Hurricane Katrina
Tiger Stadium at LSU served as a temporary relocation site for the New Orleans Saints for four games of the 2005 NFL season after Hurricane Katrina damaged the Superdome and left much of New Orleans under water. The Saints, however, utilized only 79,000 of Tiger Stadium's seats (the new west side upper deck, which was still under construction, was closed for Saints games). The Saints' first two games in Baton Rouge came on the Sunday immediately following an LSU home game, meaning field crews had to repaint the field to NFL standards immediately following the completion of LSU's games, both of which kicked off at 7 p.m. Due to the time crunch, the NFL granted LSU's request to start the Saints' games in the late slot (3:05 p.m. CST).
The Saints went 0-4 in Tiger Stadium. The first game saw the triumphant return of Nick Saban, who led LSU to the national championship two years earlier. Saban's Miami Dolphins defeated the Saints 21-6. The Saints subsequently lost to the Chicago Bears (20-17), Tampa Bay Buccaneers (10-3) and Carolina Panthers (27-10).
Although none of the Saints' four Baton Rouge dates came close to selling out, the NFL exempted the Saints from the league's blackout rules following Katrina, and the games were televised locally by WAFB and WGMB.
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“Thought and beauty, like a hurricane or waves, should not know conventional, delimited forms.”
—Anton Pavlovich Chekhov (1860–1904)