LSU’s rabid football fans love their home grown heroes. From New Orleans’ running back legend Leonard Fournette to the hometown Baton Rouge Heisman Trophy winner, Billy Cannon, and their Cajun head football coach, Ed Orgeron, Tigers fans cheer the hardest for their Bayou State favorites.
The Tigers faithful are now willing to add a few “outsiders” to their favorites list after another heavyweight encounter Saturday on the plains of eastern Alabama.
After a Rock’em, Sock’em Robots style of football game against their SEC West division rival Auburn Tigers, LSU’s newest heroes are two graduate transfers. One is a quarterback transfer who moved south to Baton Rouge to escape the bench at Ohio State, while the other is a Massachusetts placekicker who played his first three years for the Division II Assumption Greyhounds.
Former Ohio high school football standout quarterback Joe Burrow stood tall in the pocket against a fierce Auburn rush and lofted accurate passes downfield as LSU rallied in the final minute to claim a hard-fought 22-21 win and moved to a surprising 3-0 this season. Placekicker Cole Tracy was called onto the field with 2 seconds showing on the clock and calmly drilled a game-winning 42-yarder and was jubilantly carried off the field by his Tiger teammates.
Burrow’s cool demeanor under pressure and his ability to hit open receivers are something that the LSU faithful have been unaccustomed to seeing since former coach Les Miles came into Baton Rouge in 2005. While Joe Burrow finished the Auburn game with a seemingly pedestrian 15-34 performance, most of his throws were downfield while a gaggle of Auburn defenders were charging at him from all sides.
Bayou Bengal fans have fully embraced their new quarterback.
Jeaux Cool is born.
LSU’s placekicking woes last season were downright ugly at times. Botched snaps, blocked kicks, and, even if things went right, the Tigers’ field goal kickers were more likely to hook a field goal attempt than Tiger Woods has been recently with a driver in his hands on a tight golf course.
Cole Tracy was last year’s Fred Mitchell award winner as the top kicker in the lower divisions of the NCAA. He made 27 out of 29 field goals last season while kicking for a relatively unknown small college located 50 miles west of Boston.
According to reports, Cole Tracy wanted to be prepared for the worst possible game conditions as he was practicing field goal attempts. So, he had his teammates yell at him, heckle him, blow whistles at him, spray water on him, and even soaked water on the football as he practiced kicking for his Worcester, Massachusetts school.
Then, an unlikely phone call came several months ago from an assistant coach at LSU. Cole Tracy thought he was being pranked!
“Obviously I know of LSU, but I really didn’t think that was true,” Tracy said.
“Ice” Cole Tracy nailed 4-for-4 field goals against then #8 Miami in LSU’s season opening victory. On Saturday, he sent the clutch game winner right down the middle of the goalposts as nearly 90,000 screaming Auburn fans yelled for him to miss.
He didn’t. Practice makes perfect for this young man.
Ice, Ice, Baby!