Football champions

The enormity of LSU’s national championship still hasn’t sunk in with sophomore receiver Jared Mitchell of New Iberia.

But he, like his LSU teammates, had a feeling the Tigers were in for a special season as far back as team camp.

“When we sat down as a team during cam, we put (winning the national title) down as one of our goals,” said Mitchell, a Westgate High School graduate. “We always felt during the year we had the talent to win it. We just had to play well.”

Mitchell played in 12 of the Tigers’ 14 games this season, including the BCS Championship Game against Ohio State last Monday. He was sixth on the team with 13 receptions for 143 yards, and returned four punts, second most on the team, and also returned one kickoff.

LSU faced a number of distractions and obstacles to its national championship run. Two weeks after earning the No. 1 ranking in late September, the Tigers lost a triple-overtime game at Kentucky and fell to fifth, the lowest they’d been ranked all season after spending the first five weeks second and the next two ranked first.

The Tigers climbed back up to third the next week and to second two weeks later, then jumped to the top of the poll again the second week of November. But again, two weeks later, LSU lost in triple overtime, this time at home to Arkansas, seemingly dashing the team’s national title hopes.

“There was a lot of depression (after that loss) because we thought we’d lost our chance,” said Mitchell. “But we kind of had to forget about it because we had the SEC Championship (game the following week). Winning the SEC itself is an honor.”

Then there was the speculation that coach Les Miles would leave LSU for his alma mater, Michigan, which saw head coach Lloyd Carr retire at the end of the season. One report on ESPN the morning of the SEC title game had Miles already set to leave for Michigan.

“We knew we would end up talking about it after the game, it just ended up that we had to talk about it before the game,” said Mitchell, who said Miles is a very easy coach to get along with. “We all pretty much believed him when he said he would be back. I guess it was just confirmation (when Michigan hired West Virginia coach Rich Rodriguez two weeks later).”

The weeks leading up to the BCS game, played in the Louisiana Superdome, were more businesslike than exciting, said Mitchell.

“We were all more focused on the task at hand,” he said. “It was just like camp, just not as tough. It was like business time for us.”

The season itself provided enough excitement, he added, with several games decided in the closing minutes. LSU converted five of five fourth-down attempts in a 28-24 win over Florida, rallied from a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter to beat Alabama, and got a touchdown pass with one second remaining to beat Auburn.

“It was very exciting,” said Mitchell. “The best part was winning the BCS championship.”

Mitchell’s parents attended the game, and he spent some time with them after the victory before going out with teammates to celebrate the win in New Orleans.

“(My parents) were happy,” said Mitchell, who is now getting ready for baseball season. He started much of last season as a freshman and is expected to start this season in the outfield for the Tigers.

“Now I’m just trying to switch gears and get ready for baseball,” said Mitchell, who said he definitely will play football again next fall. “I’m really looking forward to (football). All I asked for was a fair shot, and I feel I got it.”

And he got a national championship to go with it.