Chase Pittman slammed Alabama quarterback Brodie Croyle just as he released a pass early in the third quarter. After landing on Croyle, Pittman spent a significant amount of time in his face. Pittman said he could not even provide a censored version of what he said to Croyle.
Pittman’s attack on Croyle in the third quarter may have best exemplified the frustration the Tiger defense felt from a 10-point deficit.
“I can’t censor it,” said junior defensive tackle Pittman. “Sometimes you just snap and do things. I don’t regret it because I don’t like anybody I play against. I don’t like any QB we play against – I don’t like any team we play against. It’s not a problem.”
The changes made were not anything that could be written in a playbook or on a white board. Instead, the Tigers used their anger to their advantage.
“I was just pissed off,” Pittman said. “They shouldn’t have been getting that many yards on us. They shouldn’t be running like that on us. I just went in at halftime and got mad. Everybody was just mad, so we came back out mad and played mad.”
Senior defensive lineman and Southeastern Conference Player of the Week Kyle Williams snapped in his own way. Going into the locker room, Williams said he did not have any speech planned, but when the offense and defense separated to prepare for the second half, he addressed the LSU defense.
“I just thought it was something that needed to be said,” Williams said. “I felt like finger pointing was going on and some blaming toward other players. I said ‘Listen, if we can’t rely on one another, then we’re going to lose. If we can’t rely on one another, there is no reason to go back out there. We have to go back out and play like we have strived to play all year and play together.’ We were able to do that.”
After three years as Williams’ teammate, junior strong safety Jessie Daniels said Williams’ role as a leader has helped him make adjustments in between halves. After admitting to struggling in the first half, Daniels said he realized what needed to change.
“In the first half, I had a few busted calls that I didn’t make that I should have made,” Daniels said. “In the second half, I was a lot more focused. Like Kyle said, we just had to get focused, and I communicated to my team a lot better. He was true. He made the first tackle of the second half, so that just shows he’s a true leader because it wasn’t just what he said, but he did it too.”
The defense corrected its errors, limiting the Alabama offense to 112 yards as opposed to 217 yards the first half.
Miles said the defense needed more motivation because the offense already knew where it needed to go in the second half. Despite the different preparations, Miles said the locker room was finally on the same page as a whole.
“The mood and the character of the room was everybody was mad,” Miles said. “It was not necessarily at anybody but at the position that they were in, and we knew we were down 10. There was no question that we had dug ourselves a hole, but it was one we were going to get out of.”