Friday, November 23, 2001

The Natchez Democrat

LSU win over ‘Hogs sets up title showdown next week

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BATON ROUGE – For the LSU Tigers, it’s all about the here and

now.

If they don’t take care of business against the Arkansas Razorbacks

in Tiger Stadium today, there won’t be too much need to worry

about the Dec. 1 showdown with the Auburn Tigers.

Kickoff for today’s game, which will be televised on CBS, is

set for 1:30 p.m.

The winner of Arkansas (7-3, 4-3 SEC) vs. LSU (6-3, 3-3) is

still very much in the hunt for a spot in the SEC championship

game. If Arkansas wins and LSU beats Auburn next week, the Razorbacks

will represent the Western Division.

If LSU beats Arkansas and Auburn, the Tigers are in.

”When you have opportunities like this, you don’t want to

look at the top of the mountain, you look at the next step, or

it can be very treacherous,” LSU Coach Nick Saban told the Associated

Press Wednesday evening.

Former Southern Miss and current Arkansas defensive coordinator

John Thompson will be charged with slowing down the red hot Tiger

quarterback Rohan Davey and running back LaBrandon Toefield.

Toefield paces the LSU running attack with 15 touchdowns thus

far.

Early in the season, SEC experts would not have pegged this

as one of the biggest games in the Western Division.LSU started

0-2 in the league, and Arkansas lost its first three league games.

”I think that at every turn, if you look back throughout the

season, the team that has all of a sudden started thinking about

winning the division based on the position that they were in,

went out and lost their next game,” Saban said that has happened

to plenty of would-be Western Division contenders.

”Arkansas is playing as well as anybody in our league right

now. We have enough of a challenge to just win this game.”

The ‘Hogs have won six straight, including 24-21 over Mississippi

State last week.