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Scott, LSU stun Troy with 30-point fourth quarter

Nov 16, 2008 - 6:19 AM BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (Ticker) -- Call it Murphy's Law - Cajun style.

Everything went wrong in the second half for Troy, as No. 20 Louisiana State rattled off 37 unanswered points to stun the Trojans, 40-31, on Saturday.

Charles Scott's 4-yard TD run with 4:50 left capped the biggest comeback in school history and put LSU ahead, 33-31.

"The game was a tale of basically two halves for us," Troy head coach Larry Blakeney said. "We had our way in the first half and the first drive of the third quarter and had 31-3. Someone woke (LSU) up."

"They played their tails off," LSU coach Les Miles said. "I'm proud of them. That certainly was not the recipe for victory we prescribed, but victory is sweet, and I promise you our football team is enjoying it at this moment.

The Tigers (7-3), who faced a 31-3 deficit with 11:13 remaining in the third, overcame a horrid first half and avoided an embarrassing home loss.

"That doesn't happen a lot. I've never been part of a come back that big," said quarterback Jarrett Lee, who threw for 205 of his 216 yards in the second half.

"That shows you a lot about our team tonight. We played hard and fought back. Not one time in our minds did we think we were going to lose this game."

The Tigers suffered a heart-breaking 27-21 overtime loss to No. 1 Alabama last week. And they were thoroughly manhandled in front of a silent crowd until one of the greatest comebacks in college football history.

Miles said the key was sticking with Lee, who threw four interceptions last week and was just 2-of-8 for 11 yards in the first half.

"We turned to him (at halftime) and said 'OK, let's do this,'" Miles said.

"He responds. He has a great second half. I know that the statistics are 20-of-34 for 220 (216) yards passing, virtually all in the second half. I know it's the greatest comeback in terms of point deficit, to take the lead in LSU history."

The comeback began late in the third quarter, when backup quarterback Jordan Jefferson scored from 3 yards out with 1:26 left in the period. Brandon LaFell hauled in a 33-yard TD to cut the deficit to 31-17 at the start of the fourth.

Quinn Johnson then scored from 1-yard out to make it 31-24 with 10:33 left, and Chad Jones' interception on Troy's next possession set up Colt David's 27-yard field goal that made it 31-27 with 7:51 to play.

The Tigers were forced to punt on their next possession, but Brady Dalfrey recovered Jorrick Calvin's muff at the 16-yard line with 6:34 left to set up Scott's TD. David missed the extra point, but Troy was forced to punt, and Johnson's 1-yard score with 1:13 remaining sealed the win.

It was a stunning turnaround for the Tigers, who were abysmal in the first half, recording just 63 total yards and two first downs.

"It's very hard to believe," said receiver Terrence Toliver, who caught four passes for 54 yards. "We told each other we were going to win this game no matter what it took."

"That football team has no quit in them," Miles said. "They're fighters."

Levi Brown threw a pair of touchdowns and Terence Moore returned an interception 22 yards for a score to give the Trojans (6-4) a 24-3 lead at the half. Brown hit DuJuan Harris for an 8-yard score to make it 31-3 with 11:13 left in the third.

But from there, it was all downhill for Troy.

Brown completed 34-of-72 passes for 314 yards with an interception for Troy, which was held to 125 yards in the second half.

"I told the guys at halftime, we played a half of football and we won that half 24-3," Blakeney said. "I knew getting to play the other half was going to be an important 30 minutes. We weren't able to close the book on it and get the last nail in there."

In the end, the Trojans learned a valuable lesson.

"Honestly, we thought we had it in the bag," Moore said. "But at the same time, it wasn't over," Moore said. "We still had 30 more minutes to play."