LSU jumps in the BCS

By CASEY GISCLAIR

casey@tri-parishtimes.com

With a gutsy home win against South Carolina, LSU appears to be firmly in the middle of the national championship picture again.

The first BCS standings listed LSU as the No. 6 team in the country – the highest one-loss team in the country.

The Tigers’ .7522 ranking is far behind the .8774 mark for No. 5 Notre Dame, but easily ahead of the .6930 ranking of No. 7 South Carolina – LSU’s victim on Saturday.

Aside from LSU and South Carolina, the rest of the SEC is well represented in the first BCS Standings with six teams in the Top 12 of the standings, led by No. 1 Alabama and No. 2 Florida.

No. 11 Georgia and No. 12 Mississippi State also round out the top conference teams in the standings.

Texas A&M rounds out the ranked SEC schools at No. 18.

Human polls coincide with the BCS and have LSU as the No. 6 team in the country – up from the No. 9 spot they held last week.

The Tigers earned their jump in the rankings with a gutsy 23-21 win against then-No. 3 South Carolina in Tiger Stadium.

LSU played arguably its best offensive game of the season in the victory, rushing for 258 yards against a stout Gamecocks’ defensive front.

Freshman Jeremy Hill stole the show and earned most of that production, rushing 17 times for 124 yards and two touchdowns, including the dagger – a 50-yard scamper with five minutes to go in the fourth quarter that put the Tigers ahead 23-14.

“I think we kind of wore those guys down,” Hill said following the game. “They got tired as the game went on, so we just kept running down hill, just hitting them hard and … that’s kind of what I did.”

South Carolina answered with a late score, but couldn’t find an offensive rhythm for most of the game amidst a monstrous LSU-laden crowd.

“Let me tell you – that was Death Valley,” LSU coach Les Miles said following the game. “That was the place where opponent’s dreams come to die. It was spectacular.”

To keep its dominant running game on the field, the Tigers conquered third down for the first time this season.

LSU converted 11 of its 19 third down tries against the Gamecocks – a vast improvement from the 1-of-13 mark the team had in its 14-6 loss against Florida.

“I think we executed a lot better,” quarterback Zach Mettenberger said. “That showed on the scoreboard and in the yards we put out. Really, that’s what we should have been doing all year because we knew we could do it.”

With the win, LSU will return to the field Saturday at 11 a.m. in a road tilt with Texas A&M. That game will be shown nationally on ESPN.

With the win, the Tigers would carry an elite ranking into its early November game with Alabama.