Tigers Win 14th Straight Over Tulane, 48-17

• Box Score
• LSU Game Notes
• Nick Saban Quotes
• Chris Scelfo Quotes
• LSU Player Quotes
• Tulane Player Quotes

BATON ROUGE — LSU scored 27 second-quarter points to open up a 34-10 halftime lead and never looked back against the Tulane Green Wave, as the Tigers ran away with a 48-17 season-opening win against its oldest rival on Saturday night in Death Valley.

LSU improved to 1-0 with the victory and won its sixth consecutive season opener overall and its seventh consecutive opener in Baton Rouge. Tulane, which fell to BYU, 70-35, on Aug. 25 in the Black Coaches Association Classic, dropped to 0-2.

The Tigers tallied 494 yards of total offense versus 391 for the Green Wave. 

Quarterback Rohan Davey was 19-for-29 for 253 yards and two touchdowns, while Jerel Myers caught eight passes for 59 yards and Josh Reed had six catches for 135 yards.

LSU rushed for 232 yards, including 64 on 19 attempts by Devery Henderson and 58 yards on 15 attempts and three touchdowns by LaBrandon Toefield. Domanick Davis, the Tigers’ two-way all-purpose star, also rushed for a touchdown and piled up 34 yards on only two carries. 

Tulane was held to only 48 yards rushing 26 attempts. Mewelde Moore had 50 yards to lead the Green Wave. Patrick Ramsey led the Tulane offense with 343 yards passing.

After a 59-yard kickoff return by Domanick Davis to open the 2001 season, LaBrandon Toefield’s 28-ayrd run over the right side gave the Tigers a 7-0 lead only 26 seconds into the season. The score was the fastest to open a game since Harvey Williams scored 17 seconds into the Rice game in 1987.

After Tulane bettered a 41-yard field goal miss by LSU’s John Corbello with a 26-yarder by placekicker Seth Marler, LSU drove down the field 76 yards in 12 plays to take a 14-3 lead. Quarterback Rohan Davey found tight end Robert Royal completely alone in the end zone for his first touchdown pass of the season.

The Tigers were stopped deep in their territory and were forced to punt. Punter Donnie Jones’ 44 yard punt hung in the air long enough to allow Adrian Mayes to force a fumble. Mayes then recovered from the hit and ran down the loose ball at the Tulane 4-yard line.

A goal-line stand forced the Tigers to settle for a Corbello field goal from 21-yards out.

On the ensuing drive, Tulane took the ball 78 yards on six plays in only 1:40 to cut the lead to 17-10. Roydell Williams caught a 26-yard pass from Patrick Ramsey for the touchdown.

However, LSU answered with back-to-back scoring drives highlighted by a stellar special-teams play by iron-man Elice Parker. On the first drive, Josh Reed caught a 42-yard pass from Davey and ran down to the 5-yard line to set up Davis’ touchdown run.

After the Tigers forced Tulane to punt from its own territory, Parker broke through the Green Wave line and stuffed Wave punter Casey Roussel before he could muster an effort to kick the ball. Davey and the Tigers took over at the 9-yard line and scored two plays later on Toefield’s second rushing touchdown, this from 3 yards out.

Corbello added a 32-yard field goal with under two minutes to play in the first half to give the Tigers a 34-10 halftime lead.

On Tulane’s first series to open the season half, safety Damien James intercepted Ramsey at the Tulane 37-yard line. Davey then hit Reed for 20 yards to set up a 3-yard touchdown pass to tight end Eric Edwards over the middle of the end zone. LSU led 41-10.

Tulane took advantage of a blown coverage by the Tiger defense to score its second touchdown of the evening, a 43-yard reception by Williams to cut the LSU lead to 41-17.

The Tigers struck back with a 1-yard touchdown run by Toefield, his third of the game, to extend the lead back to 31, 48-17 with 14:55 left to play in the game.

Offensively, LSU used its second team over the final quarter to hold on to the lead.

LSU continues its three-game homestand when it takes on Utah State at 7 p.m. in Tiger Stadium on Sept. 8. Tulane next takes on East Carolina in its home opener on Sept. 8 at 2:30 p.m.

Game Notes
Sept. 1, 2001-Tiger Stadium

• The attendance of 91,782 is the largest to ever see a game in Tiger

Stadium, eclipsing the 91,778 that watched LSU beat Alabama last year. LSU has now had four crowds of 90,000 or more since Death Valley expanded last year, joining last year’s games with Tennessee (91,682) and Mississippi State (90,584). The previous record attendance for an LSU-Tulane game was 86,598 in 1973, the last game of the series played at Tulane Stadium. LaBrandon Toefield set a career high with three TDs, only his second multi-TD game of his career, joining his two-TD effort last year against Mississippi State. Toeifeld is the first Tiger ballcarrier to score three TDs since Herb Tyler did so against Kentucky in 1998. Toefield’s TD run on the first play from scrimmage marked the first time LSU scored on their first play from scrimmage since Harvey Williams’ 60-yard TD run opened scoring 17 seconds into a 1987 game against Rice. Toefield’s run is also the fastest that the Tigers have dented the scoreboard in a season opener (at least since 1985, the first year that time of possession records were kept), breaking the record of 58 seconds set last year against Western Carolina. Josh Reed caught 6 passes for 135 yards. Since being moved to receiver prior to the 1999 game against Houston, Reed has had 100 yards receiving in eight of 15 games. Reed had six 100-yard games last year and had 100 yards in 1999 against Houston. Reed is now five behind Wendell Davis for the most career 100-yard games (13). Making their first career starts for LSU were LG Stephen Peterman and RT Jason Baggett. LCB Norman LeJeune made his first start at that position, marking his first start since 1999, when he started the last five games of that season at drop linebacker. Five true freshman made their LSU debuts tonight: TE Marcus Spears, WR Michael Clayton, C Ben Wilkerson, RB Joseph Addai and DE Marquise Hill. Additionally, redshirt freshman QB Marcus Randall also played for the first time in purple and gold. Domanick Davis’ 59-yard return of the opening kickoff is LSU’s longest kickoff return since Kevin Faulk‘s 88-yard return for a touchdown at Notre Dame in 1998. It is also Davis’ longest return (punt or kickoff) in his career, eclipsing a 56-yard kick return in 1999 against Auburn. LSU rushed for 232 yards, its first 200-yard rushing game since gaining 220 against Mississippi State last year and just the second 200-yard rushing game in the Nick Saban era. The 48 yards rushing allowed by LSU are the fewest yielded in the Nick Saban era and the first time the Tigers have held an opponent under 50 yards since limiting Arkansas St. to 43 in the 1998 opener. The second quarter TD pass from Tulane’s Patrick Ramsey to Roydell Williams represented the first TD pass allowed by LSU since the fourth quarter of last year’s game with Alabama, breaking a span of 13 quarters in which LSU did not allow a passing TD. The 34 points scored by LSU in the first half marks the second straight year in which LSU has eclipsed 30 points in the first half of he season opener; the Tigers scored 37 last year. The 34 first-half points tie the record for points in the first half against Tulane, joining the 1965 game that LSU won, 62-0. The record for points in any half against the Wave is 56 scored in the second half of 1958’s 62-0 Tiger triumph that claimed the national championship for LSU. LSU extended its winning streak over Tulane to 14 consecutive games, with the last Green Wave win coming in 1982. LSU’s longest winning streak in the 94-game series was a 17-game string from 1956-72. LSU is now 42-4-2 against the Wave since 1949. LSU has now won six consecutive season openers, its longest streak in openers since winning eight in a row from 1962-69. LSU has now scored 42 or more points in four of its last five season openers, missing only in 1999 vs. San Jose State.

LSU Head Coach Nick Saban Quotes

“Obviously it was a great win for us. I thought it was really significant that there were three big plays in the kicking game. The kick return to start the game, the sack on the punt, those plays were really big. I was pleased with the defensive play. We turned it over twice at the end of the game. Obviously there were a lot of good things that happened on that field today.

“Obviously there were a lot of things we could improve on. We gave up several big plays. Corner play was not what it needs to be. They (Tulane) were in situations based on what we programmed our players to be looking for in those situations. That?s exactly what they did. So we are obviously going to need to get better at not giving up the big play. That?s what really disappoints me the most.

“I thought the defensive front did an outstanding job of stopping the running game.

We had a lot of people in past coverage. We got pretty good pressure on the quarterback. Even though we only got a couple of sacks, I think we pressured the quarterback. We pushed him with our interior guys most of the time. I respect the way Tulane came out and played hard tonight. I respect the way our defense played for 60 minutes and didn?t let them score in the late stages of the game.”

Tulane Head Coach Chris Scelfo Quotes:

“We played an outstanding football team tonight and they showed it. When we

play a team of LSU’s caliber and other teams of the same caliber you can’t make any mistakes, and tonight we made too many of them in the first half.”

“I thought our kids came back in the second half and played with some

fight. We closed the gap to 17-10 and then we didn’t rise up defensively to stop them. I thought that our defensive efforts improved.”

“I think that the LSU running backs are as good as any in the country by

the way that those guys played throughout the night. I thought that after the first play of the game we settled down and got comfortable.”

“When you make one out of six plays on special teams it will kill you. When

you make the mistakes that we made on special teams you can’t overcome that on the road against a football team as LSU’s caliber.”