Joseph Schiefelbein for Nov. 22

• By JOSEPH SCHIEFELBEIN
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Nov 22, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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The only player to have won two national titles at LSU wants to shake the hands of the men who won the title in 1958.

“I would love to meet Mr. Cannon and some of the other greats, being that they’re true legends here at LSU,” defensive end Kirston Pittman said.

“It means something to me. Just to meet some of those guys, to be able to shake those guys’ hands, the guys who laid the foundation.”

• Pittman, closing his sixth season at the school and member of the 2003 and ’07 national title teams, will be one of 20 seniors honored.

• The 1958 national championship team, with College Football Hall of Fame inductee Billy Cannon, will have its 50th anniversary saluted all weekend.

• And for icing, Ole Miss, so much the storied rival from the 1950s into the 1970s, is in town, with both teams preening for the Cotton Bowl, at 2:30 p.m. today in front of a CBS audience.

Though there has been little interaction between the current Tigers and the gold-standard Tigers, there is still respect.

These players, like the 1958 players, drop sweat on the same field that saw Cannon’s punt return in 1959 and was surrounded by an earthquake-like response against Auburn in 1988 and was stormed after an upset of top-ranked Florida in 1997.

Said left tackle Ciron Black, “They’ll never be forgotten, of course. You look every other day at the banner (in the football complex). 1958. That was the first national championship. You never forget it. You can’t. … They paved the way. It’s, ‘Hey, LSU can do this. LSU is somebody. LSU is a powerhouse.’”

Said defensive tackle Marlon Favorite, “They mean a lot to me. … Those guys set the tone for us. Being on a national title team last year, you think of the historical teams. It’s a kinship. There’s a chemistry. Those are guys you look at as LSU Tigers for life.”

Said running back Charles Scott, “They’ve been in our position. They started all this around here. You have to look at them with respect.”

That the 1958 team has now had to share the stage in fans’ eyes with the program’s two national titles this decade does not diminish the legacy. Titans then, titans now.

“Every guy who walks through here has a pride,” said Scott, who has met Cannon at a function. “We look at those guys like those are the originals. They started it. We have a lot of respect for those guys. They shouldn’t feel irrelevant at all.”

The reverse, in fact, has happened.

Said Lynn LeBlanc, the White Team’s left tackle, “It’s included us again. We were kind of forgotten a little bit. … It’s nice to be recognized again.”