Scooter Hobbs covers LSU football, basketball, and baseball. http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ BATON ROUGE — Les Miles sincerely hopes that, in the midst of LSU’s wild comeback Saturday night, the bright spot he detected in the second half was a light bulb going off in Jarrett Lee’s head. But LSU fans haven’t seen the last of true freshman Jordan Jefferson, regardless of what happens from here on out, beginning with Saturday afternoon’s nationally televised home game against Ole Miss. “Certainly at this point he’s our second quarterback and we want to get him a lot of reps,” Miles said. Lee’s first half against Troy might have been his worst — 2 of 8 for 11 yards, including his SEC-worst 15th interception, the NCAA-leading seventh that has been returned for a touchdown. But he recovered to go 18 of 26 for 205 yards in the second half and had most of the key plays in rallying LSU from 31-3 down to a 40-31 victory. And he had ... NO INTERCEPTIONS. http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/read.php?c=1857 BATON ROUGE — Well, yeah, of course at some point you have to square the greatest comeback in LSU history with the fact that it was necessary in the first place against a team that, in perception at least, shouldn’t even be hanging around LSU’s neighborhood. Still, rallying from 28 points down with only spare change remaining in the third quarter to a 40-31 victory over anybody, even a Troy, is quite a stunt. OK, it does kind of remind you of the story told often by the great golf writer Dan Jenkins. He once wandered up upon Arnold Palmer in a big tournament, with Palmer, as he was wont to do, miles off course, surrounded by dark shadows and various shrubbery, barely within the zip code of the intended fairway. “What would Hogan do here?” Palmer asked Jenkins. To which Jenkins replied, “Hogan wouldn’t be here.” So, no, LSU had no business trailing Troy 31-3 at any point Saturday night, let alone well into the third quarter. http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/read.php?c=1856 BATON ROUGE — The vast majority of Tiger Stadium’s paying customers left early Saturday night thinking they’d seen the low-water mark of the Les Miles era and the end of the Jarrett Lee experiment. But the shivering handful who stuck around to the end were treated to the greatest comeback in LSU’s long football history. Down by a full four touchdowns in the waning moments of the third quarter, the Tigers stormed back and scored the game’s final 37 points in less than 15 minutes to escape with a 40-31 nonconference victory over Troy. “That’s certainly not the recipe for victory we would have prescribed,” a relieved Miles said. “But victory is sweet. “When we came roaring back, it was to win. It wasn’t going to be any of this, oh, they came back and made it close.” http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/read.php?c=1855 BATON ROUGE — LSU pulled off the biggest comeback in school history Saturday, rallying from four touchdowns behind late in the third quarter to beat Troy 40-34. Troy lead 34-3 late in the third quarter, but LSU scored once before the fourth started and added 30 fourth-quarter points. The biggest single comeback previously came against Ole Miss in 1977 when the Tigers trailed 21-0 in the second quarter at Jackson and rallied to beat the Rebels with plenty of time to spare. Saturday LSU still trailed 31-10 entering the fourth quarter. The biggest fourth-quarter comeback previously for the Tigers came in 1996 when they trailed Houston 34-14 and came back with three touchdowns in the final quarter for a 35-34 victory. http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/read.php?c=1854 A week after falling out of the Southeastern Conference race, LSU steps outside of the league completely. The Tigers likely would have rather stuck to the original plan, which was to contend for the SEC title — with an open date this week. Alabama took care of any title aspirations last week with 27-21 overtime victory over the Tigers in Baton Rouge, clinching the SEC West for the surprising 10-0 and top-ranked Crimson Tide. Hurricane Gustav ruined any R&R plans the 19th-ranked Tigers (6-3) might have entertained for this week when it barged into Baton Rouge way back in September. Tonight’s game with Troy was supposed to be played on Sept. 6, but Gustav forced the postponement until tonight, when both teams conveniently had coinciding open dates. An open date might have been a better option for an LSU team trying to put last week’s heartbreak aside before finishing the SEC schedule against Ole Miss and Arkansas. “We let a big fish off the hook, certainly we couldn’t quite get a handle on it,” LSU head coach Les Miles admitted. http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/read.php?c=1853 If you thought this week’s LSU-Troy game wasn’t creating much buzz, you were wrong. At least you’d be dead wrong if you lived among one of several live Navajo Indian tribes in New Mexico. For tonight’s game in Tiger Stadium will be broadcast over two different radio stations in New Mexico, with the play-by-play done in the Navajo language. Don’t ask me. I have no idea why, although it is touted as being the first-ever major college game broadcast in the Navajo language. “I feel like this is the pinnacle of my broadcast career,” said Cuyler Frank, who will interpret the action in Navajo. But there is one problem still to be worked out. Apparently there are two translations in the Navaho tongue for the word “quarterback.” The first is a mouthful: joock ann’ yiilghaigi. The other isn’t much easier: Naakiyal ye adoji’iji. Go ahead, rattle that one off really fast. And here in Louisiana you thought quarterback was an Indian word meaning “Pick Six.” But it could be worse, of course. He could be shooting the signal back to Troy and trying to translate it into Alabamese. http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/read.php?c=1852 It’s probably not the kind of news LSU needs to hear right now. But at the moment, the Troy team that will provide Homecoming opposition for the Tigers Saturday night has a defense with 16 interceptions this season, just two shy of national co-leaders Boston College and North Carolina. Naturally, the Trojans are excited about coming to Tiger Stadium for a face-to-face with LSU quarterback Jarrett Lee. “We know he has thrown a few picks this season,” Troy safety Tavares Williams said for the Trojans’ official web site. “We’re just hoping to get a few chances to get some picks. We really want to go out and get our turnover ratio up on defense.” Lee, who has famously thrown 14 interceptions this season including six returned for touchdowns, is coming off a season’s-worst four-pick game against Alabama. “We’re real close and we want to get into that No. 1 spot,” Williams said. “We know we have a chance ... hopefully he’ll throw us some picks.” http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/read.php?c=1851 We interrupt the Golden Age of LSU Football for a small dose of humility. Three losses, unprecedented in the Les Miles era. That’s with three regular season games still to play. No chance at anything remotely related to the BCS. The Year of the Pick Six. When you’re used to being automatically included in any national discussion that comes up, it can be disheartening and humbling to sit a year out, begging for attention, wondering what riches, if any, are still to be won. Les Miles was saying this week that LSU still has a lot to play for, and I have no idea what he’s talking about. The Tigers, as often happens living in the hurricane belt, will next play a makeup game this week against Troy. Lotsa luck getting a buzz for Homecoming. http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/read.php?c=1850 Stop if you’ve heard this one before. But LSU head coach Les Miles is once again threatening to get more of a look at true freshman Jordan Jefferson as the Tigers’ backup quarterback. He’s said it before. And Jefferson did appear to be warming up on the sideline at one point in Saturday’s 27-21 overtime loss to Alabama. But he stayed bolted to the bench while struggling redshirt freshmen Jarrett Lee threw four interceptions, including an NCAA-high sixth that has been returned for a touchdown this season. “I just think that he needs to have some playing time,” Miles said of Jefferson, who has blown his redshirt while taking only a handful of snaps and has thrown only one pass. “I think we have to prepare him to play. I think it’s fair to him to see some more playing time.” http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/read.php?c=1849 BATON ROUGE — This wasn’t going to be about interceptions. I swear. Lately there have been more pick-sixes in Tiger Stadium than six packs in the parking lot. Figured everybody needed a break. Flipped on the TV Sunday. Saints-Falcons. First Saints’ play — interception. Drew Brees himself, no less. Already seen this movie — and a sequel too, as LSU’s last two Southeastern Conference games have begun with Jarrett Lee interceptions to set the theme and most of the tone. Click! Couldn’t resist. Click back. Brees throws some more interceptions as the Saints go into their familiar and ever-desperate catch-up mode. At least none of Brees’ have been returned for ... Wait a minute. Scratch that. A Falcon is sprinting down the sidelines, and — is this perfect or what — it’s a rookie LSU Tiger, Chevis Jackson, sprinting 96 yards the other way. Game over. http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/ http://www.tigerroar.com/columns/read.php?c=1848