(Football) LSU Wants USC

BATON ROUGE "" Bring on USC.

No. 8 LSU drowned another Pac-10 conference team Saturday night while
barely getting its feet wet, drubbing Arizona 45-3 in front of 92,221
at Tiger Stadium for its ninth straight win over non-USC, Pac-10
teams.

The Wildcats stomped on the eye of the Tiger and Arizona coach Mike
Stoops spit on it at midfield shortly before the game, but the Tigers
never blinked and ran over Arizona so quickly that if you blinked you
missed it.

"I don't know why they did that," said LSU fullback/tailback Jacob
Hester, who caught a 5-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter for a
17-0 lead. "It didn't do anything but fire us up. I was telling one of
the guys, the last two teams that did that lost 45-3."

LSU coaches said Louisiana-Lafayette players did the same thing before
the game last week. They did not, but that also fired up LSU to a 45-3
win in the opener.

Cornerback Jonathan Zenon was also inspired by the midfield tap dance.
After a 21-yard field goal by Colt David on LSU's first drive put the
Tigers up 3-0, Zenon intercepted Arizona quarterback Willie Tuitama's
third pass of the game and returned it 41 yards for a touchdown and
10-0 lead with 7:44 to go in the first quarter.

"They really did stomp on our eye this time," said Zenon, who also
returned an interception for a touchdown early in the game last week.
"They disrespected us. You do that at our house, and it gives you more
fire than you had before."

Arizona's B.J. Dennard fumbled the ensuing kickoff after a hit by
Jason Spadoni, and Lafayette's Jacob Cutrera recovered at the
Wildcats' 18. After two plays, LSU quarterback JaMarcus Russell hit
Hester for the 5-yard score, and it was 17-0 with 6:17 to play in the
opening period.

Arizona coach Mike Stoops said his team does that all the time after
catching punts at the 50.

"But maybe we'll change that," he said. "We turned the ball over twice
in the first five or six minutes of the game and put ourselves in the
hole. They have great balance across the board on their team. There's
no weaknesses when you play LSU."

The lead stretched to 24-0 early in the second quarter on a 17-yard
run by tailback Alley Broussard, who also converted a third-and-two
play into a first down with a punishing 8-yard run in which he broke
one tackle and rammed a defensive back for a few extra yards before
going down.

Broussard finished with 38 yards on eight carries. Charles Scott led
the way with 47 on four carries as the Tigers totaled 231 on the
ground and 230 passing. Arizona (1-1) totaled 152 yards and had
players tumbling and getting knocked around all night.

"I suspect there's some bumps and bruises on that Arizona team," LSU
coach Les Miles said. "They couldn't handle our pass rush. They
couldn't rush the ball on us."

LSU led 24-0 at the half and had out-gained Arizona 220 yards to 28,
even though ESPN GameDay announcer Kirk Herbstreit said Saturday
morning that Arizona would be in the game in the fourth quarter.

Instead, the Wildcats netted just minus 16 rushing yards on 11 carries
in the first half and finished with 35 on 21 tries.

The last Pac-10 team to beat LSU was No. 1 USC, 17-12, in 1979.
Arizona became LSU's fourth victim in four seasons, starting with a
59-13 win over Arizona in 2004 and followed by narrow wins over Oregon
State in 2004 and Arizona State in 2005 on the road. The Southeastern
Conference went to 3-1 this season against the Pac-10 and to 55-29-5
all time for a winning percentage of .654.

Tennessee knocked off then-No. 13 California 35-18 a week ago, and
Auburn walloped Washington State 40-14 while Arkansas was losing 50-15
to USC, which played for national championships the last three
seasons, winning it all in 2004 and sharing the title with LSU in
2003.

"I don't know if we'll see a whole bunch of teams better than that
(LSU)," Stoops said. "I don't see us playing anything like that week
in and week out."

LSU is actually working to play USC.

"We'd like to play USC to prove what should have been proved 2 years
ago, we're the better team," said LSU associate athletic director
Verge Ausberry, who is charge of scheduling now with the departure of
former associated athletic director Dan Radakovich to the athletic
director's position at Georgia Tech. "We've talked to USC and to UCLA.
There may be something down the road, but it will be difficult to get
USC."

Stanford was also approached but declined a visit to Death Valley,
Ausberry said.

LSU scored midway in the third quarter on a 28-yard touchdown run by
Hester for a 31-0 lead as the rout continued. The Tigers breezed 61
yards in five plays for the score.

After free safety LaRon Landry intercepted a Tuitama pass, Russell
found Dwayne Bowe wide open in the middle of the end zone on the next
play for a 29-yard touchdown and 38-0 lead with 5:05 to go in the
third quarter. Safety Craig Steltz added a third interception.

LSU did not punt until the last play of the third quarter, while
Arizona had six punts at that point. Arizona did not venture past
midfield "" where it stomped on the eye "" until the fourth quarter
without the aid of a LSU turnover. The Tigers extended the nation's
longest string of quarters without allowing a touchdown to 14.

Scott put the finishing touches on another Pac-10 portrait with a
38-yard touchdown run for a 45-0 lead with 7:22 to play in the game
that finished an eight-play, 81-yard drive.

It gets tougher next week as LSU (2-0) opens SEC play against No. 4
Auburn (2-0).

"I liked the outing, but we need to get better and take our best
effort with us to Auburn," Miles said.

"We start thinking about Auburn now," Russell said.
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