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| Scooter Hobbs Archive |
| 1/31 | Column: LSU Must Still Build On Kentucky Win |
| | LSU basketball isn’t the necessity and fan staple that football is, of course. So while happy and encouraged by head coach Johnny Jones’ steady progress with the Tigers, the general feeling seems to be: “Wake me up when they get there.” Well, maybe that was the alarm going off Tuesday night when LSU jumped all over Kentucky and led wire-to-wire to beat the Wildcats 87-82. There’s your signature victory. LSU must have been doing something to suggest the big upset was possible. The Tigers sold well over 12,000 tickets in advance, even if only a little over half of them were able to brave the great ice storm to get to the arena. Continue... |
| 1/17 | Column: No Easy Answers For LSU's Early Defections |
| | It’s pretty obvious that LSU’s Les Miles is done with trying to force a smile while all but sitting by his lonesome on what is now being called National Staying Day. Pretty clever, whoever first came up with that name, and it’s become as important for college programs as the revered National Signing Day. Maybe more so. At least with the juniors’ and draft-eligible sophomores’ decisions, you’re dealing with well-known commodities rather than what you’ve heard on the Internet. At any rate, LSU does National Signing Day much better than National Staying Day. For the second straight year, the Tigers will lose more early entrees to the NFL draft than any other school in the nation. Continue... |
| 1/8 | Column: Auburn Answers For Ending Streak |
| | This SEC high tribunal will now come to order. Auburn, will you please face the judge and jury and would you horse-laughing Alabama fans please settle down and come to order? AUBURN: War Eagle! SEC: War Who!? Auburn, you have brought great shame and disgrace upon this proud (arrogant) conference. You must now answer for Florida State 34, Auburn 31. You must show true cause why you should not be excommunicated post haste from this proud (insufferable) conference. AU: We had a great season. Made it to the BCS championship game. Lots of thrills (unexplained miracles) along the way. SEC: Exactly, but you didn’t win it now, did you? Where’s the crystal, big boy? The SEC doesn’t just go to the BCS title game — that’s for the wannabes — the SEC, it WINS the BCS title games, DOMINATES BCS title games and they are all supposed to end with cheerful (taunting) chants of S-E-C, S-E-C! Continue... |
| 1/2 | Hill Batters Hawkeyes |
| | TAMPA, Fla. — When LSU’s Jeremy Hill broke free for a 42-yard run on the first play against Iowa Wednesday, the Outback Bowl might as well have named its MVP right then and there. The Hawkeyes weren’t going to stop him. And LSU wasn’t going to quit giving him the ball. “I think we realized there were some advantages right there and didn’t want to get away from them,” LSU coach Les Miles said. “He really put the finishing touches on the Iowa team and put this game on his back at the end.” Hill rushed for 216 yards and a pair of touchdowns on a slick, sloppy track as the Tigers threw out the aesthetics and gutted their way through a 21-14 victory over Iowa. Nothing fancy — “Our plan was to just hit them in the mouth, keep drives going,” LSU fullback Connor Neighbors said. Continue... |
| 1/2 | Column: Ugly Day, Ugly Game |
| | TAMPA, Fla. — Greetings from glorious Florida, the Sunshine State, America’s Playground. Ignore that steady rain, the temperatures in the 50s, the slosh outside the door, your wet socks. This is a vacation spot, kids, and a lot of money was spent getting you down here. This is the Outback Bowl. LSU and Iowa. So quit your sniveling and have fun. Do you hear me? Have fun. And I mean right now. OK, the Tampa Bay Chamber of Commerce should have known better than to invite LSU. The Tigers don’t do Florida very well for the holidays. This is three straight LSU trips now for a Florida bowl that should have been telecast by The Weather Channel. Continue... |
| 1/2 | LSU Notes: Hill Even Scores Accidental Touchdown |
| | TAMPA, Fla. — Call it the accidental touchdown. Outback Bowl MVP Jeremy Hill, who rushed for 216 yards Wednesday in LSU’s 21-14 victory over Iowa, scored touchdowns even when he was trying not to. Hill’s 37-yard run gave LSU a 21-7 lead with 2:02 to play, but he said afterwards his plan when he broke free was take a knee near the goal line so LSU could just run the clock out. “But if you watch the play,” Hill said, “I lost the ball (juggled it a bit, actually) near the goal line. I didn’t want to risk fumbling. I just wanted to regain control of the ball and, by the time that happened, I was in the end zone. Continue... |
| 12/29 | Column: "The Catch" Ended Saban Era On A Sour Note |
| | TAMPA, Fla. — In a recent survey by an Iowa newspaper, Hawkeye fans ranked their team’s 2005 Capital One bowl victory as the school’s greatest ever bowl win. The same fans ranked the game-winning Hail Mary as time expired as the top play in all of Iowa history. It’s known in Iowa lore as “The Catch” — Drew Tate’s 56-yard stunner to Warren Holloway, who caught his first career touchdown pass on the final play of his career. And that’s certainly one view of it. LSU has a slightly different take. Kentucky fans probably don’t think much of the Bluegrass Miracle, either. It’s probably as embarrassing of a play as the Tigers ever gave up to lose a game, but the screwy defining moment almost gets lost in a week that was a confusing haze from start to finish — the end of Nick Saban’s career as LSU’s head coach. Continue... |
| 12/11 | Column: BCS Gives Sneak Preview To Playoff Committee |
| | Well, I guess now we’ve heard it all, predictable as it was. Perhaps frustrated that the BCS, which generally sorted itself out and got it right all these years despite the dire November predictions, sorted itself out again and got it right despite all the dire November predictions just in time to select the Final Two. Of course, that wasn’t good enough for the worrywart naysayers. So bright and early Monday morning we were treated to several TV talking heads who were blithely (and somewhat smugly, some would say) dismissing the Auburn-Florida State matchup for the BCS national championship. Continue... |
| 12/7 | Column: Stunned Tide Not Center Of SEC's World |
| | Here’s the deal. The rest of the country has been facing SEC Fatigue, and the SEC has been battling acute Bama Fatigue, all of which goes a long way in explaining why Auburn coach Gus Malzahn is suddenly everybody’s favorite uncle. Malzahn, of course, risked blasphemy, if not eternal damnation, by outcoaching Nick Saban in that Iron Bowl last weekend. This is so much balderdash, of course, although admittedly it was a little refreshing to learn that Saban is, after all, human. Continue... |
| 12/4 | Column: In The SEC, You Reap What You Sew |
| | I have absolutely, positively never seen anything remotely like what unfolded at Auburn’s Jordan-Hare Stadium last Saturday. I mean, it was one of those deals where you’ll always remember where you were and what you were doing when you realized what was happening, that you were witnessing history, that college football might never ever be the same again. The Auburn touchdown return on Alabama’s missed field goal was pretty spectacular, too, but rather old hat. Although the stakes weren’t quite as high and the entire free world wasn’t tuned in on television and the future of the planet wasn’t hanging in the balance, LSU’s Odell Beckham did it way back in September. If anything, his was maybe a half-yard farther than the Chris Davis romp into Iron Bowl lore and Auburn immortality. So been there, seen that, even if Beckham’s fun run was more of an curiosity piece than a moment that made the earth stand still and rivers reverse course. Continue... |
| 12/1 | Column: Wild Finish To A Weird Day In Tiger Stadium |
| | BATON ROUGE — Well, that was 99.5 yards that LSU and Les Miles certainly will never forget. Probably Arkansas, either. I’m guessing that when Miles, with no other options, sent true freshman Anthony Jennings to guide a patched-up offense against what looked to be ridiculously impossible odds in a desperate situation, he probably sort of wished Jennings had seen more honest playing time during some of LSU’s runaway victories. That would have made it more believable after starting quarterback Zach Mettenberger went down with a knee injury. Instead, the whole thing was starting to take on the hokey angle of a bad sports movie. But maybe that’s Miles at his best. Continue... |
| 11/30 | Jennings To The Rescue |
| | BATON ROUGE — LSU called for a tsunami and danged if it didn’t almost cause another earthquake in what had been a quiet and low-grumbling Tiger Stadium most of Friday afternoon. Check the Richter scale-o-meter over in the geology department. It might have moved the Richter needle like that Auburn game did long ago once the Tigers finally got in position to pull the trigger on a play they named after what the dictionary refers to as a massive flood. “I knew tsunami-right would be open,” junior Jarvis Landry, who’d been suggesting it to the coaching braintrust for three or four series, said. It didn’t matter that a true freshman was in at quarterback for injured Zach Mettenberger. LSU had no other options. Continue... |
| 11/30 | Column: Freshmen Lead LSU Comeback On Senior Day |
| | BATON ROUGE — In this world of over-egoed cocksure athletes full of posturing, chest-beating and often in-your-face self confidence, it was a little refreshing to hear from Travin Dural Saturday. So, Travin, what exactly were your thoughts at that big moment? You know, that instant you and the rest of Tiger Stadium realized that, as a freshman, you were wide-acre open and another untested freshman, Anthony Jennings, had just lofted a pass that, at the top of its arc, it was obvious it was going to hit you perfectly in stride with the game on the line? “I was thinking, please don’t drop it, Travin, please don’t drop it,” the youngster said. “I waited all my life for this. I just wanted to make a play.” He didn’t. Hauled it in slick as a whistle around the 10-yard line and trotted in for the game-winner. Continue... |
| 11/27 | Column: The Rivalry Gets The Boot |
| | It was a nice try. A noble effort. Nobody’s fault, really, that it never quite worked out. Both sides gave it their best shot. But Arkansas and LSU never really managed to despise each other enough to be full-blown, 365-day-a-year blood rivals. Even as obnoxious as LSU fans can get, even as annoying as hog calls in sub-freezing weather can be on frozen ears, the Razorbacks and Tigers never really learned to obsess over each other. So with Friday’s game at Tiger Stadium, both schools, with the blessings of the SEC, will officially end the grand, 21-year experiment to force-feed LSU-Arkansas as suitable rivals. They can bury a sword that was never really used in extreme anger or prejudice. Continue... |
| 11/26 | Lonely Senior Day Before Juniors Make Decisions |
| | LSU’s game with Arkansas Friday will be Senior Day, with pregame festivities promising to be a teary-eyed moment for the players and families involved. Long gone, however, is the fans’ old parlor game of checking off the seniors as they trot out, all with an eye toward figuring out what will be missing next year. That comes later now. The Tigers will dutifully honor their 15 seniors Saturday, but only quarterback Zach Mettenberger, maybe safety Craig Loston and Lamin Barrow, would appear to put huge dents in the depth chart. Against Texas A&M Saturday LSU’s two true freshmen starting cornerbacks matched the pair of seniors the Tigers had on defense. But that doesn’t mean there won’t be plenty to replace next season. Continue... |
| 11/25 | Column: Johnny Football No Problem For LSU |
| | BATON ROUGE — The Johnny Football Family Fortune reportedly originated in Louisiana. Something to do with oil. Something supposedly shady. That’s the gossip anyway, the juicy stuff which always seems to follow the family’s flashy entry into the gridiron business. One thing is clear though after Saturday afternoon’s 34-10 LSU victory over Texas A&M. Any football fortune will have to be hammered out somewhere else. Johnny Manziel, the Texas A&M quarterback/pop star/unapologetic social lion, isn’t having much luck in our Bayou State. Crazy, too. Normally Louisiana loves a good party. You’d think he would fit right in. Continue... |
| 11/24 | LSU Shuts Down Johnny Football |
| | BATON ROUGE — It must have seemed like a dream first 30 minutes at the time, particularly for a much criticized and often belittled LSU defense. But when LSU escaped a near-frozen Tiger Stadium for halftime respite Saturday, defensive coordinator John Chavis wasn’t satisfied. “It’s not the scheme,” he yelled at his defenders. “It’s the great effort and energy of the guys that are playing for LSU.” So No. 18 LSU promptly went out and topped the first half effort, shutting out Johnny Manziel and high-powered Texas A&M in the second half as the Tigers pounded their way to a 34-10 victory over the No. 9-ranked Aggies. “We really needed this to get back to what we’re used to,” LSU quarterback Zach Mettenberger said. Continue... |
| 11/24 | LSU NOTES: LSU Has First Thousand Yard Trio In School History |
| | BATON ROUGE — For the first time in school history, LSU has a 1,000-yard rusher and a pair of 1,000 yard receivers. And two of the three happened on the same day. Jeremy Hill’s 78 yards rushing gave him 1,040 for the season while Jarvis Landry’s 87 yard receiving gave him 1,059 yards for the year. Odell Beckham, who had 50 yards in receptions, came into the game already over 1,000 yards. Hill, the Tigers’ go-to back all season, was overshadowed by Terrence Magee, who scored the first LSU touchdown from 1 yard out and also had runs of 65 and 1 yard. Magee got more carries in the second half than Hill did, but head coach Les Miles said Hill was fine. “The way Magee was chewing up yards, it was tough to take him out,” Miles said. Continue... |
| 11/24 | Best & Worst: LSU vs Texas A&M |
| | BEST DUCK HUNTING WEATHER: And the fans came dressed for it on a cold, miserable day in Tiger Stadium. It was misty all morning, fairly heavy rain from around noon until kickoff, then windy, damp and misty during the game. Temperature at kickoff was 51 degrees and it felt much, much colder — and it dropped as the game went on. In other words, you had to really be a fan to want to be there. Continue... |
| 11/22 | Column: What We Have Here Is A Failure To Communicate |
| | You’d think that coming up with something that would slow down Johnny Manziel and the Texas A&M beep-beep offense would be plenty enough of a challenge for one Saturday afternoon. Not at LSU. This is a school that thinks big. This is a school where no challenge is too daunting. As Les Miles would say, this is the kind of dilemma that full-grown adults come to LSU to try to solve. And a mighty task this one is. By comparison, solving Johnny Football’s tomfoolery or shadowing a wide receiver like Mike Evans, should be child’s play. But the school is going after far bigger game. Maybe LSU has the chest for it. Continue... |
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