LSU football fan accuses Tennessee of cheating at Tiger Stadium

LSU football was soundly beaten—OK, thrashed—by Tennessee on Saturday. The Volunteers strolled into Death Valley and showed the 100,000+ inside that there’s still a massive difference in where each program is at right now. It took less than two minutes for the visitors to display their true class and expose the Tigers. Unfortunately, the beatdown would not stop.

Tennessee went on to win the game by a score of 40-13. The two programs aren’t even in the same atmosphere right now. LSU is in the midst of a rebuild and Josh Heupel’s team is contending for a title. A lot of the talk afterward focused on how the Vols thoroughly outcoached and outplayed their hosts—a point that nobody who sat through the game on Saturday should disagree with. Nevertheless, one fan put on his aluminum foil hat when discussing the blowout with other Bayou Bengals supporters online.

LSU football fan accuses Tennessee of cheating at Tiger Stadium

According to one anonymous Duke Basketball and LSU Football fan on a forum following the game, Tennessee cheated. The individual accusing the Vols of breaking the rules had one of the craziest theories that a message board has seen in a while. This accusation was so out of left field that it’s considered absurd, even for college football standards.

Here is his message board post in full:

As you can see, it’s not stealing plays, it’s not intentionally hurting players and it’s not using any other normal means of traditional football in cheating. Nope, this fan accuses Tennessee of setting off an EPMP—not to be confused with an EMP—on the opening kickoff to disorient Jack Bech.

Pause and take a second to read that last paragraph again.

As if these claims weren’t crazy enough, he attaches two photos showing absolutely nothing. One is a picture of the Vols’ sideline during the opening kickoff with a circle around a random area. The other shows a glare on the camera from an old (it’s black and white, which should tell you everything you need to know) game between Arkansas and Tennessee. I know they started serving alcohol earlier than usual in Baton Rouge on Saturday, but how much did this individual have to drink? Obviously too much.

The Vols have a history of cheating, but Butch Jones no longer heads their football program. Furthermore, it’d be silly of LSU fans to entertain the baseless claims. Most of the Tigers’ fanbase should know not to throw stones from inside glass houses.

As hard as it was to accept the heartbreaking defeat on Saturday, it’s even more difficult to get behind this fan theory. Tennessee gave the Tigers a thorough beatdown and that’s all there is to it, I’m afraid. It’s no secret that LSU’s Special Teams unit is also one of the worst in the entire country. This remains true after Saturday—EPMP or no EPMP.