LSU Quiets Critics after Intense Win!

ATHENS, Ga. — Tired of getting ripped locally by fans and the media for being inept on offense?

Then drive 88 yards on 12 plays with the game on the line Between the Hedges.

Tired of hearing how the offense is underachieving?

Score twice in the final 2:53 to escape with a Southeastern Conference road win.

Tired of hearing how you can’t run the ball?

Then go to Sanford Stadium and bounce off a tackler like a Herschel Walker highlight reel en route to a 33-yard game winning touchdown in the last minute of a key SEC game.

That’s what LSU’s embattled offense did Saturday in a 20-13 win over Georgia.

It was a monkey off the back of offensive coordinator Gary Crowton, a vindication of quarterback Jordan Jefferson, an emergence of freshman Rueben Randle and a return to form for running back Charles Scott.

And it was a not-so-subtle “Shhhh” to the critics.

They did it by pulling through in the clutch and becoming all-of-the-sudden explosive when, for the first 53 minutes it had alternated between being unable to finish drives in the first half and unable to drive at all in the second half.

The Tigers had only one second-half first down before they went 88 yards on 12 plays to take a 12-7 lead on Charles Scott’s 2-yard touchdown with 2:53 left in the game. And when that wasn’t enough after the Bulldogs quickly answered with their own touchdown with 1:09 left in the game, LSU responded.

The Tigers went two plays and 38 yards for the winning touchdown. Scott, a 1,000-yard rusher last year who has hardly seemed to fit in with this year’s offense, ran over Georgia linebacker Marcus Dowtin on a 33-yard run for the game winner with 46 seconds left.

Yeah. Big, physical backs can be useful, even on a team full of spread-the-field athletes.

That’s 126 yards and two touchdowns in the final two possessions after managing 242 yards and no touchdowns in the first nine drives.

How on earth do you explain that?

“We can throw and catch it,” head coach Les Miles said.

With more than just the usual players. On the 88-yard drive, Jefferson converted third-and-10 by finding Randle, who had two first-down catches for 29 yards on a drive where the Tigers’ two reliable senior receivers, Brandon LaFell and Richard Dickson, both dropped passes.

This was a drive about an “emergence of a fine young player,” Miles said of Randle. And Jefferson not only converted a third-and-10, but also a first-and-15 after an illegal shift killed a 17-yard pass. But Jefferson scrambled 26 yards to keep the drive alive.

The final drive? It was about Scott giving LSU its longest run of the year not in an insignificant moment against a bad team, but on the road in the final minute against the No. 18 team in the country. In other words, when it counts.

So, sure, this offense sputters and stalls and drives you crazy, but it also knows how to win.

Check out the article at The Advocate.

I couldn't agree more with the above article... except that not ALL of the critics are quiet. But, who cares what they say? They sure talked their trash two years ago... how many times did we hear "overranked'? But they shut up after Ohio State went down in the NC game, didn't they? They don't know what they're talking about, anyway. Hell, we shouldn't even have rankings this early in the season.