BCS Championship victory over Michael Vick and Virginia Tech in the 2000 Sugar Bowl, which doubled as a BCS Championship.

While the Sugar Bowl Committee sponsors a wide-range of events throughout the year, this will be the first time it has hosted a regular-season college football game. The Bowl has hosted two BCS Championship games (2008 and 2012) in recent years, while in 1942, the Sugar Bowl hosted the East-West Shrine Game for college football all-stars. That game had been moved from San Francisco due to fears that playing the game on the west coast could make it a potential World War II target.

The Sugar Bowl Committee received a crash course in the running of a kickoff classic when it stepped in to assist the Houston Texans with the operation of the 2017 Advocare Texas Kickoff, which was played in New Orleans on September 2, 2017, due to Hurricane Harvey.

The Allstate Sugar Bowl has established itself as one of the premier college football bowl games, having hosted 28 national champions, 100 Hall of Fame players, 51 Hall of Fame coaches and 20 Heisman Trophy winners in its 88-year history. The 89th annual Sugar Bowl Classic is scheduled to be played on Saturday, December 31, 2022. In addition to football, the Sugar Bowl Committee annually invests over $1 million into the community through the hosting and sponsorship of sporting events, awards, scholarships and clinics. Through these efforts, the organization supports and honors thousands of student-athletes each year, while injecting over $2.2 billion into the local economy in the last decade. For more information, visit www.AllstateSugarBowl.org.