2002 LSU Tigers

Texas didn't beat LSU. Roy Williams singlehandedly beat LSU.

I think it surprised everyone. Not even LSU fans were thinking of national title possibilities until LSU beat Georgia in 03.

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No, nothing from that season made me think "National Championship" for the next year.

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FIFY

No, I didn't see it coming, but I thought we'd contend for the SEC title. Remember that we were around 9th in the first BCS poll and then Mauck broke his foot because of Saban keeping him in the game with a 29 point 4th quarter lead against Florida and called for a QB draw. That lead to us having to play Marcus Randall and finishing the season 3-4, one of those being the Bluegrass Miracle. With Mauck coming back healthy, along with basically that entire team returning in 2003, I expected us to be very good. Now, given we hadn't won a national title since 1958, no I don't think i expected that kind of success.

I remember reading somewhere that Saban felt the real turning point that led to the success of 2003 was after the 21-20 loss vs. Arkansas in 2002 (TD pass from Matt Jones to DeCori Birmingham with about 10 seconds left in the game).

I'm going off memory and obviously paraphrasing (I'll try to find a link later), but he said it was the devastating feeling of that loss that sparked a shift in attitude/mindset that led to the National Championship.

Okay, I found a link.

From Saban's book How Good Do You Want to Be?:

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Most people think that the Louisiana State University football team won the national championship on the night of January 4, 2004, at the Nokia Sugar Bowl in New Orleans. They believe that because we were the better team that night against Oklahoma—because we had better players making bigger plays and coaches making better moves—we won the championship. But I tend to disagree. I think we actually won the national title almost four hundred days earlier in Little Rock, Arkansas.

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After a fourth-quarter comeback against Ole Miss the following week, we were in a position to win the SEC West again and make a return trip to the SEC title game—if we could get past Arkansas in the season finale. With forty seconds left in the game, we led 20–14. The game was ours if we could simply stop Arkansas from a full-field drive. We couldn’t. Arkansas quarterback Matt Jones threw the ball over the top of our prevent defense to Richard Smith for a 50-yard gain. A few plays later, he connected with receiver DeCori Birmingham on a 30-yard touchdown pass with nine seconds left. The extra point was good, and the wind was officially kicked out of us. In my opinion, that’s when we began our march toward the national championship. After the crushing loss to Arkansas, we all rededicated ourselves to the little things. The awful feeling of that last-second loss had an indelible impact on everyone in the LSU program. Never again would we squander a lead; never again would we be outplayed in the fourth quarter; never again would we be outworked any day of the year. It was then that the championship team was born.

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No, but I thought LSU would win the SEC West.

Highlights of the 2002 game vs. Arkansas courtesy of rnolan53.

Skyler Green's burst of speed at around 1:00 is incredible.

Houston Nutt and his teams at Arkansas had great energy. Those teams weren't the most talented but they were tough and good at that wild, backyard-ball style. And they always seemed to have a plethora of good running backs.

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Never again would we squander a lead

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I guess he meant the next season, cuz we were up 10 early in the Cotton.

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The entire 2002 season was meh....no one saw it coming. the first game that I thought, "wow this is a different LSU than I've seen before" was actually @ Arizona for me. Zona wasn't good but it was a complete domination on the road of a BCS team

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Same here. Came away very impressed after that game. Complete domination!!!