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Emily Villere Dixon

Working in Sports

Top 5 LSU Football Memories from the 2017 Season

Gameday, Life in Football LSU, Working in Sports August 28, 2018

With only five days to geaux until the LSU Football season officially kicks off, it’s time for me to look back at my five favorite memories from the 2017 season. Every year there are a handful of memories that stand out from the others, but let me tell you, there are always a lot to choose from!

I enjoy writing this post each season, because it reminds me of all the amazing opportunities I have working for the Tigers, and it excites me knowing that I have another season ahead of me to fill with even more memories. Here’s to season No. 7!

YOU CAN READ MY TOP 5 LSU FOOTBALL MEMORIES FROM 2016 HERE!

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5. FLORIDA + TENNESSEE GAMES

One of the things on my bucket-list is to watch the Tigers play in every SEC stadium. In 2017, I was able to knock two stadiums off my list AND watch LSU win in both of them. The Florida game is always one of my favorite games on the schedule, and there is a ton of football history between these two teams. It took me 30 years, but I finally experienced my first game at The Swamp. We had just lost the weekend before and needed a big win. It was early. It was hot. It was so humid. It was everything I expected. And we won.

It’s hard to check the SEC East stadiums off of my list, because we don’t play all the teams each year. I was so excited to see Tennessee on our schedule last season knowing I would get to experience Neyland Stadium in the fall. The last time LSU played the Vols was in 2011, so I knew this opportunity wasn’t going to come around again for a while. Despite horrendous weather conditions (I sat in the press box so didn’t get a drop of rain on me!), the Tigers won AND I got to meet Smokey. And Coach O gave an epic halftime interview. It was a solid day.

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4. INTERVIEWING ALEX BREGMAN

I am so thankful that my job allows me to interview so many interesting people and former Tigers on a regular basis. I have interviewed some big names over the years, but when Alex Bregman showed up on the sidelines, I’ll admit that I was very excited and a smidge nervous. Not only was Bregman a standout baseball player at LSU, but he had also just won the world series with the Houston Astros after the city was devastated by Hurricane Harvey. Bregman is quickly becoming one of the most popular faces in baseball and is representing LSU along the way.

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3. THE COMEBACK GAME

LSU was coming off a very emotional win at Florida before hosting 10th-ranked Auburn in Tiger Stadium. After only 17 minutes of play, Auburn was up 20-0 over LSU. Things were not looking good, but we came back to score 20 unanswered points – overcoming LSU’s largest home deficit against an SEC opponent in history. The Tigers won 27-23 thanks in part to a stellar catch by Russell Gage and a punt return for a touchdown by DJ Chark. This was a fun one to celebrate!

This game also holds a special place in the hearts of two families that I met during this weekend. I put together one of my favorite stories ever about the Perry and Boswell families and their unique connection to the LSU-Auburn game. You can read more about them here.

YOU CAN READ MORE ABOUT THE COMEBACK GAME HERE!

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2. PLAYING BYU IN NEW ORLEANS

A week before the 2017 season opened, Hurricane Harvey devastated my hometown of Houston, Texas. We were scheduled to open the season playing BYU in Houston, but plans changed since NRG Stadium was being used for disaster relief. The game was moved to New Orleans and no one skipped a beat. If any fanbase knows how to handle a hurricane, it’s LSU and South Louisiana. It was truly remarkable to see the city of New Orleans and the LSU community come together to help Houston with flood relief while also putting together a major college football game in very little time. People stick together down here, and we are reminded of that often. Also, opening the season by shutting out the Cougars 27-0 wasn’t too bad either!

1. ENSMINGER NAMED OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR

There was no way any other moment was going to beat out this one! I have worked for Steve Ensminger for six years, and there are not many better feelings than watching someone you believe in achieve one of their ultimate goals. Obviously LSU Football is extremely special to me, but its the people that I have met along the way here that truly make this place home. Coach Ensminger and his family are some of those people, and they have become family to me too. After breaking records as the interim OC in 2016, I can’t wait to see what the season has in store for our offense!

— LAGNIAPPE —

As always, a season provides WAY more than five memories, and even though this blog post is dedicated to my five favorite moments, I can’t leave the following out.

2007 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP REUNION

We celebrated the 10-year reunion of the 2007 National Championship team by bringing the players back for a weekend full of LSU Football. I was in school for the Tigers’ last championship win, and it was so much fun to catch up with old friends on the team and Coach Miles. It was great to watch everyone reconnect after a decade and celebrate such a special season.

DOUBLE NO. 18’S

Coach O let the cat out of the bag earlier in the spring, giving the jersey to Christian LaCouture, but that actually led to an unexpected No. 18 announcement during fall camp. To everyone’s surprise, a second No. 18 jersey was awarded to fullback JD Moore. Moore came to LSU as a walk-on, earned the starting fullback spot, received a scholarship AND kept a 4.0 while majoring in Architecture. To see the surprise on his face and hear how much the jersey meant to him was a very emotional moment.

7 LSU PLAYERS DRAFTED TO THE NFL

This is a story that NEVER gets old, and fortunately for us, this is a common theme each year. LSU has more players in the NFL than any other university in the country. We had another seven Tigers get drafted after the 2017 season, and that’s why we are #NFLSU.

As always, I’m here to keep you in the loop with everything LSU Football related throughout the entire season! You can find me here, on Twitter, on Facebook and on Instagram with consistent updates throughout the season.

GEAUX TIGERS!

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How to Spend the Off-Season when You Work in Sports

Life in Football LSU, Working in Sports July 3, 2018

It’s finally summertime! Yes, I know it is July, but it’s finally summer for those of us who work in college football. See, the college football season starts the first weekend in September and goes until your team plays in a bowl game. This could mean your season ends sometime in December or early January, but that doesn’t mean that work is over. It’s actually quite the opposite. With a demanding recruiting schedule that is 247/365, football literally never stops, and time off is like gold around here. Every sport has a different off-season, or a “less busy part of the year”, so when you are given the opportunity to wind down, it is necessary that you make the most of it.

In college football, our time to take vacation and slow down is the month of July. After going through quite a few football seasons by now (I’m entering my 7th full-time with LSU), I know exactly how I like to spend my less busy part of the year.

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Gameday | 2017 LSU Football Season Recap

Gameday, Life in Football Gameday Outfit, Gameday Recap, LSU, Sideline Style, Working in Sports January 7, 2018

It’s hard to believe that I just finished my sixth season with the LSU Football team. Each year brings new memories, friends, coaches, stadium visits, and so many experiences that I want to remember forever. We welcomed home the 2007 National Championship team (and Coach Miles!), completed our first full season under Coach O and celebrated the Comeback game versus SEC West rival Auburn. It’s hard to put every fun memory about the football season into one post, but I am going to try! Here is a full recap of my experiences and stories from the 2017 LSU football season.

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Travel | Packing for an Away Game

Life in Football, Lifestyle Travel, Working in Sports November 3, 2017

I am literally the world’s worst packer. If there was an award given out, I would have two of them. Packing for vacation and packing for an away game during the football season require two very different methods. Away games are essentially only about 36 hours of travel. We arrive to the state we are playing in on Friday afternoon and head straight to the airport once the game is over on Saturday and immediately fly home to Baton Rouge. Since I only have a minimal timeframe to pack for, I feel like this is a much easier packing task to tackle. Here is what goes into packing for an away game.

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Gameday | LSU vs Auburn Recap

Gameday, Life in Football Gameday Recap, LSU, Working in Sports October 17, 2017

LSU – Auburn, y’all. Each year this rivalry game produces a memorable finish and adds to the long chapter of history between these two teams. There was the “Earthquake Game” in 1988 and the “Night the Barn Burned” in 1996. In 2007, the year of LSU’s last National Championship, LSU was trailing 24-23 in the final seconds of the game when Matt Flynn found an open Demetrius Byrd for the game-winning touchdown. I will never forget being in the student section for that game as Byrd came down with the game-winner as one second remained on the clock.

And, of course, we can’t forget the last time LSU and Auburn met before last Saturday afternoon. In 2016, the LSU Tigers went into Jordan-Hare Stadium thinking we had won on a last second touchdown, only for it to be taken off the board and the head coach fired the next day.

Now, we have another one to add to the list.

The Comeback.

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Life in Football | 2017 Season Goals

Gameday, Life in Football, Style Gameday Outfit, Outfits, Sideline Style, Working in Sports September 26, 2017

It’s hard to believe that we are already 1/3 of the way through the 2017 football season. Each year we count down from 100+ days for the season to begin, and then when it gets here it feels like it goes by so quickly. I know we are already four games down and this post would have made a lot more sense in August, but I am just now sharing my goals for the 2017 football season along with my sideline style for the month of September. Better late than never!

BE SOCIAL

I only started using Instagram a couple of seasons ago, but it – along with this blog – is one of my favorite ways to share about my life in football. I never got into Snapchat (really showing my age right here…), so I loved it when Instagram developed stories. I can put together pictures and video clips to share a behind the scenes look into LSU Football. I also regularly update my professional Facebook page with blog posts and other content. This season I want to develop a solid social plan and stick with it. I take for granted that a lot of my daily happenings are actually pretty cool, so I want to share that with other LSU fans. I have also met so many different people through social media and LSU Football, so I want to keep that little community growing.

CHANGE IT UP

Each week I have some of the same sponsored interviews that I do with Coach O and the players, but I want to come up with some new content for LSUSports.net and also for right here. This year we put together a Meet the Freshmen series that allowed me to put my editing skills to work (and also ask A LOT of questions to the talented professionals that work here). I really enjoy working on creative projects and am glad I have the opportunities to that with LSU. If you have any ideas of something you want to see on this blog or on the LSU website, let me know! I’m hoping we have something LSU football + puppy/animal related coming in the future…ideas are flowing.

LEARN

In 2011, I covered LSU’s 13-0 regular season for Scout.com – a division of Fox Sports. I went to every media session, listened to each interview the players gave, was regularly a guest on radio and constantly reading about the team and all college football teams to make sure I knew what was going on each week. Once I transitioned to just football, I know more behind the scenes stuff about the team but miss some of those old weekly habits of learning about everything. This season I want to get back some of those rituals to make sure I am doing the best job I can do, especially when it comes to reporting.

ENJOY

Sometimes the grind of football season can get to you, and I might find myself wishing the season would speed up. Not this year. Each season brings so many unique opportunities and experiences that I am focusing on enjoying this team and this year one game week at a time. Things are drastically different than they were at this time last year (read my Dear Les Miles post for more), so taking it one game at a time is not a cliche but essential to get through the season.

There are also a few random things I want to make a priority, like going out to eat with my husband and making more time for friends during these crazy months. Now, after four games I can asses where I’m at with these goals and see what I need to do to keep pushing through October!

Here are my other Sideline Style posts from this season:

Sideline Style | October – Sideline Style | November

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LSU VS BYU

Top: Love Boutique (in Baton Rouge, La.) | Pants: J. Crew | Shoes: Dolce Vita (old – similar here and here) | Earrings: Baublebar | Purse: Louis Vuitton

LSU VS CHATTANOOGA

Dress: LOFT (sold out but top option here) | Jacket: J. Crew | Shoes: Adidas | Sunglasses: Ray-Ban | Bracelets: Kat Noel Designs | Purse: Louis Vuitton

LSU VS MISSISSIPPI STATE

Top: LOFT | Jacket: Article and Thread (in Baton Rouge, La.) | Pants: J. Crew | Booties: TOMS | Sunglasses: Nike | Purse: Louis Vuitton

LSU VS SYRACUSE

Dress: lululemon (old – similar here and here) | Sweater: Anthropologie (sold out, but I also bought this one!) | Shoes: Nike iD | Sunglasses: Ray-Ban | Purse: Louis Vuitton

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Meet Emily

emily villere dixon

A now thirty-something woman working in sports and reporting from the sidelines, who shares her love for Louisiana, getting dressed up and puppies right here.

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