Scooter Hobbs column: Daniels should be the Heisman front runner

Published 11:59 pm Sunday, November 26, 2023

BATON ROUGE — If any Heisman Trophy voters were still wavering on the Jayden Daniels candidacy, they should have been in Tiger Stadium for the fourth quarter of Saturday’s 42-30 LSU victory over Texas A&M.

The Tiger quarterback’s numbers were a little below his standards — 355 yards of total offense, four touchdown passes, and a typical long run that turned a so-so game’s mood in favor of his team — but you had took look deeper.

Actually, all you had to do was look around  you in the second half. Not sure how it looked on TV.

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But Tiger Stadium was still full in the fourth quarter.

It was perhaps Daniels’ most impressive feat in the long list of death-defying stunts, and for my money there was your Heisman Moment right there.

Man bites dog. The sun done set in the East. LSU’s defense got a third-down stop.

Forget stats — of which Daniels has a boat load that pretty well shames the other contenders.

This is what sets him apart.

At least, I assume it was the promise of one last shot of Daniels’ derring-do that not only attracted the usual full house at the start for a gawd-awful 11 a.m. kick off but also — and I’m not making this up — kept almost all of the revelers around until the very end.

Not much else does these days.

It’s been a strange tradition for a venue that generally gets ranked at or near the top in various rankings of  overall game day revelry and in-stadium debauchery.

Many don’t stick around for the conclusion — often without regard to the scoreboard.

Don’t get me wrong. You know my feelings — people pay for their tickets, they can do with them what they please. Support of the home team, as I always say, is an entertainment option, not a civic duty.

But this has long puzzled me. It’s not real easy to go to a game in Tiger Stadium. Takes planning, a lot of cooking, a whole tangle of traffic and generally a pretty good hike to the stadium from all but the priciest parking passes.

Many people fret all week and can think of nothing else in the lead-up to the game.

And, yet, when that halftime horn sounds — see ’ya later — it’s almost like a mass evacuation.

It’s executed fairly orderly, but they almost need contra-flow to handle the rush toward the portals. Civil Defense could study it for the next hurricane.

People can do what they want. I just always found it strange, that’s all. And those are pretty expensive tickets to use only half of them. Do these same people leave a movie at intermission?

And don’t remind that me that Saturday’s game was still much in doubt at the half. In fact LSU was trailing the Aggies 17-14.

The Florida game was also still up for grabs and that didn’t keep the masses in their seats for much of the second half. Same thing with Auburn and Arkansas. It generally takes the threat of upsetting Alabama to do that, perhaps just to be able to rush the field (with far less precision than the halftime exits).

So I’m going to put the late jammed stadium at the top of the list when listing Daniels’ Heisman credentials.

He rewarded their patience by rallying the now 9-3 Tigers from a 10-point third-quarter deficit, then putting the game away, again, in spite of his defense, with three of his touchdown passes in consecutive drives of that final quarter, all slipped in through tight coverage.

Before that the Aggies fairly well kept Daniels bottled up — bottled up mostly on the sidelines, perhaps, but held the Tigers to only two first half touchdowns regardless.

The LSU defense was up to their usual mischief — actually playing well for the most part on first and second downs, but totally helpless, even for them, on those pesky third downs.

In the first half, the Aggies converted 7 of 11 third downs. And that’s a little deceiving. Three times they stayed on the field for fourth down, and converted two. So of those 11 third downs LSU forced, the Tigers only got off the field twice.

Time of possession: 19:32 to 10:32, Aggies.

All Daniels could do was watch.

It didn’t get any better to start the third quarter when A&M took second-half kickoff and drove 75 yards without facing a third down for a 24-14 lead.

Daniels would eventually get enough time with the ball to do his thing, sparked by a typical Daniels 49-yard run on a fourth-and-4 gamble.

He has a habit of such high entertainment. His electric play always keeps them on their edge of their seats.

It was another chapter to his legend that he kept them in their seats. For the duration.