Swagger back

• By RANDY ROSETTA
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Oct 8, 2009 - Page: 1C

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When LSU running back Charles Scott heard his quarterback state the case to give him the ball one more time Saturday in the closing minute  at Georgia, it didn’t take long for one thought to pop into his head.

“Time to make a play,” Scott said. “If they were going to give me the ball in that situation, that’s what they expected me to do.”

Seems the power of positive thinking works once in a while.

Scott got the ball and ran to daylight to lift the No. 4-ranked Tigers to a stirring 20-13 win. The last 33 yards looked almost too easy behind the blocks of left tackle Ciron Black, tight end Richard Dickson and center T-Bob Hebert. But the rest of the day against the Bulldogs was vintage Scott, with one battering run after another wearing the defense down and making the next tackle that much less appealing.

Scott ran the ball a season-high 19 times against Georgia — six times in the first quarter for 31 yards, five times in the second quarter for nine, only once in the third and seven times in the final period. He finished with 95 yards.

Until the 33-yard blast, only two of Scott’s runs went as far as 9 yards. Instead he pounded away at the Bulldogs defensive line and linebackers and occasionally made the secondary come up and make a tackle.

Scott was more Scott-like, more “Chuck the Truck” after a four-game start to his senior season when he tallied just 179 yards. He was coming off a Mississippi State game when he gained 15 yards on eight carries.

And he wasn’t happy.

“I just played all out,” Scott said. “I wanted to be relentless. It was kind of like I was mad and playing with controlled rage.”

His edgy attitude was contagious with the group he needs to have success. With Scott running as hard and as well as he has all season, the LSU offensive line responded with its best run blocking of the season.

Not in terms of statistics. But the swagger was back, thanks in large part to Scott’s 235-pound presence.

“I think our offense has confidence in Charles Scott,” LSU coach Les Miles said. “I think our offense has confidence in the ability to run the football. We just needed to do it and put it together. I think that’s a piece that we can’t lose. We can’t lose sight of it, and it must continue to grow, but I don’t know that Charles needed that. I can tell you that his team needed him to have that day.”

No argument from the offensive line, who seemed to relish every bruising Scott run. He plowed into the end zone on the ground for the first time all season on a 2-yard blast early in the fourth quarter to trigger an exchange of three touchdowns in 2:07.