Tailgate Season Is Back!

It had been a while since I sat down, went live, and just talked.

No guest. No big production. No real script.

Just catching up, telling a few stories, talking LSU football, tailgating, music, life, and what is coming next for Tigs Bits.

And after being away from live shows for almost six months, it felt good to be back.

A Summer I Will Never Forget

A big part of this summer was spent back home in Florien, Louisiana.

My family made the decision to sell my mom and dad’s house, the home I grew up in. That meant going through decades of memories, sorting through everything, having a massive moving sale, and getting the house ready for the next chapter.

It was a job.

It was hot. There were days with 20,000 steps. There was a lot of lifting, sorting, deciding what stayed, what went, and what came back home with us.

Then came the moving sale.

Florien is a small town, but you would not have known it that morning.

People were lined up before we even opened. Cars were everywhere. We had what felt like a flood of people come through in the first couple of hours, and most of what we had was gone within two days.

It was exhausting, but it was also incredible to see that kind of support.

A Proud Dad Summer Too

There were some pretty great family milestones mixed into everything else.

My daughter graduated from LSU and has already started her career teaching sixth grade.

That is one of those things that will make you stop and wonder where the time went.

She worked hard, made great grades, earned her degree, and now she is standing in front of a classroom with her own students.

I could not be more proud of her.

Riley is starting eighth grade and has also made a big decision of his own. He decided not to play football this season.

After dealing with a couple of concussions and realizing his heart really was not in football anymore, he decided to focus on school and his goal of becoming an engineer.

I told him the same thing I have always told him. Whatever he decides to do, we are behind him.

Tigs Bits Has Changed

If you have followed Tigs Bits for a while, you have probably noticed that things look a little different.

New logo. New merch. New direction.

That has been intentional.

Over the years, this thing has changed a lot. There was a time when we were doing shows constantly, going live all the time, working with different people, and trying a little bit of everything.

It was fun, but somewhere along the way I realized I did not need to force a show every week just because that was what I had always done.

Tailgate Season Is Back

Now we get to the part I am really fired up about.

LSU football is almost here.

And that means Tales From the Tailgate is back.

The Cajun Tiger Tailgate crew has already started getting everything ready for the season, and somehow we continue to take this thing to another level.

We have upgraded equipment.

We have new speakers that are absolutely ridiculous.

We have a selfie station.

We have plenty of food planned.

And, as always, we have one of the best locations around Tiger Stadium for meeting people and finding stories.

The plan this year is to capture even more of those moments.

I want to talk to LSU fans, visiting fans, characters walking through the tailgate, old friends, new friends, and anybody with a good story.

We Have a Title Sponsor

I am also excited to announce that Gator Millworks is the title sponsor of Tales From the Tailgate this season.

They have supported what I do for a long time, and having them involved this year means a lot.

We will also be introducing the Gator Millworks Question of the Week, which should give us plenty of opportunities to have some fun with people at the tailgate.

And Yes, We Talked LSU Football

Of course we could not go an entire show without getting into LSU.

We talked about the upcoming season, expectations, the Clemson game, and plenty of tailgate predictions.

We also got into the Jayden Daniels No. 5 situation.

My position on that one is pretty simple.

No. 5 belongs to LSU.

Jayden Daniels had an incredible career in Baton Rouge and absolutely deserved his Heisman Trophy, but LSU has the right to use the number. The number is not retired.

The legal side of the whole situation has been disappointing, and I still hope cooler heads eventually prevail.

Jayden gave LSU fans some incredible memories, and LSU gave him a platform that helped him become a Heisman Trophy winner.

There should be room for both sides to appreciate what they accomplished together.

A Little Music Talk

Anybody who has followed me for more than five minutes knows that music was eventually going to make its way into the conversation.

This year has already included some incredible shows.

Widespread Panic in Birmingham gave me one of the best concert nights I have had in years.

A massive rainstorm, a weather delay, a soaked crowd, and then the band came back out and absolutely destroyed the place.

I also finally got to see Goose in New Orleans, and they were every bit as good live as I hoped they would be.

Now we already have another trip circled.

Widespread Panic in New Orleans for Halloween.

That one could get interesting.

Watch the full episode on the Tigs Bits YouTube channel and follow along all season for Tales From the Tailgate, LSU football, Louisiana stories, food, music and everything else we manage to get ourselves into.