Apparently somewhere along the line, winning became not good enough.Or at least that’s the impression I was getting from some people before last weekend.LSU is undefeated and ranked No. 4 in the nation, and they’ve just started to gain the respect of critics in the college football world — including myself.Prior to this week, the Tigers had been doubted and ridiculed by fans and media alike for their performances on the field.The team opened up on the road against Washington and let the Huskies move the ball with relative ease but still escaped with a victory.The complaints started shortly thereafter.The next week LSU looked pretty bad against Vanderbilt and won by only 14 points, causing the rumblings to grow louder.In week three the Tigers were only able to put 31 points on the board against Louisiana-Lafayette, and the complaints grew more voluminous.Junior safety Chad Jones placed LSU squarely on his back and carried the Tigers to victory in week four as LSU barely edged out an overmatched Mississippi State team.In the aftermath of that contest, the complaints came to a head, and many LSU supporters threw in the proverbial towel on the season.After being dogged all week, the Tigers used a last-minute touchdown run by senior running back Charles Scott to take the lead and victory against then-No. 18 Georgia in a pretty ugly contest which saw two LSU possessions stall in the red zone.Following the game, however, the rumblings have ceased.Now LSU is being praised for its fortitude and determination to “scrap out” a win.Which one is it, people? Are the Tigers lucky or are they gritty? Why does it even matter?It doesn’t matter how they look as long as they keep finding ways to have more points on the scoreboard than their opponents when 60 minutes of game time is finished.Every team would like to win convincingly every time they step on the field, but that’s unlikely.The reality of it is there will be games where teams come out flat and allow less-talented teams compete with them, and that’s dangerous.With the way this season is going, it seems like teams are lucky if they win at all.With the exception of last weekend, every weekend of the young season featured a top-five team being knocked off by a lower-ranked opponent.I’m sure those teams would have preferred an “ugly” win instead of their eventual fates.I used to be one of those guys who put a lot of stock into “pretty” wins and “ugly” wins, but not anymore.”Style points” are something a lot of people look into when judging teams, and in cases like the 2004 season when multiple teams went undefeated, things like margin of victory came into play and left Auburn out of the national championship game.But on the flip side, disastrous things can happen in pursuit of style points. Just ask Florida senior quarterback Tim Tebow who suffered a concussion in the second half in Florida’s win against Kentucky while his team lead, 31-7.Florida coach Urban Meyer probably would have traded that 41-7 victory for an ugly win and a healthy quarterback two weeks before the Gators’ toughest road test of the season. LSU has been playing ugly all season, but the Tigers have found ways to win, and when it’s all said and done, that’s what is most important in the long run.The team just knocked off a ranked opponent on the road, is one win away from bowl eligibility and is still in a good position after all those “ugly” wins. A loss against Georgia would have relegated LSU to the second tier in the Southeastern Conference’s Western Division, as both Alabama and Auburn remain undefeated within the conference. But since it won, LSU is tied for first in the division, still controls its own destiny and has a much easier road to winning any sort of championship than if it had lost.College football isn’t a stat race. Gaudy numbers and pizzazz can only take a team so far.At the end of the day, having a high-powered offense or iron-strong defense helps, but what’s most important is the end result.  And if the end result is an ugly win, then so be it. It’s still a win, and it’s better than a loss where your team puts up great numbers.Just win by any means necessary, and it’ll all be fine.Johanathan Brooks is a 21-year-old mass communication senior from Powder Springs, Ga. Follow him on Twitter @TDR_Jbrooks.
—-Contact Johanathan Brooks at [email protected]