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'I hope he's had a little magic': Family of Billy Cannon says he's playing a part in championship run

4 years 2 months 2 weeks ago Tuesday, January 07 2020 Jan 7, 2020 January 07, 2020 9:33 PM January 07, 2020 in News
Source: WBRZ

BATON ROUGE - Inside Tiger Stadium sit tens of thousands of purple seats. One of those chairs is adorned with the number 20 and the name 'Cannon.' It's the seat LSU legend Billy Cannon sat in for every home game in the years leading up to his death. Up until a few days ago, nothing about the chair stood out to his family.

"So I was scrolling through the photographs and I happened to notice the seat that he sat in was number nine," said Bunnie, Billy's daughter. "In most instances, you wouldn't even think that much about it, but that's just one more thing that I know he's watching." 

That's not the only connection between Billy and Joe Burrow that Bunnie says she has noticed this season. Another instance occurred during Heisman weekend in New York City last month.

"We got out of the cab the very first time and the cab had pulled up to the wrong address," Cannon said. "I looked at the door and the door had a big etched number twenty, which was the address of whatever street we were on. You can't make that up."

The signs go all the way back to Burrow's arrival in Baton Rouge. Billy Cannon passed away on May 20, 2018 -- the same day Burrow officially joined LSU as a graduate transfer.

"He kind of passed the torch and went home," Cannon said.

"You can't help but think he's still here watching," Cannon said. "Those little bitty signs, you know, people say they're cardinals. Well these are my signs."

However, the similarities don't stop with 20 and 9. Cannon won The Heisman in 1959, less than a year after his LSU team defeated Clemson in New Orleans to capture the national title.

That win could be duplicated in less than a week. Bunnie says as the season progressed, she had a gut feeling the two schools were on a collision course to meet again. She admits that gut feeling could have come from above.

"I hope he's had a little magic," Bunnie said. "I hope he's rained down a little fairy dust on us from time to time."

You can call it fate, coincidence or whatever you like, but Bunnie says these signs do have meaning.

"I like to think it's number 20 kind of showing his presence," Cannon said. "You can call it fate. Again not to take away from the talent that this team has, I don't want to take away at all from that because they are extremely talented, but you know sometimes the stars align and you have the perfect team at the perfect time."

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