LSU Fans Booed Jayden Daniels? Why Their Own Heisman Winner Got the Wrong Kind of Cheer
Something strange happened in Death Valley this weekend. Jayden Daniels, the same Jayden Daniels who won a Heisman in Baton Rouge in 2023, got booed by a section of LSU fans during a video tribute at the LSU-Clemson opener.
You read that right. LSU fans booed their own Heisman winner. It was not the whole crowd, and it was not a coordinated moment, but it was loud enough that television microphones picked it up and social media latched onto it within seconds.
Why? The theories are flying. Some fans point to Daniels wearing his Washington Commanders gear on the sideline of a rival broadcast last year. Others say it is because Daniels made comments this offseason praising the SEC as a whole but singling out Alabama over LSU as his toughest college opponent.
Whatever the reason, the visual is brutal. Daniels is one of the two or three most accomplished quarterbacks in modern LSU history. He led the program to a New Year’s Six bowl, won every major individual award, and then went No. 2 overall in the 2024 NFL Draft. If that does not get you a permanent gold star in Baton Rouge, what does?
Daniels handled it with class, tweeting after the game that he loved LSU and would always be a Tiger. That is the correct response, but you can bet it stung.
The bigger picture here is about how college fan bases treat their own alumni once they leave. LSU is not alone. Nick Saban has been openly booed at Alabama events. Baker Mayfield got mixed treatment when he returned to Oklahoma. College football fans are ride or die until you leave, and then you are often just a name on the wall.
For LSU specifically, this feels self-inflicted. The Tigers are in year one of the Lane Kiffin era. They just got embarrassed by Clemson in the season opener. Fans are frustrated, and they took some of that frustration out on a video tribute for a guy who does not even play there anymore.
That is not on Daniels. That is on a fan base looking for a target. Daniels was the easy one on that particular Saturday.
Give it a month. If Kiffin turns things around and LSU is winning again, the same fans who booed will be selling No. 5 jerseys. That is how this stuff works in the SEC.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
