re: LSU Football 1989....what happened?

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Signs were there in 1988. The meltdown in Columbus against what turned out to be Ohio State's lone losing season since '66 was telling. Blew a 33-20 lead in the final 5:00. Still that team won the SEC with some gritty wins--not taking anything away from them.

Texas A&M ran the season opening kickoff back for a td and it set the tone,at least for that game.Even though Hodson was a SR, we just didn't seem to have a lot of senior leadership. We went 2-5 in the SEC and 4-7 overall. But, only Alabama took it to us. All the other games came down to the last quarter and the Florida game came down to an extra second.

Low point may have been in Lexington when we had come off gutwrenching 16-13 losses to Florida and 10-6 loss to Auburn we got down 21-0 at halftime. Made a game of it but they finally won 27-21.

A microcosm of that season came the next week at home vs Tennessee. UT was top ten,and would finish 11-1 and 'co-champs' of the SEC. But after getting up 14-0,we were tied 14-14 with under a minute left in the half. Twice Hodson hit our TE in the hands wide open and he dropped the ball. With about :10 left,we kick a field goal to go up 17-14. Carl Pickens then ran the kickoff back for a td as time expired for Tennessee to take a 21-17 lead into halftime. We were "that" close to being up 21-14. That play sucked the life out of the team and crowd and they won 45-39 after we scored two late td's.

Spooky similarities to 1983,1989 and 1998.

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