BATON ROUGE — LSU will always be the 2003 national champions of college football. As a result, the Tigers will not be defending their national title when they kickoff the 2004 season against Oregon State. Instead, the 2004 season offers a new challenge along with a new mountain to climb, for the third-ranked Tigers.
Kickoff for Saturday’s contest is set for 5:07 p.m. in a sold-out Tiger Stadium. ESPN will be on hand to bring all the action to a national audience. The game will mark the sixth consecutive sellout for the Tigers in Baton Rouge.
The first step along the new course for LSU will be an Oregon State team that is coming off an 8-5 record in 2003, which includes a 55-14 win over New Mexico in the Las Vegas Bowl. The Beavers from Corvallis, Ore., feature a squad that averaged 33 points and over 460 yards of offense a game a year ago.
“I don’t think there’s any doubt about when you come off of the success that you’ve had that you really try to get your team to focus on what’s happening now, what their challenges are ahead,” LSU coach Nick Saban said earlier this week. “We’ve tried to establish that by talking about this is a new mountain we have to climb, we planted the flag last year but that’s over and done with. It’s history. Even though everybody says we’re defending something, I only view it as you defend what you can lose. I don’t think we can lose the 2003 national championship.
“It’s all about this mountain that we have to climb, the challenges of this season, about us having the right disposition about doing that. Now, if we’re satisfied about what we accomplished last year, then we’re not going to be ready for the climb.”
Youth is something that the Tigers will have plenty of in 2004 as the LSU depth chart features only six senior starters, while 28 freshmen and sophomores are listed on the two-deep.
“I think this team has got to prove, and this is an opportunity for them to prove like I said on Monday, what kind of competitive spirit they really have. I think younger players are a little less consistent than older mature guys, and there are some things that younger players can’t learn until they play in the game.”
Among the senior starters for the Tigers include defensive All-Americas in Marcus Spears and Corey Webster. Webster ranks second in school history with 14 career interceptions, while Spears has 10 sacks and 103 tackles for his career. Webster, along with senior Travis Daniels, team to give the Tigers arguably one of the nation’s best cornerback tandems.
Offensively, the Tigers will rely on the play of senior quarterback Marcus Randall, who will be making his first start since the Cotton Bowl contest against Texas to cap the 2002 season. Randall has thrown for 1,583 yards and nine touchdowns during his 22-game LSU career.
“I think (Marcus) has offered a lot of stability to the other players on the team,” Saban said. “He’s executed very well, and he hasn’t made a lot of mistakes. We feel good about that. We’ve got to get some of the people playing around him to play with a little more consistency. It usually takes a little longer to get that developed on offense, especially when you’ve got some younger players at key positions, but that’s what we’re basically trying to do. We’ve been very pleased with Marcus and what he’s done.”
The LSU running back will be led by sophomore Justin Vincent, who rushed for an LSU freshman record 1,001 yards in 2003. Sophomore Alley Broussard and junior Joseph Addai will also see action in the backfield for LSU on Saturday, giving the Tigers a talented and deep backfield to go against an Oregon State defense that yielded only 84.4 yards rushing a contest in 2003.
The Tiger offensive line, led by a pair of preseason All-Americas in senior center Ben Wilkerson and junior left tackle Andrew Whitworth, returns three starters from a unit that paved the way for a unit that averaged 185 yards rushing in 2003.