I've done some digging and asked people that would know.
This is the real deal. Savoie is 100% behind this, and I hope this doesn't step on anyone's toes, but he even confronted Bruno, politely, and let him know that we were going this route with the name game.
From what I understand, all of the important sources are either on board, or being courted right now, including ESPN and AP. The league office has agreed to abide by our requests as well.
The distraction thing might be plausible, but who cares. This is important. A lasting brand, even though it takes a decade to repair, its much more important than a loss to Idaho.
The one thing that I wasn't able to get an answer on was if 'UL' would be going away. For example, would we be getting rid of our baseball hats and going with 'LA' on them...
But, I would hope that past failures will lead this Admin to make this change correctly this time. Faculty, coaches, players, SGA, Frat/sorority, etc all need to be notified, in a very obvious way, of what the plan is going forward. It's Louisiana and LA. Everyone has to be on the same page. That will make the transition easier, quicker and more effective.
I'm pretty stoked about this.