By Brett Martel
AP Sports Writer
BATON ROUGE — Adjusting to a new coach turned out to be among the least of LSU’s problems last season. The Tigers went 11-2 in their first season under Les Miles, playing through the heartache and chaos that came when hurricanes Katrina and Rita slammed into Louisiana’s Gulf Coast.
“What this football team had been through, the change in schedule, two hurricanes, in my opinion, gave great example to overcoming obstacles and really coming together,” Miles said. “The best thing you can say about the ’05 team is it was selfless. They had great leadership and great character. I hope this ’06 team saw and understood the example that the ’05 team was.”
This year No. 8 LSU, with another well-stocked team, hopes to keep its attention fixed solely on football.
Miles has some key players left over from last year’s resilient squad though he may have too much depth at quarterback behind JaMarcus Russell.
There’s experience at receiver in Dwayne Bowe and Early Doucet as well as at running back with Justin Vincent and Alley Broussard.
And on defense, safety LaRon Landry, who easily could have turned pro in 2006, decided to rejoin Jesse Daniels in LSU’s secondary.
“We have a great core nucleus of a football team,” Miles says. “We feel like we can play and win every game that’s on our schedule.”
That schedule has eight games at home in Death Valley, starting with a Sept. 2 season opener against Louisiana-Lafayette.
The four road games will all be challenging: LSU visits Auburn, Florida and Tennessee for the first time in the same season, then finishes its regular season schedule at Arkansas.
“Everybody talks about the road games that we have to play,” Miles says. “If you’re going to be a champion, you’re going to have to win road games. We’re not going to avoid who we play or where we play them.”
The hot topic in the preseason has been who should play quarterback. Russell was the starter last season, but a separated shoulder and wrist injury kept him out of the Peach Bowl. Replacement Matt Flynn hardly looked like a backup in a 40-3 blow out of the Miami Hurricanes. He completed 13 of 22 passes for 196 yards and two touchdowns.
Behind Russell and Flynn is Ryan Perrilloux, a former south Louisiana high school star who came to LSU as one of the top quarterback recruits in the nation.
Miles has listed Russell as first-string so far, but leaves himself some flexibility, even discussing the possibility of rotating quarterbacks during games, depending on the situation.
“JaMarcus has taken our first snaps, but we will let competition play out,” Miles said. “We will have a good quarterback. I promise you.”
In making the job Russell’s to lose, Miles is entrusting his team with a 6-foot-6, 260-pounder who was 10-2 as a starter as a sophomore. Russell threw for 2,443 yards, 15 touchdowns and nine interceptions last season. And he showed poise in the clutch, starting with a hurricane-delayed season opener that was moved from Baton Rouge to Arizona State. LSU completed a dramatic 35-31 comeback in that game when Russell, while rolling out of the pocket, found Doucet with a 39-yard touchdown pass on a fourth-and-10 play with about a minute remaining.
Russell also led LSU to overtime victories over Auburn and Alabama as well as a fourth-quarter comeback over Florida.
Miles also wants to run the ball better, and he’s relying on Vincent to regain the form of his 2003 freshman season, when he rushed for 1,001 yards after early season injuries to older players forced him into a starting role. His production has fallen off the past two seasons, although he improved during the latter half of 2005, rushing for 343 yards and five touchdowns in LSU’s final six regular season games.
“I have tremendous goals for myself, but I definitely want to make sure this team wins ball games before anything,” Vincent said. “I have never been on a losing ball club and I definitely don’t want to start now.”
On defense, there will be mostly new faces up front with the departures of Claude Wroten, Kyle Williams and end Melvin Oliver. Miles also must pick two linebackers to replace Kenneth Hollis and Cameron Vaughn. But the backfield appears sound.
“The secondary is veteran and it just seems that they know where they are supposed to be,” Miles said. “It is difficult to pick at a very cohesive secondary group with Landry and Jessie Daniels at safeties and (Jonathan) Zenon and Chevis Jackson at corners.”