Associated Press
The college football notebook …BATON ROUGE, La. ó LSU and North Carolina will meet in the Chick-fil-A Kickoff Game to open the 2010 season.
The game will be played Sept. 4 in Atlanta’s Georgia Dome and will be televised nationally on ESPN. It will be the first meeting between the schools since 1986, with LSU taking five of six in the series.
“This game will mean a great deal of exposure for our football program,” LSU head coach Les Miles said. “Atlanta is a great city and a place that has always treated us very well. We are looking forward to playing in this game to open the 2010 season.”
North Carolina was tentatively scheduled to open next season against William & Mary, but the school plans to move that game to Oct. 30. In addition, a September trip to South Carolina has been pushed back to open the 2013 season.
LSU announced several other changes to its future schedules. The Tigers added a home game against McNeese State on Oct. 16 and another home game against Northwestern State in 2011.
“By scheduling McNeese and Northwestern State, we are keeping money in-state and at the same time providing financial assistance with the game guarantee to two of our fellow universities here in Louisiana,” LSU athletic director Joe Alleva said. “It makes sense for us to play games against in-state schools when our schedule allows rather than bringing in an FCS school (formerly I-AA) from another state.”
However, LSU also canceled the remainder of its series with another Louisiana school, albeit a private one in Tulane.
LSU and Tulane had six years remaining on a 10-year deal that was signed in May of 2005. The teams will play this year in Tiger Stadium and one more game in New Orleans in the future, but the date of that game has yet to be determined.
Officials from both schools said they mutually agreed to call off the remainder of the current series. The two teams have met 97 times since 1893.
BAD LUCK
CLEMSON, S.C. ó Two games against Georgia Tech, two clutch catches by Clemson’s Jacoby Ford ó and two crushing penalties against Thomas Austin, the Tigers best offensive lineman.
“You’d think I’d learn my lesson the first time,” Austin said this week.
For the second straight season, Ford’s sparkling fourth-quarter catch looked like it might bring the Tigers victory against the ranked Yellow Jackets. But an official’s yellow flag thrown in Austin’s direction wiped them out and saved both games for Tech.
In 2008, Austin’s only holding penalty of the season nullified a 27-yard, fourth-and-12 grab by Ford to Georgia Tech’s 26 and the held on, 21-17. Then last Thursday night, Ford brought down a 39-yarder with about three minutes left that seemingly had set the Tigers up in field goal range inside Georgia Tech’s 20. But again Austin’s holding penalty prevented victory.