Wind and rain in LSU-Tennessee sees fan hit by scoreboard piece, lost lights, and ESPN switching to sideline cameras

Games with high winds often lead to some bizarre situations, and that was definitely the case with Saturday’s LSU-Tennessee matchup on ESPN. With winds that hit 30 miles per hour and pouring rain in Knoxville, a whole lot of odd things happened. The most serious was a LSU fan getting hit by a giant piece of metal that came off the scoreboard:

Lawsuit coming… Large piece of metal just flew off of scoreboard and hit an old man. #Vols pic.twitter.com/tOk3P0W0Sd

— 4TH AND TRUTH (@4thAndTruth) November 18, 2017

WNML radio host Jimmy Hyams tweeted that the fan in question was escorted out for medical attention:

Part of Tennessee scoreboard blown off by winds up to 30 mph. Hits LSU fan who is escorted out for medical attention. LSU takes advantage of 2 muffed UT punt returns for 10-3 lead 11:31 left 2nd qt

— Jimmy Hyams (@JimmyHyams) November 19, 2017

The wind had plenty of impact beyond that. For one thing, it swept up lots of pom-poms Tennessee fans were given, leading to the field being covered in pom-pom fragments. Here’s Allison Williams’ sideline report on that:

“Guys, the wind is definitely making a mess of things here. It’s been gusting about 28 miles an hour, and what’s happened is all these pom-poms that they handed out to fans, well, as they’re waving and cheering, it is blowing parts of them all over the field. It literally looks like a party down here that somebody didn’t clean up after.”

That led to play-by-play announcer Bob Wischusen complaining to analyst Brock Huard about how the pom-pom debris looked like penalty markers:

The wind also had in-game effects, causing Tennessee returner Marquez Callaway to muff two first-half punts; LSU recovered both. Here’s the first:

And the second:

Callaway also muffed the opening kickoff of the second half, but managed to recover it; however, that led to the Vols starting at their own three-yard-line.

The second half also started with further weirdness, with half the lights in the stadium going out and some of the scoreboards glitching:

“A sideways monsoon of a rainstorm” indeed. Not long after that, the broadcast had to switch to sideline cameras for a few minutes because of the terrible visibility from overhead. Here’s a look at that, complete with Huard talking about how he wanted to run down to the sideline to experience the elements and Wischausen talking about switching to the sideline camera:

Soon after that, referee Matt Loeffler tried to announce a penalty, but his words weren’t audible. That led to Wischausen saying “He sounds like the guy that comes over the speaker in the New York City subway system.”

A couple of plays later, the ball started blowing away before the Tennessee offense came to the line of scrimmage:

Williams also thoroughly earned her paycheck during this one, interviewing LSU head coach Ed Orgeron in the tunnel ahead of the second half while both were soaked:

Here’s her later sideline hit, complete with plastic-wrapped microphone, talking about that interview:

Wischausen later said “We’ve lost a couple of cameras.”

So, that’s a whole lot of weather-related wackiness. And the game’s still in the third quarter. We’ll see if anything else odd happens.

[Clippit]