LSU's 2007 Season: The Most Exciting of All Time?

Has a team ever had a more exciting season than LSU has had this year?

The Tigers beat Florida after trailing 24-14 in the fourth quarter and after going for and making three fourth-downs in the final 11 minutes of the game. The Tigers beat Auburn on a 22 yard touchdown pass with one second to go, when a bobble or a sack would have meant the end of the game and no chance for a field goal.

The Tigers beat Alabama after hitting a 32 yard fourth down pass to tie the game, and then a minute later getting a sack and a fumble that set up the winning touchdown.   And that’s just the games LSU won.

The Tigers lost two triple overtime games that took longer to play than most novels take to read. They also had more exciting endings than most novels. In both games, the opposing defenses (Arkansas and Kentucky’s) prevented the Tigers from getting the game-tying points with big stops. Some bad luck here and there and LSU could be 7-5 rather than 10-2.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

LSU showed guts and moxie to pull the wins out. I’m not here to belittle the Tigers for not blowing out every opponent like some commentators seem to think elite teams should do. I’m only pointing out that while LSU fans may not feel so lucky—they know that with a little good luck their talented team would be 12-0 and be playing in the National Championship game—they have had the opportunity to follow fun players like Glenn Dorsey, Craig Steltz, Jacob Hester, and Early Doucet and to watch a coach with a gambling, go-for-broke, I-believe-in-my-players mentality.

The season’s been intense and highly memorable, even if disappointing. In fact, the SEC has a seen a lot of fantastic games this year. It’s been wild—from Alabama’s throwing the winning touchdown pass with eight seconds to go after a stirring Hogs comeback, to Auburn’s gutsy win at Florida Field in which the War Eagles kicked the game-winning boot—twice, infamously.

Add in two other great OT games in Georgia and Alabama, along with Kentucky and Tennessee, and it’s been great year for SEC football.

Seeing OT at the end of a score on your screen crawler suggests that you missed a great game if you didn’t see it, but the twists and turns of these games has given them an epic feel, not the least because of their length-four hours plus sometimes. Still, these games have been draining, in the best sense. 

When the media says that the SEC is the best conference in the country maybe what it really means is that the quality of play is the best. The atmosphere in the stadiums, the talented players, the coaches and the fans contribute to an experience that is unmatched in college football.

No setting in any sport is more telegenic than an SEC stadium on one of those 3:30 CBS national telecasts that begins in the afternoon and ends at night. Between the noise and the hitting, the speed on the field and the intensity in the stands, it’s great theater. Not much solace for LSU, but that’s the way it goes.

It’s a burden to play in the SEC, but it’s a privilege too. It’s hard to shunt the feeling that LSU is the best team in the country. It just feels like they are. But they couldn’t survive week in and week out. They beat Tim Tebow and fired-up Auburn and Alabama teams, but they couldn’t get past Darren McFadden and Andre Woodson. That might have made for a disappointing season.

Boring though, it wasn’t.