Battle of wills

• By GARY LANEY
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Nov 4, 2009 - Page: 1C

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Among the lasting images from LSU’s 2007 game at Alabama is one of Chad Jones blitzing and sacking Crimson Tide quarterback John Parker Wilson, forcing a fumble that Curtis Taylor recovered to set up the Tigers’ winning touchdown of a 41-34 win.

 

So much has changed since then.

Jones, then a nickel back who sacked Wilson twice that day on blitzes, said he can’t remember blitzing this season as the Tigers’ starting free safety. And, he noted, with a smile, “I don’t think I’ll be able to hit John Parker Wilson again.”

That’s because Wilson’s career at Alabama is done. But it doesn’t mean what LSU will see Saturday in Tuscaloosa will be much different from what one expects from a Crimson Tide team under Nick Saban.

You take out Wilson, an efficient game manager, and replace him with Greg McElroy, who largely fills the same role in the Alabama offense. And like past Saban-coached Alabama teams, this team leans on a physical running game. Only now it’s better — so good, it might produce the program’s first Heisman Trophy winner.

Running back Mark Ingram, a bruiser who has already surpassed the 1,000-yard mark with a third of the regular-season schedule still in front of the 8-0 Tide, is the leader in the Heisman race in a poll of Heisman voters taken this week by Heismanpundit.com.

LSU’s defense, meanwhile, is rapidly improving under first-year defensive coordinator John Chavis. In two games since its open week, the Tigers have allowed one touchdown — a meaningless score on the game’s last offensive snap by Auburn — and 138 rushing yards in two games.

“They’re a great defense,” Ingram said of LSU. “Run around, get to the ball, athletic. Got a tough test.”

That will make for an interesting matchup — a physical, run-oriented Alabama offense against an on-the-rise, physical LSU defense. It’s sort of a strength-on-strength battle of wills.

“They run a conventional, pro-style offense,” LSU defensive tackle Charles Alexander said. “And that’s the kind of game we like to play.”

The physical Crimson Tide offensive identity may be best personified by Ingram, a stocky 212-pounder that LSU linebacker Kelvin Sheppard compares to Auburn’s Ben Tate, saying “he has that physical style where he can run downhill, break tackles, but still have the ability to get out on the edge.”

But make no mistake, the physical mind-set starts with Saban.