At this time last year, #2 LSU was preparing to meet #1 Ohio State in New Orleans for a showdown at the Superdome with the national championship crown on the line. LSU won, and was preparing to defend its national championship title this year when they lost their quarterback.

Ryan Perriloux was dismissed from the team for violating numerous team rules and the job was up for grabs. During the first games of the season, pocket passer Jarrett Lee and scrambling quarterback Andrew Hatch split playing time in the games but during the Auburn game, Hatch sustained a serious injury and Lee was the starter for the rest of the year.

In one of the latter games in the season, I forget which one (maybe the Ole Miss game), Lee sprained his ankle and true freshman Jordan Jefferson was thrust into the starting role. He will start tonight.

The game, played at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, will be more like a home game to the Yellow Jackets than for the Tigers which could affect LSU. LSU is unranked but they are at their ninth bowl in a row with two championships thrown in for good measure. Kickoff is at 6:30 PM on ESPN and the LSU Sports Radio Network.

Today, the LSU Men’s Basketball team extended its record to 10-1 with a 64-52 win over Washington State at the Pete Maravich Center in Baton Rouge.  Washington State is now 8-4.

Late in the game, LSU was down by 7. Later, leading 53-52, Tigers forward Quintin Thornton made the first of three free throws but the rebound of the second attempt bounced out of bounds after a Cougar touched the ball. On the possesion after, Thornton hit a fall away three pointer to give the Tigers the lead for the rest of the game.

This was LSU’s 13th straight win at the PMAC. LSU has only lost one game this season (at Texas A+M).

LSU is in Atlanta for the Chick-fil-A Bowl which is scheduled for New Years Eve (Wednesday evening). The Tigers will face Georgia Tech is the favorite in the game.

Stay tuned for The Talk In Tigers Town podcast (second edition). COMING SOON!

It was 1988. Death Valley was packed with the LSU faithful, the Tigers needed a win over SEC rival Auburn and a national audience was watching on ESPN. It was the perfect setup for what was about to take place.

The game had been mostly a defensive affair with the score at 6-0 with Auburn leading late in the fourth quarter, until LSU quarterback Tommy Hodson threw a touchdown pass to tailback Eddie Fuller with 1:47 remaining on the game clock.

Complete chaos ensued and the roars of over 70,000 Purple and Gold faithful shook Tigers Stadium, LSU then went on to win the game 7-6.

Donald Stevenson, who worked for the Louisiana Geological Survey in 1988, discovered the seismograph reading after he went to the Howe-Russell Geoscience Complex the day after the game to change the recording charts in the seismic lab.

He noticed the large signal from Saturday night, when he realized that the signal coincided with the touchdown, he labeled the seismogram and posted it in the building for all to see. “I knew it would be of interest to LSU fans after the game. What really amazes me is the interest that seismogram continues to generate so many years later.”

“Initially, I didn’t believe it,” Fuller recalled of first hearing that the crowd noise registered on the seismograph. “I think it took a couple of years for it to sink in. It never dawned on me how big that play was here until years later, when I came back to LSU, I guess the football gods were with us that night.”

As for the memory of the game, those who were there will never forget the experience. “I didn’t feel the ground moving, but sometimes I imagine that I did,” David Russell said, who was at the game. “It’s forever burned into my memory.”

His name is Andrew Hatch and he plays quarterback for LSU. He is competing with Jarrett Lee and Jordan Jefferson for the starting job next season. Most people see that as the end of Hatch’s story, but its not, not even close.

He was born in Henderson, Nevada, the second-largest city in that state and was raised a Mormon in the Church of Latter Day Saints.

While playing high school football, Hatch was recruited heavily by, and eventually committed to, Brigham Young University. He was courted by head coach Gary Crowton, a fellow Mormon.

After three straight losing seasons, Crowton was forced to resign and Hatch lost interest in the program.

Crowton gave his friend, Harvard coach Tim Murphy, a call and encouraged him to pursue the young quarterback. Murphy complied, and soon Hatch was headed for Harvard to wear crimson.

Hatch didn’t set foot on the field during the Harvard season of 2004, and soon after took a leave of absence to go on his Mormon mission trip. 

Members of the Mormon church see going abroad and helping others as sort of a rite of passage, and soon the young Nevada native was headed for the wilds of Chile.Hatch had decided to put others first, ahead of his football career but it would turn out better for him in the end.

“It’s difficult a lot of the time, especially at this stage of your life, to have a chance to focus on something else other than just progressing through school and your career,” he said.

The usual mission lasts about two years, and Hatch decided he had to do what he had to do, and he put football and college life on hold for that amount of time.

But it was not to be so.

After just five months in Chile, Hatch tore up his knee playing another kind of football with a few local kids. Hatch kept about his work for two more months, just dealing with the injury and hoping that it would go away.

“I was hoping I just sprained something and I would walk it off, I was down there just working and doing my thing down there and it really didn’t get better,” he said.

Soon, an MRI revealed the seriousness of the injury and Hatch was headed back to the USA for surgery and Gary Crowton, the former head coach of BYU, made a reappearance in his life.

Crowton was an assistant coach to head coach Les Miles for the Louisiana State University Fightin’ Tigers and he invited Hatch to a camp where Hatch earned a full scholarship to become an LSU Tiger

Now, after suffering a season ending injury against Auburn, Hatch is going to have a hard time making the top of the Tigers’ depth chart. Tigers fans are calling Jarrett Lee the quarterback of the future, when he’s not throwing pick-sixes, and then there’s Jordan Jefferson, who has looked pretty good here at the end of the season.

But one thing is for sure, Hatch is at LSU for a reason, and I believe that in the end, the best man will win.

GEAUX TIGERS!

LSU Remains Unbeaten

The LSU men’s basketball team rallied late in the game against Nicholls State University last night to remain unbeated. The final score was 68-56. It was the 71st straight win for the Tigers at the PMAC against an in-state team.

LSU men’s basketball is 7-0, Nicholls State men’s basketball is 6-3 on the season. LSU has won 14 straight against the Colonels. The Tiger hoops team will play 5 games in the next 15 days to round out the 2008 portion of the schedule.

In other news, LSU offensive lineman Herman Johnson was named a first team All-American by the AP.

Listed at 6-feet-7, 351 pounds, the Olla, La., native is called, “The House,” by his teammates and is famous for being the heaviest baby recorded in Louisiana birth records. He was also a first team SEC guard following his junior year in 2007 and seems certain to play on Sunday’s next season after the NFL draft.

Here is some video highlights of future LSU quarterback Russell Shepard, you decide if he’ll be a star for the Purple and Gold someday. And make sure not to miss our new vidcast, “The Talk of Tigers Town” which is coming soon. Stay tuned.

Now that LSU’s regular season is over, lets check up on the rookies that we sent to the NFL last year, the players that gave LSU a national championship. First up, Jacob Hester. We all knew that Hester could score in college but could he score in the NFL? The answer is yes. Hester is now San Diego’s backup fullback.
    

After a disappointing 7-5 season, the LSU Tigers will at least go bowling. They will play the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in the Chick-Fil-A Bowl on New Years Eve. The Yellow Jackets went 9-5 in regular season play and this will be the first time that the Chick-Fil-A Bowl has hosted a defending national champion. This will be the ninth year in a row in which the Tigers have appeared in a bowl game.

The Yellow Jackets have already beaten two SEC teams this year (Georgia and Mississippi State) and are trying to go 3-0 against SEC teams this season.

In the meantime, check out this video from the 2007 season. Check back for updates on the Tigers on the field as well as on the court.