Good outweighs bad on big day for Davey
ROB KEYSARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
BATON ROUGE, La. -- Rohan Davey was horrible and heroic all in the same game Saturday afternoon at a rowdy Tiger Stadium.
In the first half, the LSU senior quarterback threw two interceptions and failed to pick up a low snap from center. The miscues led to 10 Arkansas points.
But Davey also completed 4 of 4 passes for 68 yards, including a 20-yard touchdown strike to Josh Reed, in a matter of 28 seconds to give LSU a 20-19 lead 23 seconds before halftime.
Davey threw two more interceptions after halftime, but more than made up for them with two more touchdown passes and a key completion that allowed LSU to run out the clock on a wild, 41-38 victory over Arkansas before a crowd of 89,560.
Davey's play at times, like that of the entire Tigers team for much of this season, could have been enough to depress Coach Nick Saban.
"I'm not on Prozac yet, although I've had a few appointments," Saban said.
Instead of getting down on Davey, Saban practiced what he has preached since the day he arrived in Baton Rouge.
"I say regardless of what happens in the game, you've got to go play the next play and you've got to be relentless," Saban said. "And when you say that long enough, I think players start to believe in it.
"Sometimes you'd like to jump up and hug them, and sometimes you'd like to jump and box their ears like my mama used to do to me when I was a kid. But you can't do that, because you can't preach that to them and then not support them when they make mistakes."
So Saban stuck with Davey, who said that Saturday's implications -- LSU now can earn its first trip to the SEC Championship Game by beating Auburn -- had him revved up a little too high.
"It wasn't so much that I wasn't sticking to the game plan. ... I was just trying to make plays that wasn't there," Davey said. "You know, whenever the stakes are high, sometimes big players step up and try to make big plays. That was the bottom line. I should've just stuck to the basics and taken what they were giving."
Davey took plenty. His 19 completions in 33 attempts for 359 yards and 3 touchdowns were enough to overshadow the 4 interceptions, largely because Arkansas converted those into just three points.
"We overcame a lot of adversity in the game today. When you have great wins, that's what you do," Saban said. "That's what makes them great wins."
As much as LSU needed Davey's three touchdowns, the Tigers needed him to make one more play with time winding down and the Razorbacks trying to stage a furious rally.
Nursing a 41-38 lead 1:25 to play and facing a third-and-13 at the LSU 33, Davey dropped back and found Reed on a "nine-step out" pattern that he turned into a 31-yard gain and a victory-clinching first down.
Davey, whose body was weakened by a virus this week to the point that he took fluids intravenously and had "a couple of shots" before the game, credited his ability to make the clutch play despite his earlier snafus to mental toughness.
"When the stakes are this high, you're as weak as your mind makes you. ... and my mind was real strong," Davey said.
Spoken like a hero.
This article was published on November 24, 2001
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