Second down

Intrepid sports writer Lee Feinswog offered a precise and brash forecast in this space a year ago.

“The Tigers will finish 11-1 in the regular season, lose to Florida in the SEC championship game, and then win a bowl game,” Feinswog opined in August 2007.

Not bad. The Tigers did finish 12-2 as predicted, but Feinswog was off on some details. The Tigers defeated Tennessee in the SEC championship game, and then returned from a bowl victory with a little sumpin sumpin called the BCS Championship.

Coaches, especially football coaches, are constantly trying to get their players to live in the now. Forget the past, don’t get caught looking ahead, take it one game at a time, one play at time. You know the drill.

Good luck with that, LSU.

The defending national champion even opens its season against another defending national champion. The championship talk will start early.

In this what-have-you-done-for-me-lately sports world we live in, the Tigers’ improbable march to No. 1 last season will loom large in 2008. But nothing stays the same, especially in college football, and LSU will be hard-pressed to repeat its miracle run.

When defending Bowl Championship Series winner LSU opens the season Aug. 30 in 4 p.m. heat before a national ESPN audience, the team on the other side will be Appalachian State, which won last season’s Football Bowl Subdivision, formerly known as Division I-AA. It will be the first time two defending champs kick off the season against each other.

The difference? No one expects Appalachian State to win, despite its stunning season-opening upset last year of Michigan. But everyone (read: LSU fans) will expect the Tigers to maintain their lofty status.

It isn’t going to happen.

Three reasons: Players, scheduling and luck.

Start with personnel. LSU has done a tremendous job the past four years of not missing a beat when great players moved on. Recruiting has been superb and player development excellent.

This time, it might catch up with the Tigers.

Gone are all-world defensive lineman Glenn Dorsey and do-everything receiver Early Doucet. They were expected to leave. Ryan Perrilloux wasn’t, and quarterback might now be an adventure for LSU. And how can any program ever make up for what Jacob Hester brought to the field?

Start with Dorsey. He’ll be a star in the NFL, but impossible to replace. Opponents double-teamed him constantly. He was a one-man wrecking crew, and his physical play and leadership intangibles were something else. The good news: A defensive front that will include Tyson Jackson, Kirston Pittman, Marlon Favorite, Charles Alexander and Ricky Jean-Francois will be pretty stout. But it won’t be as good as it was with Dorsey.

Before Les Miles and his players hoisted the crystal BCS trophy last January an unlikely series of events had to transpire for LSU to wind up in the National Championship game.

One of them was that second-ranked and heavily favored West Virginia would have to fall to its rival, unranked Pitt, which had only won four games all season.

As everyone now knows, Pitt pulled off the impossible, one of the key dominoes that fell to put LSU in position to win the BCS.

Naturally, T-shirts promoting the big West Virginia-Pitt game lost their luster in West Virginia. This one was found on a sale rack for $1.97 at Dick’s Sporting Goods in Morgantown, W.Va.

Doucet was injured for part of last season, and LSU simply wasn’t the same without him. You could argue that he made the Tigers’ offense go. Demetrius Byrd had his moments. So did Brandon LaFell. But they have a long way to go this season to make up for Doucet.

The LSU quarterback will be either Jarrett Lee, a redshirt freshman, or Andrew Hatch, a junior whose last significant playing time came as a freshman at Harvard before he went on a Mormon mission. He once was recruited to BYU by its head coach, Gary Crowton, who just happened to be the LSU offensive coordinator when Hatch decided not to return to Harvard after his mission to South America.

The starter was, of course, expected to be Perrilloux, who was one of the best athletes ever to wear the purple and gold. But he led the nation in off-the-field infractions, and finally Coach Les Miles booted him off the team last spring. So, while Perrilloux is playing at Jacksonville (Ala.) State, LSU will be hoping for the best. It’s too bad, because Perrilloux led LSU to victory in the SEC Championship Game when starter Matt Flynn was injured, and was targeted for greatness this year.

Hester was the glue, the go-to guy, the running back who never fumbled, who simply got the job done time after time after time. LSU’s got a ton of talented running backs, from Charles Scott to Richard Murphy to Keiland Williams, and all are capable of greatness. But Hester, like Dorsey and Doucet, can’t be replaced.

Another thing LSU can’t change is the schedule. In odd years, the Tigers get to play Auburn and Florida at home. In even years, those games are on the road. To wit: Last year, they were in Baton Rouge and the Tigers won both. The year before, those were LSU’s only defeats.

And so it goes. So, because LSU has to go to Auburn and Florida, and because its home schedule includes Georgia and Alabama, only a big-time gambler would bet on the Tigers.

Some Tigers played so well last season they’re being praised before a single cleat cuts into the Tiger Stadium turf this season.

And there are big cleats to be filled now that stars like Glenn Dorsey, Matt Flynn and Ryan Perrilloux are gone. So who will step up?

Start with three defensive players who must fill the massive void left by defensive tackle Glenn Dorsey and sure-handed Jacob Hester, not to mention the mid-year departure of Ryan Perrilloux.

Tyson Jackson, a senior defensive end; Darry Beckwith, a senior linebacker; and junior defensive tackle Ricky Jean-Francois have already got people talking nationally, with all three making the watch list for Bednarik Award for top defensive player of the year.

On offense, look for senior wide receiver Demetrius Byrd and junior running back Keiland Williams to make an impact: both were added to the Maxwell Award watch list for college player of the year.

Speaking of which, no one gambled more successfully on the field last season than Miles.

It’s not likely that any coach had ever taken more unlikely chances in one season and been so successful. The Tigers converted 13 times on 16 fourth-down tries, including those incredible plays against Florida. And the no-look, over-the-shoulder flip from Flynn to place-kicker Colt David on a fake field goal for a touchdown against South Carolina was one of the coolest plays in LSU history. There was the last-seconds TD pass against Auburn when a field goal would have won it. And on and on.

That kind of luck simply can’t continue.

And Miles is no fool. He won’t take chances with a team not capable of executing. And with a new quarterback, stars missing on both sides of the ball and a brutal schedule, this will be a different team coached a different way.

Understand that LSU will be good, nine or 10 wins good, and will have a chance to be in the mix. But it can’t count on continued good fortune with things it can’t control, like Pitt upsetting West Virginia to blow open the door to the BCS title game.

No, the only thing LSU can count on is it will be referred to all season as the defending national champion, a burden that will loom as large as playing Auburn and Florida on the road and wondering what life will be like without Dorsey, Doucet and Perrilloux.