Tigers battle through multiple injuries to play for title

After fighting injuries throughout the season, Glenn Dorsey is expected to be 100 percent for Monday night's BCS title game. Doug Benc/Getty Images

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NEW ORLEANS -- For the better part of two months, as two-time No. 1 team LSU seemed to become progressively less dominant, losing two SEC games and barely surviving several others, we heard the same, repeated excuse: The Tigers were "banged up."

Only here's the thing: It wasn't an excuse.

It's no coincidence that LSU's last truly dominant performance -- a 48-7 rout of eventual ACC champion Virginia Tech on Sept. 8 -- was also the last time the Tigers had their full complement of weapons. It was during practice the week following that game that LSU's top receiver, Early Doucet, suffered a torn groin muscle, sidelining him for the next five games and touching off a staggering string of injuries to key players that ravaged the Tigers on both sides of the ball.

In the culminating moment, LSU played the Dec. 1 SEC championship game against Tennessee without both starting quarterback Matt Flynn and All-American defensive tackle Glenn Dorsey.

"The last game we were really healthy was the [Oct. 6] Florida game," defensive end Kirston Pittman said of his team's defense. "We didn't have a lot of the guys that were starters, and when they came back they weren't 100 percent. It took a toll on us."

Asked when LSU last fielded a fully healthy offense, center Brett Helms replied, "The beginning of the season."

Now, after having five weeks since their last game to heal, the Tigers head into Monday night's BCS Championship Game against Ohio State fielding their healthiest team since that long-ago Virginia Tech game, and the expectation among LSU followers is that their performance will reflect it.

"I really believe," said Pittman, "that when we're healthy, we can't be stopped."

Pittman was speaking specifically of the Tigers' defense, which was dominant enough early to finish the regular season ranked third nationally (283.9 yards per game), behind only Ohio State and USC, yet was unquestionably a shell of itself late in the season, allowing 466 yards to Ole Miss in a 41-24 win on Nov. 17, 513 yards to Arkansas in a triple-overtime defeat six days later.

It's no coincidence that nation's most decorated defensive player, Dorsey, who suffered a painful knee injury on an apparent chop-block in the Oct. 20 Auburn game, was not himself in those games. Known for his ability to shed double-teams with ease and disrupt opposing offenses, Dorsey attempted to play through the injury but was notably less explosive, eventually reaching the point where he had to sit out.

"I was in pain," said the reigning Lombardi, Outland and Nagurski winner. "There were plays where I could usually go destroy somebody, and I'm just watching it happen. Things I could normally do, I couldn't do them."

The magnitude of Dorsey's injury was only compounded by those to several other defensive starters.

Fellow defensive tackles Charles Alexander (knee) and Marlon Favorite (ankle) and middle linebacker Darry Beckwith (knee) all missed games, while safeties Craig Seltz and Curtis Taylor were banged up late. Cornerback Chevis Jackson missed most of the Alabama game with an eye injury.

LSU was forced to rely heavily on younger players, and at times it showed.

However, with the exception of Alexander, whose season ended in week three, all affected players -- including Dorsey -- are expected to be 100 percent for Monday night's game.

"It's going to be wonderful to put some guys on the field that haven't played full strength for quite some time," said head coach Les Miles. "We'll look forward to seeing some guys not only play, but play very well."

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