BATON ROUGE, La. — As Les Miles’ latest stab at fourth-down trickery was about to unfold, the LSU coach bent down, snatched up some blades of grass — and ate them.
“I have a little tradition that humbles me as a man, that lets me know that I’m a part of the field and part of the game,” Miles said as a smile widened on his face.
DeAngelo Peterson went 23 yards with a reverse on fourth-and-1 to set up Stevan Ridley’s go-ahead 1-yard plunge in the fourth quarter, and No. 12 LSU held on for a 24-21 upset of fifth-ranked Alabama on Saturday.
The victory added to Miles’ growing resume of audacious fourth-down conversions — the most recent a fake field goal to set up a winning TD at Florida. Miles argued that his play- calling isn’t always as risky as it seems.
“We practice these things. It’s not a grab bag,” said Miles, who called timeout before running the play. “This play looked to be there, and it was prepared extremely well by our team and it would have been a mistake not to call it.”
The triumphant result inspired players to give Miles the game ball and brought roars of approval from fans that for now should drown out any critics still longing for the days when Nick Saban coached LSU.
The victory came at Saban’s expense and likely knocked Alabama (7-2, 4-2 SEC) out of contention for a second straight national championship. Now the Crimson Tide will need LSU (8-1, 5-1) to lose twice and Georgia to beat Auburn just to have a shot to repeat as SEC West champions.
LSU twice rallied from second-half deficits, the first time on a 75-yard touchdown pass from Jordan Jefferson to Rueben Randle, who also hauled in a 47-yarder by Jarrett Lee to convert a crucial third down in the final minutes.
That allowed the Tigers to keep the ball until only 24 seconds remained and hold on to a three-point lead that seemed tenuous after the Tide had marched 74 yards in only 2:04 to pull within a field goal on Greg McElroy’s 9-yard pass to Julio Jones with 3:23 left.
“I don’t think there’s an excuse. They beat us. They really did,” McElroy said. “They did a great job.”
