• By RANDY ROSETTA
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Nov 28, 2009

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In a decade when LSU has established a niche among the powers of college football, there haven’t been many times the Tigers could take an us-against-the-world approach.

It’s hard to do so when you’re the hunted instead of the hunter.

Today, though, LSU finds itself playing role reversal when the 17th-ranked Tigers wrap up the regular season against Arkansas at 6 p.m. in Tiger Stadium.

Not so much as an underdog, but as a team and program that needs to restore some luster.

A team whose coach has drawn a torrent of criticism after a public and costly meltdown marred by botched play-calling and time mismanagement.

A group of players, headlined by 24 seniors making their final appearance at Tiger Stadium, who have to come out to re-prove they have enough fight to claim a spot in the Cotton Bowl, and a subsequent chance to finish a fourth season in five years with 10 wins or more.

Them against the world, including an Arkansas team that would love to wrestle that Cotton Bowl spot away from LSU.

“We’re the type of team that if you back us in the corner, we’re going to come out fighting,” sixth-year senior defensive tackle Charles Alexander said. “We know how to pull together when we need to.”

Added cornerback Patrick Peterson, “We’ve just got to come out and fight, period.”

No better time than the present.

After climbing into the national championship hunt, LSU (8-3, 4-3 Southeastern Conference) has dropped two of its last three games and struggled in the other to hold off Louisiana Tech.

The eerie resemblances to last season, when the Tigers unraveled down the stretch and finished the regular season 7-5, are impossible to ignore.

“It would be real easy right now for the team to hang our heads, and I kind of felt like we did that last year,” Stevan Ridley said. “We’ve just got to move forward and be excited about playing this last night in Tiger Stadium and then go from there.”