The Tiger Diaries LSU-NANIMOUS
by Joey Fryoux

In August of 2007, we predicted that the LSU Fighting Tigers would twist and turn and power its way through a very challenging football schedule to become National Champions... for the second time in  five seasons. We laid out a case for the Bengal Tigers by simply listing its vast experience and multitude of game-breaking options on offense and its incredible depth of defensive superstars. Still, many scoffed at the idea that a school which had to wait 48 years between its first two national football crowns, which lost four starters to the first round of the NFL draft, including the #1 overall pick, could again claim the title so soon. But this group of Tigers, as we have reported all year long, have continually shown that the expectations and doubts and detractors only fueled their fire. In the end, nothing could or would deny them their entire list of pre-season goals including lifting the championship crystal ball in salute to its great fans and the wonderful people of Louisiana.

The game itself was not precisely personified by the considerably dominant final score, LSU 38 Ohio State 24. In fact this game was a total <BEAT-DOWN>! It was an A Whooping on a team obviously overmatched for the second straight year. The Buckeyes were able to enjoy a brief moment in the sun jumping out to an early 10-0 lead. They were a factor in this game for a grand total of 5 minutes and 48 seconds in the first quarter. They had seen their star running back, Beenie Wells hit a hole catching the LSU defense off balance, running 65 yards for the longest scoring run from scrimmage in BCS Championship Game history. On the Tigers ensuing possession, a mix-up between quarterback Matt Flynn and center Brett Helms had Flynn scrambling to recover an errant snap at his own 7-yard line. All-SEC punter Patrick Fisher came in and boomed his first punt 62-yards effectively flipping the field and giving the Tiger defense some breathing room. Their comfort was short lived as the Buckeyes took advantage of a Tiger mistake in the secondary, hitting on a long pass play down the left sideline and Ohio State threatened again. The defense stiffened and held the Buckeyes to a field goal and with 9:12 showing on the clock in the first quarter, any semblance of resistance to the LSU Machine from an undeserving Big Ten opponent, was completely gone.

LSU’s two senior leaders on offense, Matt Flynn and Jacob Hester took turns making plays on two consecutive drives resulting in a quick 10 points to tie the score and turn the tide.

Just as Florida had proven in this same championship game a year earlier, LSU’s athletic ability, in both speed and power, completely overwhelmed the Buckeyes, the best the Big Ten has had to offer over the past few years. Over the next 24 minutes of game time the Tigers would outrun, outplan, and outmuscle the heralded Buckeye offensive and defensive lines in route to an unprecedented 31-0 burst that should have shamed the many unqualified, biased TV and newspaper and internet commentators riding so confidently on the Ohio State bandwagon. How embarrassing it must have been for Kirk Herbstreit when Ricky Jean-Francois obliterated his impregnable offensive line and shoved an attempted field goal back in their faces. The confidence of Lou Holtz must have seemed as shriveled as his abilty to pick a winner, (ANY WINNER) when LSU recovered the ball and ran it down the Buckeyes throat with power and finesse to take a 17-10 lead with 7:25 left in the first half. I wonder how the fools from ESPN’s P.T.I. felt moments later when Chevis Jackson returned an interception back to the Ohio State 24-yard line. Five plays later, Jacob Hester plowed into and through the Buckeyes Mr. Everything, All-American linebacker James Laurinaitis for a 1-yard plunge that personified the Tigers superiority over ESPN’S dominated darlings. The first half would end with the Tigers ahead 24-10, and for all reasonable thinking people outside the ESPN network, the 2008 National Championship belonged to LSU.

The Tigers dispelled any doubt left inside the dome when, after getting the ball to start the second half, Matt Flynn directed a physically dominating 80-yard drive for a touchdown and the score was 31-10 LSU. It was beginning to get ugly, and like most spoiled and pampered kids, Ohio State started to come apart at the seams. They were continually denied what they professed to be their specialty, running the football, as Ascension Hero Glenn Dorsey occupied two and three offensive lineman and still disrupted the Buckeyes offensive strategy. LSU’s defense played like sharks with blood in the water leaving no aspect of the game in question as to who was the better team. Matt Flynn finished his storied season and career by claiming the Offensive Most Outstanding Player Award and Ricky Jean-Francois, playing in just his second game of the season, underlined the depth of talent on the nation’s most dominant football team and earned Defensive MOP honors. LSU became the first to win TWO BCS National Championships since its inception in 1998. (NO Chris Fowler and Gary Danielson and the rest of you ESPN and CBS goof-balls not USC or Michigan. NO Lee Corso, not Florida or Georgia or Notre Dame or Ohio State or anyone else you continue to try to lift with words to the top of the rankings. LSU is 34-6 since Les Miles became head coach. It certainly didn’t look like he was out-coached by the genius at Ohio State, Jim Tressle, or by Florida’s Urban Meyer or anyone else. In his three bowl games at LSU, Miles teams have outscored its opponents 150-51 and he has led LSU to only the second 12-win season in its history. A Superdome record crowd of 79,651 saw the “mad-hatter” prove what we knew all along, that this is the #1 football program in America. Miles summed it up in his usual humble and generous way stating, We knew we had to play well to win. I feel very fortunate that we played the way we did. This is a great group of young men, our senior class, a number of men, who knew how to commit to a team and to fight like hell. To that we can only add thank you LSU Football, and thank you Les Miles, and to the idiots at ESPN..’HAVE A NICE DAY!”