• By RANDY ROSETTA
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Oct 12, 2008 - UPDATED: 7:30 a.m.

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Talented team with lofty aspirations, desperate for a victory after a frustrating setback that nobody saw coming, at least not like this.

That was a suitable description of Florida before Saturday’s Southeastern Conference tussle with LSU at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.

Now that same unwelcome and unsavory depiction will hover over the Tigers like a gloomy cloud for the next six days.

Jacked up by an electric crowd at The Swamp and with a variety of Gators proving they aren’t anywhere close to a one-man band, Florida barreled past LSU 51-21.

Of course, the leader of the band wasn’t too shabby either on a night when the Tigers absorbed their worst loss of the Les Miles era, a tougher-to-swallow clunker than a 34-14 loss to Georgia in the 2005 SEC Championship Game.

When it was mercifully over for LSU, Gators coach Urban Meyer jogged triumphantly off the field, pumping his arms to the remaining Swamp faithful after his team handed the Tigers their worst loss since a 31-0 shellacking at the hands of Alabama in 2002.

No. 4-ranked LSU (4-1, 2-1 SEC) trudged out of the finally quiet stadium with its first loss of the season and national championship chatter muffled, but perhaps not completely dead on a day when two other top-five teams tumbled.

The 11th-ranked Gators, meanwhile, chomped right back into the title hunt behind a steady, workmanlike effort from reigning Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow and a suffocating defensive effort, buoyed by middle linebacker Brandon Spikes two interceptions.

“We played a very talented team (Saturday) that executed extremely well,” LSU coach Les Miles said. “We spotted them 20 points in the first half and really never got out of that hole.”

That hole opened quickly, grew to 17 points before the first quarter ended and was 20-0 before the Tigers finally began to push back.

LSU dug itself into a deep hole with an abysmal first quarter, when the defense had no solution to Tebow and an offense clicking on all cylinders.

The Gators drew blood on the third snap from scrimmage when Tebow uncoiled for a long pass to speedy Percy Harvin, who was downfield with LSU’s Danny McCray in one-on-one coverage.

McCray swatted Tebow’s floating pass, but it ricocheted right into Harvin’s hands and he criss-crossed the field for a 70-yard catch-and-run, the longest play surrendered by the Tigers this season.