Beckwith out for Auburn showdown
- By RANDY ROSETTA
- Advocate sportswriter
- Published: Sep 15, 2008 - UPDATED: 6:07 a.m.
Comments (0)
When LSU travels to Auburn for the first milepost game of the 2008 season this weekend, the Tigers will go to battle with a big hole in the middle of their defense.
Junior middle linebacker Darry Beckwith hobbled out of Saturday’s 41-3 triumph over North Texas with an injured left knee and LSU coach Les Miles said Sunday that Beckwith is likely out for the Tigers’ clash with Auburn on Saturday (6:45 p.m./ESPN).
“There is an injury of significance to Darry Beckwith, and it’s safe to say he won’t be available this week,” Miles said. “I think he’ll be back pretty soon, but I don’t know when.”
Miles said Beckwith had an MRI done Sunday and doctors “saw something.”
Whatever was seen apparently wasn’t serious enough to qualify as season-ending, as Miles said Beckwith could potentially return as early as the week of the Tigers showdown with Florida in Gainesville on Oct. 11.
“It’s a short-term consequence in my mind,” Mile said. “We’ll get him back.”
To fill the void left by Beckwith, junior Jacob Cutrera will step into the middle and will also man Beckwith’s spot when the Tigers shift to nickel and dime packages with extra defensive backs.
Cutrera has recorded two tackles in each of LSU’s first two games and has filled in for Beckwith in the past, recording 37 stops in 2006 and 21 last year with an interception.
Kelvin Sheppard, the starter at “Will” linebacker, will also see time in Beckwith’s slot, with Perry Riley operating at the “Buck” spot.
Riley stays in the game when LSU plays with only two backers. The Tigers may get a boost if safety Danny McCray returns from an ankle injury that kept him out of the North Texas game.
But there was no sugarcoating the loss of Beckwith, one of LSU’s best defenders and a team leader.
“Certainly, his experience is something that you just can’t measure,” Miles said. “His leadership has always been good. Certainly, he’s a guy that this team enjoys being the center of the defense, but in the same vein, the guys need to step in there and be responsible for playing the same way. We are fortunate to have talent there.”
Inching up
LSU climbed one spot in the two major polls released Sunday, going from seventh to No. 6.
The Tigers lost the one No. 1 vote they had been receiving in the Associated Press rankings.
Besides LSU, four others SEC teams are ranked in the AP Top 10: Georgia is third, Florida is fourth, Alabama is ninth and Auburn is No. 10.
According to the SEC office, this is the first time in league history that five SEC teams have cracked the Top 10 in the same poll.
Extra attention
ESPN’s Game Day has selected the LSU-Auburn game for Saturday.
The crew of Chris Fowler, Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso and Desmond Howard will set up shop in Auburn and feature the SEC West Division battle in its popular hour-long pre-game show from 10-11 a.m. Saturday on ESPN (Cox Cable channel 35).
No redshirt for Jefferson
Freshman quarterback Jordan Jefferson came in for the final three snaps of LSU’s 41-3 triumph over North Texas Saturday and will not redshirt this season.
Jefferson threw an incomplete pass, rushed for 14 yards and handed off to Stevan Ridley before time expired.
Miles said LSU fans can “look forward to him playing some more.”
“We wanted to give him a spot where we felt like there was no real burden on him, get him some snaps and let him feel what it’s like out there under the lights,” Miles said. “Hopefully we’ll get him some of those snaps in the heat of the game coming up.”
Quick starts
LSU running back Charles Scott’s first run of the Tigers’ two games have gone for 56 and 39 yards.
Miles quipped that the coaches give Scott a “really big vitamin pill” before games before gushing about the junior’s first two games — 262 yards on 23 carries, a gaudy 11.4 yards per tote, and four touchdowns (8, 29, 39, 43).
“He’s really going to have a great year, you can just feel it,” Miles said. “He runs hard, has great vision.”
Scott has done plenty to help himself, with a bulldozer running style that has left several tacklers in his wake. But Miles was quick to point out that Scott is getting a hand from his blockers, singling out Brandon LaFell for his effort on the 43-yard burst against UNT.
“The play that he breaks was blocked pretty dad-gone well,” Miles said. “He makes a nice cut and runs through some arms and gets away late, but if you watch Brandon LaFell on that play, he came in there and crunched the front side safety.”
Anchored by Scott, LSU leads the SEC with 241 rushing yards a game and 7.1 yards per carry.
Unconventional look
Playing a spread offense for the second straight game, the LSU defense played nickel and dime packages the whole night against North Texas on Saturday.
As a result, defensive backs Chris Hawkins, Chad Jones and Phelon Jones led the Tigers in tackles, each recording career highs in stops with 8, 7 and 6, respectively.
Phelon Jones, a redshirt freshman, made his first career start as the dime back.
At one point late in the game, the LSU secondary consisted entirely of freshmen with Patrick Peterson and Brandon Taylor at the corners and Karnell Hatcher and Stefoin Francois manning the safety spots.
Elite company
With a 92-yard punt return touchdown Saturday, LSU junior Trindon Holliday joined Eddie Kennison and Kevin Faulk as the only Tigers who have notched TDs on a kickoff return and a punt return. Holliday scored on kickoffs once in each of his first two seasons
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE></TH></TR><TR><TD style="PADDING-RIGHT: 2px; PADDING-LEFT: 2px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 2px; PADDING-TOP: 2px" vAlign=top align=left>Time/Date: 09/11/2008 12:50:49 PM 
27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=8,0,0,0" style="width: 300px; height: 250px;" width="300" height="250">
E-mail
