EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second in the series previewing the 2018 football season:
After facing the Miami Hurricanes in the season opener, LSU will welcome the neighboring Southeastern University Lions to Tiger Stadium on Sept. 8.
This will be the first football game between LSU and SLU since 1949, a 48-7 victory for the Tigers at home.
It is also a new era of Lion football as Frank Scelfo is in his first season at SLU.
Scelfo takes over a SLU program that has posted four winning campaigns in the past five seasons.
Scelfo spent 14 seasons coaching collegiately in-state at Tulane and Louisiana Tech and he comes to Hammond after spending the past two seasons as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at University of Texas–San Antonio.
Prior to his time in San Antonio, Scelfo coached for three seasons with the NFL’s Jacksonville Jaguars as an offensive assistant working with the quarterbacks.
Southeastern has four players selected to the 2018 Preseason All-Southland Conference Football Teams, including junior kick returner Juwan Petit-Frere, sophomore running back Marcus Cooper, junior offensive lineman Alfred Beverly and senior linebacker Tamarcus Russell. Petit-Frere was a first team selection, while the other three were named to the second team.
Petit-Frere led the FCS with a kickoff return average of 34.6 – the second-highest in conference and school history.
Cooper led SLU with 646 rushing yards in his freshman season and set a new single-season school record with 10.1 yards per carry.
Beverly helped Southeastern rank third nationally with 283.1 rushing yards per game.
Russell finished 2017 with 24 tackles, five tackles for loss and a forced fumble in his first season with the Lions.
LSU should have no trouble grabbibg a win over SLU as the experts place the Tigers with a 98.6 percent chance of a victory and moving to 2-0 on the season if they can upset Miami at the AdvoCare Cowboys Classic in Arlington, Texas.
Louisiana Lafayette has an unsual week off after facing Grambling in preparation to visit Mississippi State and former Cajun head coach Mark Hudsepth, who is now associate head coach and tight ends coach under first-year head coach Joe Moorehead.
After a trip to Texas Christian, Southern will then travel to Louisiana Tech.
UL Monroe is visiting Southern Mississippi, while Tulane is taking at trip to Alabama Birmingham.
Northwestern Louisiana will entertain Grambling, while McNeese is visting Houston Baptist.