Rosetta: Comeback could be used as springboard

• By RANDY ROSETTA
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Nov 16, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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By the time a picture-perfect crisp Sunday afternoon turned into another cool evening in Baton Rouge, LSU coach Les Miles was still jacked up.

Maybe he had stayed up all night, looking over a game tape that couldn’t have been more different from one half to the next, and he was at that point where you wind up a little goofy from being awake so long.

Or maybe it was just the adrenaline rush left over from the Tigers’ unthinkable back-from-the-dead 40-31 triumph over Troy the night before.

Having been on the unenviable other side of an unlikely comeback when he was at Oklahoma State, there’s no question Miles appreciates what his team did Saturday night.

“I sure did enjoy the way that team responded,” Miles said. “It tested the reserve, and there’s plenty of reserve in this tank. These guys will fight.”

Soak it in slowly again. Understand the unlikelihood and significance.

Down 31-3 to the underdog Trojans — who for 2 1/2 quarters played as well as any opponent has this season at Tiger Stadium — LSU barreled to 37 unanswered points, all in the final 16 1/2 minutes.

How about this for perspective: Those 37 points are more than the Tigers had managed to score in all but one of their previous seven games.

Now what remains to be seen and what could become a huge factor in the final two chapters of LSU’s 2008 season is how do the Tigers respond from their biggest rally in the modern era?

1. When LSU plays like it did over the final quarter and a half, it can go blow-for-blow with anybody in the country. With erratic quarterback Jarrett Lee comfortable and clicking and the Tigers defense suffocating the opposing offense, LSU deserves a spot in the discussion of teams that occupy the penthouse of college football.

2. If the Tigers perform like they did in the first half and first two possessions of the third quarter, they barely scratch the surface of ordinary. The thought of LSU playing that way in the Cotton Bowl against Texas Tech, Texas or Oklahoma is more chilling than the temperatures were Saturday night at Tiger Stadium.

Miles is eternally optimistic and he had the inspiration — and let’s be honest, the final score didn’t hurt — to be that way Sunday.