BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -LSU has had no trouble beating Vanderbilt at Tiger Stadium during the last half century.
The Commodores have emerged triumphant from the stadium known as Death Valley only once – ever – and that was back in 1951.
“The only thing I can say is that we have to go down there anyway, so lets make the most of it,” Vanderbilt coach Bobby Johnson said this week. “A lot of our guys have played in big stadiums. It is going to be tough like all the rest of them are.”
Vanderbilt hasn’t beaten LSU on any field in 19 years, and that trend is expected to hold true when the Commodores (1-0) visit the 11th-ranked Tigers (1-0) in both teams’ Southeastern Conference opener on Saturday night. LSU is a two-touchdown favorite.
ouncing of Western Carolina last weekend.
In fact, Miles took a moment to summarize aloud some of Vanderbilt’s defensive accomplishments, noting the Commodores didn’t allow Western Carolina one third-down conversion on 13 tries, allowed only four first downs in all and forced four turnovers.
“So Vanderbilt’s starters executed at a very high level,” Miles said. “That team is well-coached and is always in position to make plays.”
After reviewing video of Vanderbilt game action, LSU running back Charles Scott added, “You look across the board and you don’t have the fastest guy, you don’t have the biggest guy, but you have guys as a unit that are well-coached and they play great as a unit.
“They play hard and you can tell they have a passion for what they’re doing,” Scott continued. “I expect a great challenge with this defense. We’re going to challenge ourselves … to step it up a notch and turn it up on offense so we can match their intensity.”
The SEC has long been a hostile environment for relatively small, private universities like Vanderbilt. Those schools rarely have the enormous fan base and booster backing of public universities like, say, Tennessee or LSU.
Tulane, for example, struggled to keep up for years and left the SEC decades ago. Vanderbilt, however, has stuck with it and endured mostly losing seasons as a result.
bby Johnson though. Last season, Vandy opened 5-0, including a victory over Auburn. With a 4-4 record in the SEC, highlighted by a win at Mississippi, the Commodores finished 7-6 overall for their first winning season since 1982.
“I don’t know if we caught people off guard” last season, cornerback Myron Lewis said. “We played team ball and … prepared to win. This is a new year, new season. We’ve got bigger and better players and we’re ready to play.”
Shutting out Western Carolina, a Football Championship Subdivision team, is one thing. Stopping an offense featuring quarterback Jordan Jefferson, Scott and receivers Brandon LaFell and Terrance Toliver is another.
LSU players and coaches were unhappy with their performance at Washington last week, when the Tigers had a number of short, fruitless drives, were dominated in time of possession and ran only 48 plays. LSU’s offense still scored 24 points in a 31-23 win.
Toliver, a top-rated recruit coming out of high school in Texas, finally began to fulfill his promise in his first game as a junior, catching touchdown passes of 45 and 39 yards, faking defenders to the turf each time after the catch.
“That was the best game of my career. I was just ready to go out there and make some plays this year,” said Toliver, who is 6-foot-5, 206 pounds. “I knew Brandon LaFell was going to be double- and triple-teamed this year, so that’s what I wanted to do.”
After Toliver burned one-on-one coverage a few times, Washington switched to zone, and LaFell got loose for LSU’s final touchdown pass.
Vanderbilt, meanwhile, had tremendous success with its no-huddle offense last weekend, putting up 620 yards, 433 on the ground. Freshmen running backs Zac Stacy and Warren Norman each rushed for more than 100 yards.
Of course, the no-huddle is easier to run in front of a home crowd that usually quiets down as needed. At Tiger Stadium, quarterback Larry Smith figures a crowd of 92,000 or so will be trying to drown out his calls on the line.
“I know I’m going to have to use my real, real loud voice this week,” Smith said.
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