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Man, oh man, talk about your month to remember. What with New Year’s, LSU’s thumping of Ohio State, wunderkind Bobby Jindal’s inauguration and early Mardi Gras, we’re pretty much in the middle of a 36-day party in these parts. And from the booze-induced frenzy we’ve seen from Bourbon Street to Baton Rouge, many of these memories will be a tad hazy.

Thank goodness Ash Wednesday is Feb. 6 because we’re going to need 40 days to dry out. (Memo to self: Buy stock in whatever company makes Tylenol.)

Of course, the most important of these events in the public consciousness is the Tigers’ Buckeye beatdown to claim the school’s second BCS title. LSU, which now has three national titles overall, is the first team to wear the crown with two losses.

If you’re sorting out the dance card after that, it reads: Mardi Gras (what special session??), Jindal’s move to the governor’s mansion and Dick Clark’s rockin’ night.

Some political wonks will argue Jindal’s election and the hope he brings for a brighter day in our banana republic should get top billing, but get serious. The man moved his ethics reform special session so as not to go head-up against Mardi Gras—and who out there wouldn’t take another four years of Kathleen Blanco if the payoff was another national title for the Tigers?

Here’s your answer: Sorry Bobby, Coach is back in power.

Yet the reality once the lights go out and the party’s over is that we might have the nation’s best college football team but we’re the proud owner of a mediocre flagship institution.

I’m not one of those “the tail is wagging the dog” people, but isn’t it even the slightest bit embarrassing that we don’t have an academic institution our football team can be proud of?

What’s worse is those legislators who gobbled up tickets to the BCS Championship game and the governor who rode into the sunset from her luxury suite seemingly could care less.

A strong LSU football team is great for state morale and our self-image, but a powerhouse flagship institution is critical to the economy and the future of our state.

The post-hurricane world finds Louisiana flush with cash, yet the Pennington Biomedical Research Center remains largely ignored and LSU’s Baton Rouge campus is crumbling. Forget about the critical research facilities and laboratories needed to boost our knowledge-based economy; LSU can’t afford the $175 million needed to repair the buildings it already owns.

Clearly there’s more to a great institution than state-of-the-art buildings, but how many times in the past did we hear LSU couldn’t recruit great football players because of its outdated facilities? So we built one athletic Taj Mahal after another and guess what? We attracted the talent and have two national titles in five years to show for it.

Don’t you think the same logic applies to recruiting outstanding faculty? So with the state sitting on an estimated $2 billion surplus why do Pennington officials have to continually beg for the money to expand their world-renowned research facility and why is the flagship campus in shambles?

I can already hear the cries, “We can’t give LSU all that money, what about the 5,000 other four-year institutions in the state? Everybody deserves an equal cut—that’s our way!”

How’s “our way” working out?

If winning on the gridiron is a big enough deal for Gov. Blanco to declare a statewide “LSU Day,” then couldn’t one reasonably argue having a great flagship institution is at least equally important to Louisiana?

So, Mr. Jindal, if you want to make good on your promise of a better future, let’s get serious about funding LSU. Let’s make LSU so great that Baton Rouge’s next wunderkind doesn’t have to attend Brown University to get a world-class higher education.

I don’t know. Maybe I’m just drunk.