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Sweet revenge for Clausen as he leads Vols over old team
By Glenn Guilbeau, Gannett News Service
BATON ROUGE No one had ever come back from a 21-point deficit against LSU and won. And the team that finally did was led by a quarterback who was formerly one of LSU's own.
Clausen went from despair after being benched last week to elation after beating LSU.
By Patrick Dennis, The Advocate via the AP
Tennessee senior quarterback Rick Clausen's last pass Monday night was into the Tiger Stadium stands right back at you following the No. 9 Volunteers 30-27 victory in overtime over No. 4 LSU after trailing 21-0 at halftime and 24-7 in the third quarter.
Clausen signed at LSU in 2001, red-shirted in the 2001 season and played briefly in three games in 2002 before transferring after spring practice in 2003.
"I heard a lot of the things that were said when I left," Clausen said. "They said I wasn't good enough to play here."
Clausen clearly outplayed LSU sophomore quarterback JaMarcus Russell, who was one of the main reasons Clausen left LSU. Russell and quarterback Matt Flynn signed with LSU in 2003.
Russell completed 3-of-9 passes for 13 yards after halftime Monday and threw an interception from deep in his territory into the waiting arms of free safety Jonathan Hefney, who returned it 26 yards to the LSU 2-yard line. Two plays later, Tennessee's touchdown cut LSU's lead to 24-21 with 7:15 to play in the fourth quarter.
Clausen completed 21-of-32 passes for 196 yards with a touchdown and an interception in little more than two quarters.
"Death Valley is a great place to play. I've been here and it's been pretty raucous. It was loud and I enjoyed it," Clausen said.
"Rick told me to put him in and that he'd get it done," said Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer, who announced last week that Erik Ainge was his quarterback and that Clausen likely would not play. "He was mad as heck at me and should have been. I was wrong. I've been wrong before, and I'll be wrong again. But Rick came in and did what he does best."
That is mainly completing short passes as Clausen does not have the arm strength of a Russell or an Ainge, but he obviously has something else. Clausen is 5-2 in his career in games in which he has made more than a token appearance as a backup or just a handful of plays as a starter.
Take it from his former roommate at LSU, defensive tackle Kyle Williams: "He was more in control and gave them some different looks than Ainge could, and he took advantage where we slipped up.
"I think he brought in some things for them offensively that Ainge couldn't do and made some plays when he needed to. We didn't make any," Williams said.
Williams was as shocked as the 85,000 at the game with LSU's "new" defense that has allowed 61 points and 880 yards in two games. Last season under head coach Nick Saban, LSU played four games before allowing its opponents to gain that many yards.
The Tigers are at or near the bottom in pass defense and total defense out of 117 Division I-A teams with 355.5 yards allowed through the air and 440 total a game. LSU finished fifth in the nation in pass defense a season ago with 157.2 yards allowed a game and third in total defense with 257 yards allowed a game.
Under Saban, LSU never lost a game in which it scored 26 or more points.
"I don't know what happened out there," Williams said. "We played like a joke out there in the second half."
Tennessee gained 230 of its 320 yards after halftime and scored 30 points. After rushing for 19 yards on 15 carries in the first half, Tennessee gained 91 yards on 19 carries in the second half.
For Clausen and his family, it was a complete dream come true.
Rick's father, Jim, tried frantically all weekend and Monday morning to get a flight to Baton Rouge for the game.
"We got a flight to Jackson, Miss., but we couldn't get a rental car," Clausen said from his Los Angeles area home Tuesday.
He had travel plans for Saturday but changed them when Rick was demoted to second team and the game was moved to Monday because of Hurricane Rita.
So he stayed home to watch it on ESPN2, hoped for the best and ended up manning the phones.
He watched Rick come off the bench to deliver the win against his old school and get his old job back at his new school after spending a couple days last week considering only going to school.
"Rick was thinking about just focusing on school last week when they named Erik the quarterback," his father said. "The kid was embarrassed. He went from getting 50% of the reps to 10% at practice. He had done everything they asked of him for two years and did not want to be there. I told him to stick it out and be ready to play if needed. The last thing he wanted to do was go back to LSU with his tail between his legs."
Clausen instead took Tennessee (2-1, 1-1 Southeastern Conference) on touchdown drives of 61 and 75 yards and a field-goal drive of 52 yards in the second half of regulation to get the Volunteers back in the game, and his father's phone kept ringing back in Los Angeles. The calls were from Rick's older brother, former Tennessee quarterback Casey Clausen, who is now a graduate assistant coach at Mississippi State.
"I think Casey set the record for phone calls during one game," Jim Clausen said. "He called me 39 times. Casey just went berserk he was so proud of Rick. So am I. I'm a proud dad."
Tennessee may have also climbed back into the race for Clausen's third son Jimmy Clausen, the No. 1 quarterback prospect in the nation. The elder Clausen listed his son's favorites as Tennessee, LSU, Notre Dame, South Carolina, USC and Michigan in that order.
Meanwhile, LSU (1-1, 0-1 SEC) cannot get away from the Clausen family. The Tigers play Saturday at Mississippi State.
By Glenn Guilbeau, Gannett News Service
BATON ROUGE No one had ever come back from a 21-point deficit against LSU and won. And the team that finally did was led by a quarterback who was formerly one of LSU's own.
Clausen went from despair after being benched last week to elation after beating LSU.
By Patrick Dennis, The Advocate via the AP
Tennessee senior quarterback Rick Clausen's last pass Monday night was into the Tiger Stadium stands right back at you following the No. 9 Volunteers 30-27 victory in overtime over No. 4 LSU after trailing 21-0 at halftime and 24-7 in the third quarter.
Clausen signed at LSU in 2001, red-shirted in the 2001 season and played briefly in three games in 2002 before transferring after spring practice in 2003.
"I heard a lot of the things that were said when I left," Clausen said. "They said I wasn't good enough to play here."
Clausen clearly outplayed LSU sophomore quarterback JaMarcus Russell, who was one of the main reasons Clausen left LSU. Russell and quarterback Matt Flynn signed with LSU in 2003.
Russell completed 3-of-9 passes for 13 yards after halftime Monday and threw an interception from deep in his territory into the waiting arms of free safety Jonathan Hefney, who returned it 26 yards to the LSU 2-yard line. Two plays later, Tennessee's touchdown cut LSU's lead to 24-21 with 7:15 to play in the fourth quarter.
Clausen completed 21-of-32 passes for 196 yards with a touchdown and an interception in little more than two quarters.
"Death Valley is a great place to play. I've been here and it's been pretty raucous. It was loud and I enjoyed it," Clausen said.
"Rick told me to put him in and that he'd get it done," said Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer, who announced last week that Erik Ainge was his quarterback and that Clausen likely would not play. "He was mad as heck at me and should have been. I was wrong. I've been wrong before, and I'll be wrong again. But Rick came in and did what he does best."
That is mainly completing short passes as Clausen does not have the arm strength of a Russell or an Ainge, but he obviously has something else. Clausen is 5-2 in his career in games in which he has made more than a token appearance as a backup or just a handful of plays as a starter.
Take it from his former roommate at LSU, defensive tackle Kyle Williams: "He was more in control and gave them some different looks than Ainge could, and he took advantage where we slipped up.
"I think he brought in some things for them offensively that Ainge couldn't do and made some plays when he needed to. We didn't make any," Williams said.
Williams was as shocked as the 85,000 at the game with LSU's "new" defense that has allowed 61 points and 880 yards in two games. Last season under head coach Nick Saban, LSU played four games before allowing its opponents to gain that many yards.
The Tigers are at or near the bottom in pass defense and total defense out of 117 Division I-A teams with 355.5 yards allowed through the air and 440 total a game. LSU finished fifth in the nation in pass defense a season ago with 157.2 yards allowed a game and third in total defense with 257 yards allowed a game.
Under Saban, LSU never lost a game in which it scored 26 or more points.
"I don't know what happened out there," Williams said. "We played like a joke out there in the second half."
Tennessee gained 230 of its 320 yards after halftime and scored 30 points. After rushing for 19 yards on 15 carries in the first half, Tennessee gained 91 yards on 19 carries in the second half.
For Clausen and his family, it was a complete dream come true.
Rick's father, Jim, tried frantically all weekend and Monday morning to get a flight to Baton Rouge for the game.
"We got a flight to Jackson, Miss., but we couldn't get a rental car," Clausen said from his Los Angeles area home Tuesday.
He had travel plans for Saturday but changed them when Rick was demoted to second team and the game was moved to Monday because of Hurricane Rita.
So he stayed home to watch it on ESPN2, hoped for the best and ended up manning the phones.
He watched Rick come off the bench to deliver the win against his old school and get his old job back at his new school after spending a couple days last week considering only going to school.
"Rick was thinking about just focusing on school last week when they named Erik the quarterback," his father said. "The kid was embarrassed. He went from getting 50% of the reps to 10% at practice. He had done everything they asked of him for two years and did not want to be there. I told him to stick it out and be ready to play if needed. The last thing he wanted to do was go back to LSU with his tail between his legs."
Clausen instead took Tennessee (2-1, 1-1 Southeastern Conference) on touchdown drives of 61 and 75 yards and a field-goal drive of 52 yards in the second half of regulation to get the Volunteers back in the game, and his father's phone kept ringing back in Los Angeles. The calls were from Rick's older brother, former Tennessee quarterback Casey Clausen, who is now a graduate assistant coach at Mississippi State.
"I think Casey set the record for phone calls during one game," Jim Clausen said. "He called me 39 times. Casey just went berserk he was so proud of Rick. So am I. I'm a proud dad."
Tennessee may have also climbed back into the race for Clausen's third son Jimmy Clausen, the No. 1 quarterback prospect in the nation. The elder Clausen listed his son's favorites as Tennessee, LSU, Notre Dame, South Carolina, USC and Michigan in that order.
Meanwhile, LSU (1-1, 0-1 SEC) cannot get away from the Clausen family. The Tigers play Saturday at Mississippi State.
