The premise should have been a pure win. Coach Ed Orgeron sat down with Pardon My Take to talk Louisiana, Brian Kelly's infamous faaaaymly rollout, and the general state of LSU football. Instead the internet decided the headline was a sound that may or may not have come from Hank Lockwood's general direction.
TMZ ran the whole thing as a 'Pardon My Take interview derailed by Hank Lockwood fart' story.
That framing is what set the whole afternoon on fire. Once a celebrity-gossip outlet brands one of your guys with a noise, the bit basically writes itself, and the PMT account spent the next few hours leaning all the way in. By late afternoon Big Cat had clearly decided enough was enough and that the appropriate response was, naturally, litigation.
Big Cat's opening salvo: stop calling it a fart, or else.
Stop calling it a fart!!! We may have to sue to defend our guy Hank
From there it escalated into a full mock-legal posture. Big Cat told TMZ to check their email and find a lawyer, and PFT chimed in with a prediction that Hank would soon be the new owner of the network. It's the kind of pile-on the PMT guys do better than anyone — treat a dumb premise with deadly-serious tough-guy energy and see how long people will play along.
Big Cat publicly puts TMZ on notice.
PFT forecasts Hank's incoming TMZ takeover.
Hope you have a good lawyer @TMZ Hank is gona own your entire network
Of course, the rest of Barstool isn't going to let the boys defend their guy in peace. Stoolsalesguy lobbed in a 'Pardon My Glaze' shot at the whole rally-around-Hank operation, which is exactly the kind of internal jab that keeps this stuff from getting too precious. The Coach O episode is going to do huge numbers anyway. Whether that's because of Louisiana stories or because TMZ accidentally turned a podcast guest into front-page news is now an academic question.
An in-house jab at how hard everyone is rushing to Hank's defense.