As if LSU football players didn't already carry the weight of the world on their shoulders, a study by LSU economists published this week found a troubling pattern of harsher judicial sentencing in a week following an unexpected loss by the Tigers.

The study titled "Emotional Judges and Unlucky Juveniles," by LSU economists Naci Mocan and Ozkan Eren, looked at Louisiana juvenile court decisions from 1996 to 2012. Their research found that a juvenile sentenced in a week following a major LSU football game upset led to a sentence that was an average of 37 days longer, and if that judge got their undergraduate degree from LSU, the average was a penalty that was 74 days longer.

In total, the research, which was recently published in the National Bureau of Economic Research, found juveniles received 1,332 days of excess jail time and probation stemming from an unexpected LSU football loss. Meanwhile, sentences seemed to be unaffected by wins and by losses that were expected to be close calls.

Black defendants bore the burden of the harsher punishments, "which hints at a negative predisposition toward black defendants," the study says.

"This regularity implies that judges who have received their undergraduate education from LSU, and were therefore exposed to the LSU football culture, have a stronger emotional attachment to the team in comparison to other judges," the study concludes. "Thus, it is plausible that an unexpected loss of the LSU football team triggers a stronger emotional reaction among this group of judges, which translates into harsher sentences handed down."

Kathleen Richey, an East Baton Rouge Parish juvenile court judge from 1991 to 2014, said she found the premise of the study difficult to believe.

"Judges are human beings and they are impacted by things that happen in their world, but to suggest that being disappointed by a football game would influence dispositions is hard to wrap my mind around," she said. "A lot of factors go into juvenile dispositions and the way the law works, the judge has to articulate their reasons on the record."

But she didn't reject the notion that judges could be inadvertently influenced by other factors affecting their mood.

"Did the study ask how many judges might have just had a fight with their spouse or how many had kids that had a bad report card before the case," she said. "Judges are human beings, so what's going on in life will impact them. But, I don't think LSU football is that impactful for any judge that I know."

Mocan, one of the researchers, specializes in researching how emotions impact decisions and behavior. He pointed out that researchers have previously illustrated ties to how sports outcomes around the globe can have impacts in areas including the stock market and domestic abuse.

For the LSU study, researchers evened the playing field by only looking at cases of first-time offenders, ages 10-17, who were convicted for single offense. It excluded cases of first- and second-degree murder and aggravated rape, which come with mandatory minimums for sentencing. They were left with a sample size of 8,228 unique cases from 207 judges.

Mocan also said the comparisons were apples to apples. Juveniles who were sentenced for a burglary one week were compared to other juveniles who were sentenced for a burglary in an LSU loss week. Assaults were compared to assaults, and so forth.

An upset was defined by Las Vegas betting odds, if the Tigers lost a game they were expected to win by 4 points or more. LSU lost 14 of the 122 games, defined as an upset.

Stephen Dixon, who previously served as the section chief in juvenile court for the Baton Rouge Public Defender's Office, said in his experience the juvenile judges were not interested in LSU football. But he didn't dismiss the findings of the study.

He said he wishes more judges would base their decisions purely on the facts of the individual case, but he's seen some cases where judges let other factors like current events and personal biases influence decisions.

Dixon acknowledged that while all people are going to be affected by their mood in the workplace, judges must hold themselves to a higher level of accountability.

"There is a higher burden," he said. "Judges are deciding a huge part of somebody's life. They have got to have the self awareness and insight about themselves and their emotions and squeeze that out during their decision making."

Mocan agreed that awareness of the situation is one way to help solve it.

"Once they recognize this is happening, people may filter out these emotions," he said.

For his part, Mocan said he gets it. He considers himself to be a die-hard Tiger fan.

"I was upset big time this week," he said, referring to LSU's unexpected loss in its season opener to Wisconsin. "I'm a complete and crazy fan. I understand it."