BATON ROUGE — Kyle Williams said he could have played the game on Monday he was so excited about facing third-ranked Alabama. Talk to any LSU football player or fan and they’ll tell you it’s been a long week here in TigerTown in anticipation of the game against the Crimson Tide.
The fact of the matter is simple. LSU hasn’t been involved in a regular season contest featuring two top five ranked teams since the days of Billy Cannon. In 1959, Cannon returned a punt 89 yards for a touchdown, a won the Heisman Trophy somewhere along the way, in leading top-ranked LSU to a 7-3 win over third-ranked Ole Miss in Tiger Stadium.
While there may not be any Heisman Trophy winners coming out of Saturday’s showdown between LSU and Alabama, there is a great deal at stake. Consider that an Alabama (9-0 overall and 6-0 in SEC action) victory puts the Crimson Tide in the SEC Championship Game and perhaps keeps them within striking distance of Texas and Southern Cal for a spot in the national title game.
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LSU, on the other hand, still controls its destiny in the SEC Western Division. The Tigers, winners of six straight, are 4-1 overall with games against the Crimson Tide, Ole Miss and Arkansas remaining.
Kickoff for the most publicized college football game this weekend is set for 2:30 p.m. at a sold out Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa. The game will be televised to a national audience by CBS.
Saturday’s game could boil down to which team scores. Both teams bring defenses into the contest that are ranked among the best in the nation. Alabama is allowing just over eight points per game, while the Tigers are holding opponents to only 13 points a contest. Alabama hasn’t allowed a touchdown in 15-plus quarters, while the Tigers have kept the opposition out of the end zone for 8-plus quarters. This indeed should be a defensive battle.
“It’s obvious that this is why you come to a school like LSU, Alabama, Florida or Tennessee, to play in really big football games list this,” Williams said. “There are not many schools in the country that can say they had a match up where the No. 4 and No. 5 teams in the country played and had their division lead at stake in the game. It is definitely something that you are thinking about when you are picking a school.”
“We look forward to Alabama,” said Coach Les Miles. “This is a game that has been looming on the horizon for some time. I think our kids are excited about it and look forward to playing our best opponent, and certainly Alabama could be that.
“We have stressed (this week in practice) that we need to do the things that make an offense move the football like no negative plays, scramble for yards, rushing the football and making sure we put the ball where it’s supposed to be when we throw it. On the defensive side, we need to stop (Kenneth) Darby and give up no big plays in the passing game. Special teams need to continue to be a plus for us.”
The Tigers will be on the road for one more week after the Alabama game facing Ole Miss in Oxford, Nov. 19 in a 6:45 p.m. game to be televised by either ESPN or ESPN2.