A shot at redemption

Sporting News, The, Sept 18, 1995 by Steve Harrison

September 17, 1994, was the day a child's imagination choreographed a football game. There could be no other way to describe what happened, certainly not fate or luck, because fate or luck could never be that clever.

No, only a kid could brainstorm this ending. One team, Auburn, had a 13-game winning streak, the nation's longest, and the other team, Louisiana State, was a proud but grounded underdog, which jumped out to a 23-9 lead in the fourth quarter. Then LSU was decreed to throw an interception, which was returned 42 yards for a touchdown. So then they run the ball, and run out the clock, right? No. They get the ball, and one minute later, they throw another interception, and this, too, is run back 32 yards for a touchdown. Two interceptions, two touchdowns. So Auburn has tied the score,and LSU is just about dead, right? No. LSU drives downfield, kicks a field goal and leads 26-23. So the next time it gets the ball, LSU will just run the ball three times into the line and watch the seconds flash off the clock, right? Uh ... no. Let's have LSU throw again on a third down and four with 2:06 remaining. And then Auburn intercepts this pass -- do you think anyone will believe this? -- and runs it back 41 yards for a touchdown.

The perverse truth of Auburn's 30-26 victory that day was that three players returned those passes for touchdowns. But one man threw them, a then 20-year-old soft-spoken junior quarterback named Jamie Howard.

"I was in shock," Howard says. "I didn't know what was going on. It was all so vague ... that last quarter.

"Other than that, I had a good year."

After the game, Howard cried for the first time since, well, he was a child. There were the phone calls to his dorm room Sunday night. The voices said Howard lost the game, that Howard sucked, that Howard should die. There was an address he was scheduled to give in speech class on Monday, which he skipped. People were ripping him on campus, not knowing that he was standing right behind them. How could he stand before a class as the man who had surely wrecked LSU's football season?

And there was his girlfriend, Kathryn DeJean, who, when walking two weeks later with her younger sister to the stadium for the next game, passed a white pickup truck parked on the street. Spray-painted in red on the truck's side were two words: Kill Howard.

That night against South Carolina, Howard's misery continued. He was intercepted twice in the fourth quarter as LSU lost a game, 18-17, that it should have won.

Never mind that Howard received letters from fans telling him to stick it out, not to listen to anybody, to go get 'em next time. But the bad usually suffocate the good. Especially when they boo.

"After the South Carolina game," Howard says, "I wanted to quit football. I was very frustrated. I didn't think I was in a winning situation. If anything went wrong, it was my fault, because I was the leader of the offense."

Two months after the season ended, he had quit, at least in his mind. In January, two scouts from the Atlanta Braves came to see him at his home in Hattiesburg, Miss. Remarkably, on the same day, new LSU Coach Gerry DiNardo and offensive coordinator Morris Watts visited Howard. The Braves wanted him to quit football and concentrate on pitching -- Howard had played in the Braves' farm system the previous two summers. DiNardo said he would love to have him at LSU. Howard chose football -- for now.

"I wasn't surprised he came back," LSU senior guard Mark King says. "I respected his decision to quit baseball. That should show everyone he's serious about football."

This summer, Howard made another big decision. In July, he and DeJean became engaged. Quitting baseball for a summer -- he hopes to pitch again after college -- has refreshed Howard. His arm is no longer sore, and he says he's in "football shape" at the start of this season, rather than five or six games later, as in years past. He speaks glowingly of learning to dissect the game from the new coaching staff, and his timing with his receivers has improved.

In LSU's 33-17 season-opening loss to Texas A&M -- a game few thought the Tigers could win -- Howard was steady. He completed 21 of 38 passes for 131 yards -- and threw no interceptions. Howard's decision making, which was criticized after the Auburn loss by last year's offensive coordinator, Lynn Amedee, impressed DiNardo.

"I thought he made some critical decisions," DiNardo says.

In a 34-16 victory over Mississippi State last week, Howard was solid, throwing 12 of 17 for 173 yards and no interceptions.

Saturday night, Auburn comes to Tiger Stadium for LSU's home opener. What is it about Auburn that has brought out the best and worst of Jamie Howard?

Howard, a Laurel, Miss., native who grew up a Mississippi State fan, attended his first LSU game in 1988 as a high school freshman after his family moved to Louisiana. The opponent was Auburn, and what happened in that game turned Howard into an LSU Tiger for life. LSU won, 7-6, scoring the winning touchdown in the final seconds on a pass from Tommy Hodson to Eddie Fuller. A seismographic instrument on campus recorded the stadium shaking as the crowd thundered. Howard says it was one of the best nights of his life.