A Tribute

THE FINAL SCENE OF THE 2007 SEASON PLAYED OUT JUST THE WAY LSU FANS HAD ENVISIONED: WITH THE JUBILANT HOME-STATE TIGERS STANDING ON THE FIELD OF THE SUPERDOME HOISTING THE BCS CRYSTAL TROPHY. THEY BEGAN THE REGULAR SEASON RANKED NO. 2, ENDED THE REGULAR SEASON RANKED NO. 2 AND FINISHED NO. 1 IN THE ONLY POLL THAT TRULY MATTERED: THE LAST ONE.

Such a simple description, however, belies just how unusual a course these Bayou Bengals took to achieve their destiny. They rose, they fell, they got back up again, they fell back down again, ultimately riding a wave of both bizarre circumstances and their own fulfilled promise to emerge as college football's flawed yet enthralling national champions.

Their two signature performances—a rousing 48-7 destruction over then ninth-ranked Virginia Tech and their crowning BCS championship victory over No. 1 Ohio State—took place nearly four months apart. During the 11 games in between, the Tigers followed the lead of their seemingly fearless, potentially reckless head coach, Les Miles, who, throughout a season filled with more suspense and intrigue than a Stephen King novel, redefined the adage "living on the edge" on the field while injecting his own dose of personal drama off it.

The day that ultimately defined this arduous if triumphant season was Dec. 1, which began with fifth-ranked LSU—fresh off a seemingly crushing triple overtime loss to Arkansas—facing the challenge of trying to win the SEC championship game against Tennessee without starting quarterback Matt Flynn. The national title barely entered the discussion of fans, who had awoken that morning to an ESPN report that Miles, as had been speculated for months, had accepted an offer to return to his alma mater, Michigan.

By the end of the night, following a hard-earned 21-14 win over the Volunteers along with an improbable defeat of No. 2 West Virginia by 4-7 Pittsburgh (No. 1 Missouri would lose as well, to Oklahoma), the Tigers had regained both their national title hopes (they would rise to No. 2 in the final regular-season polls the next day) and their coach, who apparently had never left. "I'm the head coach at LSU. I will be the head coach at LSU," he proclaimed at a hastily assembled pregame news conference. "I'm excited about the opportunity of my damn strong football team."

Even before the season had started, the trials and travails of Miles, LSU's combustible third-year leader, were already developing into a bigger story line than the actual exploits of his players—a tough chore considering that those players included eventual All-Americas defensive tackle Glenn Dorsey, safety Craig Steltz and linebacker Ali Highsmith. The coach first raised eyebrows with his offhand comments at a summer gathering of local radio sponsors mocking the schedule played by USC, LSU's unofficial nemesis ever since the teams' "split" championship four years earlier and the only team ranked above the Tigers in the preseason polls.

As word of his remarks—in which Miles sarcastically referred to the Trojans' Pac-10 opponents as "some real juggernauts"—lit up talk radio and cyberspace, analysts across the sport futilely attempted to attach a deeper meaning or motivation; in retrospect, it was probably just a case of the coach working a crowd. The precedent had been set, however, for what would become a seasonlong obsession by fans and media: attempting to decipher Miles's intentions.

On Oct. 6 a national prime-time audience watched with a mixture of amazement and bewilderment as the by-now top-ranked Tigers converted five fourth-down plays in a last-minute comeback win over defending national champion Florida. Two weeks later against Auburn, Miles's unconventional game management made for more must-see TV when Flynn's 22-yard pass fell into wide receiver Demetrius Byrd's hands in the end zone with just one second remaining. Another last-minute comeback on Nov. 3 at Alabama required more late-game dramatics, and LSU responded with two touchdowns in 83 seconds.

Unfortunately, living dangerously did not always work in LSU's favor. A week after that heart-stopping win over Florida, the Tigers traveled to Lexington and wound up on the wrong end of a triple-overtime shootout with Kentucky. That loss hardly seemed insurmountable at the time, but dropping another three-overtime thriller to Arkansas on Nov. 23 certainly looked like a national title deal-breaker.

In nearly any other year the SEC-champion Tigers would most likely have visited New Orleans a week earlier for the season-ending Sugar Bowl. But in this most unusual of college football seasons—one in which an FCS team ( Appalachian State) beat the sport's alltime winningest program ( Michigan); the preseason No. 1 team, USC, fell at home to eventual 4-8 Stanford; and eight different teams rose to the No. 1 or 2 spot in the BCS standings only to subsequently suffer defeat—LSU became the first two-loss team in history to play for the national championship. And just as they had throughout a seasonlong gantlet of big games, which included a staggering eight victories over ranked opponents, the Tigers rose to the occasion one last time against the Buckeyes.