I suggested this in my post which went up Sunday night demanding several reforms to pull LSU out of the campuswide tailspin that Saturday’s multiple shootings during the South Carolina game gave evidence to, so thanks go out to the Governor for quickly addressing a glaring problem with a common-sense solution.

LSU and state officials said Monday that extra security would be in place for the Tigers’ Oct. 25 football game against Texas A&M after gunfire was reported on and near campus for the second time this season.

Ahead of Saturday’s game against South Carolina, a man was arrested near Tiger Stadium after accidentally shooting himself in the leg, and during the game, two people were injured in a shooting along Highland Road by the campus’ north gates.

Gov. Jeff Landry on Monday ordered the Louisiana State Police to work with local authorities to create an enhanced security plan for future LSU games. Interim LSU President Matt Lee and Board of Supervisors President Scott Ballard issued a joint statement saying keeping the campus safe was a priority.

They said LSU typically brings about 600 law officers to campus for game days and uses advanced technology to deter crime. Lee and Ballard specifically cited the use of license plate readers, camera networks and upgraded lighting.

Despite the effort, LSU has had three shooting incidents on or around campus this season. Shots were fired near the LSU Law Center during the Florida game on Sept. 13.

Obviously there will need to be more than 600 cops on a campus which can have 150,000 or more people milling around on game days, especially given who some of those people are.

For the last two years there has been a gathering, smack dab in the middle of campus at the corner of Highland Road and South Stadium Drive about a block from the LSU Union, of people who aren’t students, alumni or even fans. Somehow they’re there anyway, every week, and anybody who passes by will get a contact high from the cannabis smoke and a terrible headache from the gangsta hip-hop music blaring from portable stereo systems brought there. This gathering regularly produces fights, several people have been beaten for trying to walk through it on their way to the game and the congregants are often spotted carrying guns, which aren’t legal on LSU’s campus.

It doesn’t take a lot to make that problem go away. Send in the law and do a little stop-and-frisk policing, and arrest people for illegal drug possession and carrying a firearm in a gun-free zone, and that’ll be the last of it.

If LSU were to set up a hospitality tent on that corner and mark it off from any private parties or tailgate affairs, that would probably displace the problem as well.

There is no reason why non-students and non-ticket holders should be on that campus once the game starts, with the possible exception of family members of people who are going to the game and will ride in the same car. Part of the reason traffic is so awful after LSU games is that people who come to tailgate and not to the game don’t leave before the game starts. Some of them amazingly will watch the game on a TV at a tailgate and then get in their cars to go home when it’s over.

Why LSU allows this is baffling. There are thousands of cars parked just off campus which will then join the outgoing gameday traffic and turn the entire area around LSU into a massive traffic jam. Not to mention the increasing bad element of people up to no good now descending on LSU.

Bad traffic and gunplay will dry up that gameday experience in no time flat and signal LSU’s decline as a cultural focal point in Louisiana.

Landry is right to recognize the need to address this decline.

But it shouldn’t fall on the governor to fix this problem. LSU’s leadership should be on top of it.

Interim president Matt Lee isn’t in a position to make long-term decisions about how LSU will manage its gamedays or some of the other policies which need addressing. That’s not a shot at Lee; it’s a recitation of reality. LSU needs a permanent president, and fast.

We’ve considered this for a while, and of the names that have been thrown around, we think the “local” choice being talked about is probably the best fit for what LSU needs to become.

Wade Rousse is currently the president at McNeese State University in Lake Charles. LSU is certainly a big step up from McNeese, but Rousse has shown that he’s a bold leader who doesn’t mind making brash decisions and moving in new directions.

And he isn’t woke.

Two things Rousse has done at McNeese, besides the general evaluation which seems to be that it’s turning into something of a success story among the state’s regional universities, tell us LSU would do well with him in charge.

The first thing was that Rousse supervised the hiring of Will Wade as McNeese’s basketball coach. That was a somewhat “controversial” hire, after Wade’s firing at LSU over NCAA violations which shortly thereafter were no longer violations at all. Wade was considered untouchable, but Rousse knew he was the best coach McNeese could get and hiring him produced two 30-win seasons, a pair of NCAA tournament appearances and more positive notice for the school than it had ever seen.

Also, Rousse did something else. We covered it at the time. Specifically, Rousse set up the LNG Center of Excellence on the McNeese campus, which is essentially a think tank dedicated to the production and transport of liquefied natural gas – something which absolutely drives Lake Charles’ economy at present.

When he did that, the far left absolutely lost their minds, screeching about the fact that natural gas companies were funding research and instruction about natural gas at a university in a town where natural gas is the centerpiece of its economy.

It seems like it’s an obvious thing for Rousse to have done and yet it was “controversial.” Except it’s a way to bring in resources and elevate the institution’s profile, and all that was required to make it happen was to have the stones to do things bedwetters of certain mindsets, political and otherwise, don’t possess and can’t contemplate.

I don’t know him. My guess, based on what I’ve seen of his work, is that Wade Rousse wouldn’t need to be told by the governor that the State Police was coming to take care of the problem of hoodrats shooting up the Baptist student center while the LSU football team was fumbling at the goal line. He’d have made the right decisions to fix that problem without help.

And that’s the kind of leadership LSU hasn’t had in almost 20 years.