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By LONN PHILLIPS SULLIVAN
Talk to anyone who who was there....
I have...
Many have called it the greatest LSU game they've ever witnessed.....the fact Charlie "Cholly Mac" McClendon's #20 ranked Tigers lost to #1 USC in the final minutes, losing hold of a 9 point lead, hasn't diminished this game's epic, unforgettable place in college football & LSU Tigers' lore.
Maybe the defeat only enhanced its luminous place among LSU's many tragic "What Ifs"...
Let's look at the list of participants in that game, alone, and you'd file it away as a major event in Tiger Stadium's 100 years:
John Robinson's USC had the star power with 1981 Heisman winner & NFL Hall of Famer Marcus Allen, 1979 Heisman winner & Hall of Famer Charles White, 3 additional Hall of Famers: the NFL's greatest safety Ronnie Lott, Anthony Munoz & Bruce Matthews (two of the best O-linemen of their generation), and even future Titans / St Louis Rams Head Coach Jeff Fisher played defensive back, while LSU's underdog squad were led by guys who weren't household names, dual QBs Steve Ensminger & David Woodley, as well as a name born right out of the Louisiana morning dew.....even rhyming with "cajun": the legendary Hokie Gajan (interesting aside, all 16 Tigers who entered the 1979 NFL Draft were selected).
In what was Cholly Mac's final season in charge, playing one of the roughest schedules of any team that year, his Tigers became hellbent on sending their coach out the right way.....giving everything for 4 quarters and nearly upsetting the #1 team in America.
The fans mobilized, just as committed in doing their part. Subsequently, the fan hostility started far before the game even kicked off....as USC arrived, hundreds of LSU students denied the Trojan coaches & players from departing their buses.
"They wouldn't let us off the bus," Robinson said. "There were about 2,000 students. They were rockin' the bus. I didn't expect that. That didn't happen when we played Oregon or Notre Dame. Eventually, they got the police, and we got out of there."
As they finally exited, escorted by Baton Rouge police, the purple and gold crowd was already waiting for 'em, openly chanting, "Tigerbait! Tigerbait! Tigerbait!" At the posh So Cal stars, all of whom were left aghast & rattled.
This sheer crowd intensity inspired a ruthless, overly aggressive, in your face showing by Charlie Mac's '79 squad, punishing USC ruthlessly for 3 1/2 quarters.
Leading 12-3 into the early minutes of the 4th quarter, LSU were destined to pull off the program's greatest upset, with a whooped up, aisle-crammed, 'ludes & booze audience of 78,000+ assaulting the Trojans' senses....their pure noise & intimidating energy draining the superstars of #1 Southern California.
USC Coach John Robinson, who would later take a consulting position at LSU for their 2019 National Championship-winning season, remembered the game as a brutal awakening into the world of Tiger Stadium's otherworldly powers.
"You couldn't hear. I remember that," Robinson told The Advertiser, "I can remember talking to one of my assistants on the sideline, and he couldn't hear me. He's standing right next to me! 'DO THIS.' And he says, 'HUH?' You're damn right I was worried in the fourth quarter," Robinson continued. "We couldn't get a lot going. We struggled just to function."
"It was so loud," Ensminger recalled. "Our offensive tackles were not more than four feet away from me, and they couldn't hear the signals. They kept watching the snap out of the corner of their eye. Our fans just kept hollerin' as loud as they could..."
"All I remember is the fans and that Tiger," USC running back Charles White told the Advertiser, "We could hear him growling when we were in the locker room. It was scary."
But through a 6 play, 57 yard drive, LSU lost control of the game, Heisman-winning RB Charles White taking over for 185 total rushing yards. His 4 yard score nibbled into the lead, 12-10...the first time the crowd's siege mentality was mixing alongside creeping anxiety.
Then, LSU looked to have done it when Demetri Williams sacked USC QB Paul McDonald on a critical 3rd down inside their own territory, just around 4 minutes to play.
But USC were granted a call straight from the sickly football gods themselves: a disgraceful, soft face masking penalty on Benjy Thibodeaux which gave the beleaguered Trojans a new set of downs, 15 yards, and the impetus to take the lead, 17-12, and get the hell out of Baton Rouge while they still could.
LSU would end up running out of gas, and Robinson's Trojans would limp out of Tiger Stadium by the skin of their teeth:
"The USC game, it'll go with me to my grave," McClendon said in 1993, before sadly passing away in 2001. "I don't think there's any question about it," McClendon continued, "if we had gotten that game under our belts, we could have finished undefeated. No one could have touched us."
“It was the ultimate disappointment," 1979 Tiger Mark Ippolito once said, "We won that game between the goal lines and sidelines. That game was a career experience for everyone involved. There will always be a lot of history following the USC-LSU game from 1979. I thank God for my time spent at LSU."
By LONN PHILLIPS SULLIVAN
©️ 2024 Uninterrupted Writings Inc
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