College football weekend ramping up
GREEN BAY - LSU fans decked in purple and gold posed for a group picture in the Lambeau Field Atrium on Tuesday.
Make that the official start of the University of Wisconsin-LSU football week(end). The NCAA Division I football teams will kick off their seasons with a 2:30 p.m. start Saturday in Lambeau Field.
Badgers and Tigers fans are expected to make this weekend bigger than the 2011 NFL season opener after the Packers won Super Bowl XLV. Seven charter flights are scheduled to land at Green Bay Austin Straubel International Airport Thursday, and a parade of fans for both teams arriving by airplane, RV, car and bus are expected up to game time.
Like Packers fans, LSU fans travel well. Many make at least one road game a year, and this year, if it's going to be only one, it's going to be Lambeau, said Tony Onellion, an LSU season ticket holder from Slidell, La. Onellion said some Tigers fans won't be coming because of the catastrophic flooding in Louisiana during the last several weeks, but others will be eager for the break.
"They may be ready to get away for the weekend," he said. "Let's just go and get the hell away. It's Labor Day weekend afterward."
Some Tigers fans are closer to home. Rachel Johnson lives in De Pere, but most of her family is from Louisiana. She and her husband attended LSU.
"It will be the first and only time I'll wear purple in Lambeau Field," Johnson said. "I'm looking forward to just hearing the Louisiana accent again. I figure they are going to be everywhere."
Parties and tailgating, and tailgating parties, won't be hard to find. A partial list includes a UW Alumni Association Badgers pep rally Friday evening at Titletown Brewing Co. in downtown Green Bay; the Coors Lite Tailgate Experience from 10:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. in the Lambeau Field parking lot, which will include the Tundra Tailgate Zone, a beer garden, music stage and giant television; and functions at many of the bars and restaurants around Lambeau Field.
LSU fans have rented Shopko Hall and Brett Favre's Steakhouse for some of their celebrating, and Badgers fans will gather at Lambeau Field and surrounding bars.
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Onellion said LSU and Wisconsin fans have a lot in common when it comes to football, including hard-core tailgating.
"I think they should expect to see themselves with a different, funny accent," Onellion said. "We'll trade boudain and andouille for kielbasa and cheese and brats. I'm bringing two packages of andouille and two packages of crawfish boudain for friends. This is good stuff."
Rachel Johnson said she's tailgating with friends who are hard-core Badgers fans.
"We are making jambalaya and gumbo, and he's going to make brats," she said. "It's going to be so much fun."
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The Packers on Wednesday unveiled the new Brett Favre exhibit in the Green Bay Packers Hall of Fame at Lambeau Field. The former Packers quarterback who was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in August attended the University of Southern Mississippi, but is wildly popular with Louisiana football fans, to say nothing of Wisconsin fans. His hometown of Kiln, Miss., is only 50 miles from New Orleans.
Also Wednesday, ESPN started setting up its production trailers along Lombardi Avenue for Saturday morning's broadcast of ESPN's "College GameDay." The GameDay stage will be on South Oneida Street near the Brown County Veterans Memorial Arena. The show will be 8-11 a.m. on ESPN. The football game will be on ABC.
Contact rryman@greenbaypressgazette.com and follow him on Twitter @RichRymanPG, onInstagram at rrymanpgor on Facebook at Richard Ryman-Press-Gazette. Or call him at (920) 431-8342.
