By Ryan Rogers
LSUsports.net
There was a changing of the guard in Tiger Stadium Saturday Night as Rohan Davey and Josh Reed broke single season passing and receiving records of famed Tiger players Tommy Hodson and Wendell Davis.
Davey’s 318 yards surpassed Hodson’s season total of 2, 655 yards. Davey currently has 2, 659 yards with two games remaining in the season.
His favorite target Josh Reed shattered Davis’s record of 1, 244 receiving yards in a season with his 15-yard catch in the second quarter. Reed finished the night with 1, 311 yards on the season.
Maybe the next question to ponder is ?Are these guys better than Hodson and Davis?’ Tiger fans may have never thought that LSU would ever see another passing duo as good as the famed Hodson-to-Davis. But the numbers don’t lie, and both Hodson’s and Davis’s single season records fell tonight with two games to spare
LSU’s offensive explosion this season led Coach Saban to make an unusual statement about his team.
“We had some good offenses at Michigan State, but never like this,” said Coach Saban at his weekly press luncheon this past Monday.
Saban didn’t hesitate in calling this year’s offense the best he’s ever coached surprising many people. In reality, it’s pretty hard to deny Saban’s claim. LSU’s offense flourished again against Middle Tennessee tallying 463 yards of offense.
LSU hasn’t had much trouble moving the football most of the season. With the exception of a few dry spells against Ole Miss and Tennessee, with Davey in the lineup LSU has been unstoppable offensively.
If you take a look at what LSU has in its arsenal, it all adds up. The Tigers have a great stable of running backs, a solid offensive line, an exceptional receiving corps and most importantly a senior leader in Rohan Davey at quarterback and a playmaker at receiver in Josh Reed.
Great leaders and playmakers aren’t taught to do what they do. They are just capable of doing it. Davey rallies his troops and leads the Tiger attack with incredible disposition and poise. Meanwhile Reed has given the Tigers an option in any situation. His uncanny ability to make plays and break games open are a luxury for Coach Saban.
Tonight the super-duo delivered again.
It’s official, Josh Reed is good. As if any Tiger Fan didn’t know that already, but the rest of the country was awakened by Reed’s “video game like” numbers according to ESPN, which consisted of 19 catches for 293 yards.
Reed shattered the SEC records for receptions and yards in a game which led to him being named SEC Player of the Week. Coming into tonight’s game, Reed led the nation in receiving yards per game with 148.9.
Reed or “Reed-iculous”, as he’s been nicknamed by local media, recorded over 100 yards receiving against Middle Tennessee for the eighth time this year. That is also an LSU record.
Rohan Davey continues to light up secondaries. Davey has been erasing Hodson from the record book of late. Just a week after breaking Hodson’s single game record with a 528-yard performance against Alabama, he followed it up with his 318 yard performance tonight.
It was the first time an LSU quarterback passed for 300+ yards in back-to-back games since Hodson aired out 438 yards and 381 yards in 1989.
Davey’s play this season has made LSU’s offense second only to mighty Florida for best in the SEC. The Tigers average 314 passing yards a game and 364 yards overall.
How improbable is it that a converted running back and a quarterback that had to battle furiously for the starting position until his senior year are the two that shatter these LSU legends’ records?
If Tiger fans ever did envision a new devastating combo, it’s unlikely they imagined it arriving in this manner. With the underlying patriotic theme in Tiger Stadium Saturday Night, Davey and Reed have truly lived the American dream. It’s not where you start, but where you finish that counts. For these two achievers, they’ve ensured that they will finish on top.