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Sporting News, The, Dec 22, 2003 by Matt Hayes

The kid quarterback in L.A. never threw a pass in a college game before this season, but he already had a model/TV star/pro surfer for a girlfriend. Now Matt Leinart is the most eligible bachelor in SoCal and an All-American. Across the way in Oklahoma is a fifth-year senior quarterback who won the Heisman Trophy in a painted, poignant story of Americana. Couldn't script Jason White's season better if you had a few Oscars in your pocket.

Then there's Matt Mauck, the other quarterback on the other team in college football's postseason storm. He is thinking about forgoing his senior season next year. Wants to go to dental school. Wants to get an early start and maybe set up shop one day in his hometown of Jasper, Ind.--"One of the 25 best small towns in America," it boasts--and be something to someone every time he goes to work.

"Not everything is how it seems," Mauck says.

As if this guy belongs with Leinart and White and all of this bowl madness. Then again, LSU doesn't fit in either, right? The human polls love Southern California, the computers are hitched to Oklahoma, and the Tigers may as well be a speed bump on the road to a BCS breakdown.

"Crazy how we luck into everything, huh?" LSU defensive tackle Chad Lavalais says, the sarcasm as heavy as his nearly-300-pound frame.

It would be easy to pencil in a Sooners victory in the Sugar Bowl. It's not often a Bob Stoops-coached OU team has lost to a team in the top 10 (only once) or failed to find redemption after a poorly played game. But this is most certainly different. LSU is just as good defensively as Oklahoma and is more balanced offensively. It also helps that the contest at the Louisiana Superdome is a home game for the Tigers--ask Miami if those 60,000-plus Ohio State fans were a factor in last year's Fiesta Bowl--and that LSU is peaking.

LSU's only national title came in 1958, when Paul Dietzel's team finished an 11-0 season with a 7-0 win over Clemson in the Sugar Bowl. That's not the most significant football event in Louisiana history, however. An "eyewitness" description of Billy Cannon's punt return for a touchdown against Ole Miss on Halloween night a year later always has been required listening for any boy growing up on the Bayou. Now they'll be daydreaming about a team that found a way to play for the national title--then made it stick by winning the biggest game in school history.

Spring practice was winding down in April at LSU, and not a thing was going right. The staff wasn't too excited about the pace or energy in many of the 15 NCAA-allowed practices, and the defense--fiery coach Nick Saban's calling card--just wasn't coming together.

"We were a little stressed," says defensive coordinator Will Muschamp.

Lavalais was coming off an inconsistent junior season and was miles from a senior year in which he was named the SPORTING NEWS Defensive Player of the Year. The linebackers were inexperienced because the 2002 Tigers played too much nickel coverage and didn't find enough playing time for key backups. And the secondary--good God, the secondary--played horribly down the stretch in 2002, allowing a last-second gift touchdown to Arkansas that kept the Tigers from winning the SEC West Division and looking like a rag-tag group of high school kids in an ugly loss to Texas in the Cotton Bowl.

So what's a defensive coordinator to do? Blitz. When inexperience and indecision overshadow knowledge of the scheme, the answer is finding more blitz packages and adding more pressure. And unlike most coaches, Saban believes the more you pressure players to perform, the better they respond.

Desperate for a playmaker in the secondary midway through this season, he inserted freshman LaRon Landry at free safety because of Landry's speed and cover skills and because he hits like a linebacker in run support. The increased focus on pressure created havoc and forced a talented but underachieving defensive line to become more active and accountable. By the end of the 34-13 victory over Georgia in the SEC championship game, the Tigers had collected 39 sacks and 31 turnovers in 13 games. The championship game was the 11th time this season their opponent was held to 14 or fewer points.

"You hold any team to two touchdowns and that's money," says end Marquise Hill.

Well, it just so happens that Oklahoma has scored at least 50 points seven times this season. Kansas State slowed the Oklahoma offense in the Big 12 championship game by getting a strong push from the front four and dropping in zone coverage in the back seven, handing the Sooners their first loss of the season.

LSU's defensive front is playing better than any in the nation, but that doesn't mean the Tigers will relent on blitz packages and try to play more zone. You don't change philosophies for the last game of the season, even though White is more dangerous throwing against man coverage. But as Lavalais says, "You can't throw if you're on your back."

Sit down and talk with Saban. His tone is purposeful and convincing. He's genuine. You get the feeling it would take him all of 15 minutes to convince the residents of Anchorage that it's really only chilly in January. This helps explain LSU's nationally ranked recruiting classes the last three years and how the talent level has increased significantly since the last of Gerry DiNardo's five seasons in Baton Rouge in 1999.