Tigers look for ‘Rebel’lion
Determination, focus needed to halt Ole Miss
By Ronnie Richard, Assistant Sports Editor
Another chapter begins Saturday in the storied football rivalry between the Rebels and Tigers.
In last year’s 90th episode, LSU’s entire season nearly collapsed following a surprise loss to Ole Miss in Tiger Stadium. The Tigers went on to win the remainder of their games, the Southeastern Conference Western Division, SEC Championship and Sugar Bowl after some soul-searching and coming together as a team.
This year’s Tigers stand at a similar crossroads — on the brink of a disastrous season, ready to face a familiar foe.
Losing two of its last three games, LSU may be one more loss away from saying farewell to its Atlanta vacation in the SEC Championship.
“Everybody’s got to be responsible for their failings,” said LSU head coach Nick Saban. “And you shouldn’t expect your confidence and your belief in yourself to do it. We need to emphasize to ourselves that there’s a process that’s really important that we all do together, and if everybody works and does their part and is responsible for their role, then the whole is going to benefit from it.”
The LSU defense has struggled through injuries, and it has seen numerous changes to the starting lineup in recent weeks. Auburn, Kentucky and Alabama each have put up at least 30 points against the former top-ranked unit.
“We’ve got to get our focus back,” said defensive tackle Byron Dawson. “We have to go back to the basics of what we were doing then that helped us to win.”
Ole Miss (5-5, 2-4 SEC), led by Eli Manning, presents a unique challenge for LSU, with a highly prolific passing attack that is a change of pace from the powerful ground teams the Tigers have seen in the last few games.
“[Manning] makes extremely quick decisions about where he’s going to go with the ball, relative to what the defense is doing,” Saban said. “He plays very, very smart, and he’s athletic enough that if you do break him down in the pocket a little bit, he can move around and scramble enough.”
Manning’s numbers have not been as spectacular as expected, with a preseason Heisman campaign, but he has thrown for 2699 yards and 17 touchdowns with 11 interceptions.
With the dismissal of leading rusher Robert Williams from the team and the season-ending injury to tight end Doug Zeigler, Ole Miss’ offense has become more open and more one-dimensional.
“They’ve become more of a four-wideout, three-wideout, spread-out kind of offense,” Saban said. “They always have been a very balanced kind of a team in the past.
“Even though they make an attempt to run the ball — and I thought ran the ball fairly well in the Georgia game — because they don’t have a tight end, or they haven’t played with a tight end in the game as much, they probably pass the ball a little bit more.”
LSU enters the game with some changes of its own. The Tigers plan to mix in both sophomore Marcus Randall and redshirt freshman Rick Clausen at quarterback in an attempt to solve the problem of the passing game’s ineffectiveness.
In four games, Randall has thrown for 598 yards with three touchdowns and four interceptions. In limited action Saturday, Clausen threw for 26 yards on 3-of-6 passing.
“Both guys can have a role in the success, offensively, in the future of this team,” Saban said. “And, I think we’ll just kind of progress one day at a time and try to allow both of them to do what they can do to be successful.”
Offensive tackle Rodney Reed said the struggles on offense can be attributed to all the players.
“There are times when the offensive line isn’t playing well, and the running backs break the tackles,” Reed said. “So, if the quarterback’s not playing well, we need to block a little bit longer, and the wide receivers need to do a better job of getting open, too. It’s a group effort. When one person’s not playing well, for an offense to be effective, everybody else has to pick it up around him.”