Stepping up

• By RANDY ROSETTA
• Published: Jan 1, 2009 - Page: 1C - UPDATED: 8:33 a.m.

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ATLANTA — Somewhere beneath the surface all along this season, there was a complete game waiting to be untapped by the LSU football team.

A perfect storm of a clicking offense, a stifling defense and game-changing special teams.

The Tigers wandered through 12 games this fall showing a tantalizing glimpse here or there of what they were capable of, just never a complete picture.

That changed resoundingly Wednesday when LSU capped a roller-coaster 2008 season by piecing together a thorough and complete performance to barrel past 14th-ranked Georgia Tech 38-3 at the Georgia Dome in the 41st Chick-fil-A Bowl.

Tailback Charles Scott plowed into the end zone for three short touchdown runs, freshman Jordan Jefferson slammed the door on any doubt of who the quarterback of LSU’s immediate future is with an MVP performance and the Tigers defense never let Tech’s potent offense get in rhythm.

LSU’s special teams also lent a major assist, playing a huge role in four of the Tigers’ five touchdowns, with an onside kick, a fumble recovery on a punt and a salt-in-the-wound fake punt in the fourth quarter.

The end result was LSU’s best performance of the season, and that shouldn’t be a surprise.

Wednesday’s romp was the fourth straight no-doubt bowl victory under Les Miles and this one came when the Tigers were a clear-cut underdog.

It was also delivered in a stadium that LSU has adopted as a home away from home. The Tigers have claimed four Peach/Chick-fil-A Bowl victories at the Georgia Dome since 1996, to go along with three triumphs in four Southeastern Conference Championship Game appearances.

And perhaps it was more fitting that LSU flashed a dominant form again on the final day of a calendar year when it reached the mountain top of college football in the first week with the program’s second BCS National Championship and then spent most of the 2008 season scratching and clawing to stay among the national elite.

The Tigers (8-5) wobbled through November with three losses in their last four games — never fully recovering from a 27-21 overtime loss to No. 1-ranked Alabama — and played themselves out of contention for higher-profile postseason games.

That late-season swoon culminated with a head-scratching 31-30 loss to Arkansas in the last game of the regular season that seemed to signal a team, and maybe a program, in disarray.

Questions about whether there was any chance LSU would be motivated for the Chick-fil-A Bowl were impossible to avoid.