Editor’s note: This is the third story in a series by The Athletic looking at five pivotal upsets from the 2001 season that still resonate 20 years later.
Even Terry Saban couldn’t believe Nick Saban went for that fourth down. “That’s the dumbest call I’ve seen you make since you’ve been a head coach,” Nick Saban recalled his wife telling him after the 2001 SEC Championship game.
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Saban told the story of this particular decision in January 2012 as his Alabama team prepared to face LSU for the national title in New Orleans. That it remained Saban’s dumbest call as a head coach 10 years and one month later is a testament to just how foolish Saban thought it was to go for it on fourth down and an inch — “I mean, an inch,” Saban said during that 2012 interview, holding his thumb and index finger an inch apart to illustrate how little his LSU offense needed — from his own 23-yard line down a touchdown with 4:54 remaining in the second quarter. Tennessee led Saban’s Tigers 14-7, and failure on that play could give the Volunteers a chance to run away with a game practically everyone already assumed they’d win.
“I can’t imagine Nick Saban going for it,” CBS play-by-play announcer Verne Lundquist said just before Saban’s team went for it. LSU quarterback Rohan Davey, already nursing a rib injury suffered during the first quarter, settled in under center Ben Wilkerson. The Tigers lined up with two tight ends, three receivers and no backs. The idea? Star tailback LaBrandon Toefield — who might have gotten the ball otherwise — was hurt, but even in a weakened state, the 6-foot-3, 240-pound Davey should have theoretically been able to lean forward to gain that inch. But Davey bobbled the snap. By the time he picked it up, Tennessee defensive end Demetrin Veal had his left arm wrapped around Davey’s chest and his right arm wrapped around Davey’s head. Veal ripped Davey backward, dumping him for a 1-yard loss. On the sideline, Saban briefly protested that officials should have called a face mask. But his heart wasn’t in it. There was no face-mask foul. Saban had just gone for it on fourth down from his own 23 and come up short. “For the next five minutes of the game,” Saban said, “I was like in la-la land, like, ‘Why did you do that? That’s the dumbest thing you’ve ever done.’”
So why is the dumbest call of Saban’s career also one of the most important?
Because it didn’t cost LSU that game. In fact, it helped the Tigers win. Davey’s injuries forced him out of the game, but his backup — a future dentist whom Saban tried to move to safety before that season — came in and flummoxed Tennessee’s defense thanks to a late addition offensive coordinator Jimbo Fisher made to the playbook days before the game. The Vols, fresh off a stunning win at Florida that put them in a position to reach the national title game, made too many critical mistakes. LSU’s 31-20 win spoiled Tennessee’s Rose Bowl dream and helped pour the foundation for the idea of LSU as a national power. It also taught Saban a valuable lesson he’d use in a career that is now up to seven national titles (and counting).
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“We were walking off the field after the game, and the seniors came up and said, ‘You know, Coach, that was the most important thing you did in the game — when you went for it on fourth down,’” Saban said. “I said, ‘Really?’ They said, ‘Yeah, because when you did that, we really thought we could win.’”
To understand why that shift in belief matters so much, you first must understand what LSU was and what Tennessee was in 2001.
The Tigers hadn’t won the SEC since 1988, and between that title and Saban’s arrival prior to the 2000 season, they’d only finished above .500 three times. LSU went 3-9 in Gerry DiNardo’s final season in 1999 and scored only 28 touchdowns the entire season. (By contrast, LSU’s 2019 national title team scored 30 touchdowns in its first four games.) The Tigers had some good players. DiNardo went 10-2 in 1996 and 9-3 in 1997 with rosters that included guard Alan Faneca, defensive tackle Booger McFarland and tailback Kevin Faulk, but the program was struggling to recruit locally despite the wellspring of talent in Louisiana. At that time, players didn’t go to LSU simply expecting to win championships. The 2001 team changed that standard.
Saban, who was hired away from Michigan State following the 1999 season, saw an under-leveraged asset. If he could convince some of the best players in Louisiana to stay home, that would give the Tigers enough talent to compete with the best teams in the SEC. Saban’s first LSU staff included Fisher and defensive backs coach Mel Tucker, current Power 5 head coaches who have proven over time to be excellent recruiters. Will Muschamp, another future head coach with a discerning eye for talent, came aboard as the linebackers coach in 2001. Saban and his staff began recruiting the best players in the 2001 class as soon as they got the job.
The decisions of receiver Michael Clayton and tight end/defensive end Marcus Spears of Baton Rouge, defensive end Marquise Hill of New Orleans and offensive lineman Andrew Whitworth of West Monroe to stay in the state for college sent a signal to other elite recruits that LSU was worth considering. Saban believed that class would change LSU’s fortunes. And it did. But it also would need help from an unlikely source.
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Matt Mauck would one day be a national title-winning quarterback and then a successful Aurora, Colo., dentist who tends to the teeth of the Denver Broncos, but in 1999, he was playing for the Lansing (Mich.) Lugnuts, a Cubs Single-A affiliate. And he wasn’t playing well. While hitting .221 in 107 games, Mauck, a two-sport star as an Indiana high schooler, started to consider playing football again. Coincidentally, he had initially signed to play football for the Big Ten team one town over. Mauck approached Saban about finally joining the Spartans, and Saban was interested. “The year I decided to do it,” Mauck said, “he left Michigan State to go to LSU.” Saban was still interested. Mauck’s baseball deal was going to pay his tuition, room and board, so he wouldn’t even take up a scholarship. Mauck joined the Tigers in 2000, redshirting that season to get himself back into football shape. In his first preseason camp, Saban asked Mauck to move to safety. Mauck asked for one more week to prove he could play quarterback, and during that week third-teamer Craig Nall broke his thumb holding on a field goal. So Mauck remained a QB.
A year later, a similar situation played out at Tennessee. An infielder in the Marlins organization named Kelley Washington decided to give football another chance. Washington had finished high school in Virginia as a lanky 195-pounder, but he had grown in the minors into a 6-3, 225-pound rocket. Washington’s high school coach knew Tennessee defensive backs coach Larry Slade, and he made a call. Suddenly, word began to spread about the mysterious walk-on — whose tuition was being paid by his baseball deal — who might be able to crack the receiver rotation on one of the nation’s best teams. The Vols had a loaded defense led by future first-round tackles John Henderson and Albert Haynesworth, but they needed another weapon on the outside alongside receiver Donte’ Stallworth and tight end Jason Witten to help starting quarterback Casey Clausen. Washington would be that weapon.
The 2001 Vols started their season with high expectations. The previous season had been a bit of a rebuild after most of the key pieces of the 1998 national title team had exhausted their eligibility. Clausen’s firm command of the QB job by the end of the 2000 season and Henderson’s decision to return for a fourth year spawned new hope on Rocky Top. Steve Spurrier had what might have been his most talented team at Florida, and it felt once again that the real SEC title game would be the one between the Vols and the Gators. It was the 10th season since the SEC had split into divisions and established a championship game. Alabama had won in 1992 and 1999; either Florida or Tennessee had won the rest.
Unlike LSU at the time, Tennessee was supposed to compete for titles. Anything less was unacceptable.
Tennessee opened with wins against Syracuse and Arkansas. Then tragedy struck. Following the Sept. 11 attacks, sports shut down for several weeks. The Vols usual Week 3 matchup with Florida was moved to Dec. 1. Tennessee didn’t take the field again until Sept. 29 at Neyland Stadium. The opponent? LSU.
Against the Tigers, Washington smashed the SEC record for receiving yards in a game when he caught 11 passes for 256 yards in a 26-18 Tennessee win. The Vols seemed confident they could compete with anyone.
The following week, this happened.
That 26-24 loss to Mark Richt’s first Georgia team cooled any enthusiasm the Vols had. That same week, Florida annihilated LSU 44-15 in Baton Rouge. (Mauck played much of the game in relief of an injured Davey.) The Gators looked like the SEC’s best team, and the attention shifted away from Tennessee.
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The Vols would win their next six games out of the national spotlight, but with each victory, their confidence grew that they weren’t as far from Florida as everyone on the outside believed. As the regular season drew to a close, multiple teams chased the second spot in the Rose Bowl, where the national title would be decided with a game against Big East champ Miami. Between the 2002 and 2006 drafts, 38 of those Hurricanes would be chosen by NFL teams. Seventeen were selected in the first round. Maybe no one could have beaten Miami that season, but the prevailing notion for most of the year was that Florida was the only squad with a fighting chance. But to face Miami, the Gators would have to beat Tennessee on Dec. 1 and win the SEC title game. Perhaps Florida was looking ahead to Atlanta or Pasadena. Even though each team was 9-1, the Vols came to The Swamp as 18-point underdogs. Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer tapped into that disrespect as he addressed his team before the game.
After Travis Stephens ran for 226 yards and two touchdowns and Tennessee, in the words of Haynesworth, turned The Swamp “into a little old pond” with a 34-32 win, Fulmer told the Vols in the locker room to “look forward.”
Unfortunately, Tennessee’s fans began looking a little too far forward. The team returned to campus that night where a throng of thousands awaited. Many waved roses. Players and coaches had roses tossed at their feet, and the coaches and veterans worried everyone in Knoxville would assume a win against LSU, just as seemingly everyone in Gainesville had assumed a win against Tennessee.
That wasn’t difficult to imagine, though. The Vols had already beaten the Tigers, and Tennessee was better than it was when they had played. But just as Tennessee had laid in the weeds and shocked Florida, LSU also had improved dramatically while toiling in relative obscurity.
Three weeks after that Florida loss, LSU lost at home to Ole Miss to drop to 4-3. Tigers faithful were left to wonder if this Saban guy was really any better than DiNardo. But then came a 35-21 win against Alabama in which receiver Josh Reed broke the receiving yards record Washington had set against LSU by catching 19 passes for 293 yards. The Tigers followed that with wins against Middle Tennessee and Arkansas. Like Tennessee, LSU finished its regular season Dec. 1 with a game that had originally been scheduled for September. Had the two games been played when they were originally scheduled, it’s quite possible the SEC Championship would have been a rematch of Auburn’s Oct. 13 win against Florida. (And a rematch of the 2000 SEC Championship.) But in December, LSU dominated Auburn and clinched the SEC West title with a 27-14 win.
The matchup was set. In Knoxville, confidence surged. The mood went from Maybe we can beat Florida to We’re probably the only team that can hang with Miami. And maybe they were correct. The potential opponents for the Hurricanes were Tennessee, Oregon and Nebraska, and the Vols were the only team in that group that even came close to the level of pure talent Miami had.
In Baton Rouge, offensive coordinator Fisher watched video of Haynesworth and Henderson and fretted. He had a freshman center. What could he do if those two just dominated? “Their defensive line was arguably one of the best ever,” Mauck said. “And Ro was a straight dropback QB. They were super nervous that we wouldn’t be able to get throws off. So they put that QB draw in for Rohan. What’s funny is we put that in on Wednesday. We hadn’t run it all year.”
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The QB draw would allow LSU’s interior linemen to use the aggressiveness of Henderson and Haynesworth against them. Late that season, Vols defensive coordinator John Chavis had introduced the Prowler look, in which Henderson and Haynesworth stood up and paced laterally along the line of scrimmage. The offensive line would have no idea which gap they’d attack. But against the draw, that didn’t matter as long as they attacked and didn’t try to create a pile in the middle of the line. The lineman or linemen who drew the Big Orange monsters would pass set, encouraging them to push upfield. Then the offensive linemen would push them past the play.
The Tigers ran one such play with Davey early. Then, with Mauck playing in place of Davey during a first-quarter series following Davey’s initial rib injury, Mauck scored the game’s first touchdown on a 4-yard QB draw. Tennessee answered with a Clausen-to-Washington touchdown and followed that with a 3-yard Troy Fleming touchdown catch that was set up by a 47-yard Clausen-to-Washington connection.
On the next possession, Saban faced that fourth-down decision.
While Saban stewed in la-la land, Clausen was called for intentional grounding when he threw the ball away on a screen and the ball didn’t pass the line of scrimmage. That crushed Tennessee’s momentum, and it allowed LSU to hold the Vols to a field goal. On LSU’s next possession, Davey left the game for good. For better or worse, the fate of the LSU offense was in Mauck’s hands. LSU capped that drive with a field goal to close the gap to 17-10. Mauck and Domanick Davis, who carried 16 times for 78 yards while picking up the slack for the injured Toefield, helped LSU get in position for two more field goals to cut the lead to one. “They lost two of the big players,” Tennessee defensive end Will Overstreet said that night, “but they seemed to play better.”
A few plays later, the CBS broadcast focused on the LSU sideline and freshman QB Rick Clausen, the southpaw younger sibling who had portrayed Casey on the Tigers’ scout team that week. The director cut to the stands, where 13-year-old baby brother Jimmy rocked a custom half-Tennessee, half-LSU jersey and commentators Lundquist and Todd Blackledge pointed out father Jim’s frequent-at-the-time prediction that Jimmy would be the best of the three. (Spoiler alert: He was.)
The Clausens likely had mixed emotions on Tennessee’s next play when LSU defensive tackle Byron Dawson stripped Stephens and the ball ricocheted off Stephens’ right knee and into the hands of Tigers safety Damien James. On the ensuing LSU possession, Mauck showed why he probably was better suited than Davey to face Tennessee’s defense. The screen pass to Josh Reed to convert a third-and-4 from the Tennessee 22? Davey might have been sacked before he could have thrown. Mauck backpedaled 15 yards and threw just before the rush arrived. On the next play, Mauck scored a 13-yard touchdown on — you guessed it — a QB draw to give LSU a lead it never would relinquish.
Asked this week how much Saban going for it on fourth deep in LSU territory actually inspired the team, Mauck said it was a continuation of a shift in mindset that Saban started back in 2000. “It was just that mentality,” Mauck said. “We’re here to win. We aren’t here to just compete. We wanted to win the game.”
Without that call, perhaps Saban doesn’t make this call while facing Clemson for the national title in January 2016.
And without that call, we don’t get this classic moment.
Let’s be clear, this is not a smile.
It’s the expression of man who just ate a fresh beating heart. pic.twitter.com/fG09d1Srgw
— Ted Miller (@TedMillerRK) January 12, 2016
At the very least, the call in 2001 inspired the win that helped set the table for LSU’s ascension as a national power. With Mauck at QB and Clayton, Spears, Whitworth, Wilkerson, Hill and a host of other future NFL players leading the way, LSU won the national title in 2003. “Everything that Saban was saying, finally people believed,” Mauck said. “We thought, ‘If we just stick with this process, this might work out.’ We were missing a few pieces of the puzzle, but that validated that we could compete with anybody.”
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The next generation of Tigers recruits would win another title playing for Les Miles in 2007. Now, the standard at LSU is to build a team that can compete for the national title. Anything less is unacceptable. Twenty years ago, that would have seemed like madness to anyone who had watched LSU the previous decade. Almost as mad as going for fourth-and-an-inch on your own 23-yard line.
“Sometimes the dumbest things you do, you never know how people are going to respond to them,” Saban said. “And that was one of the dumb ones.”
(Photo of Domanick Davis: Jamie Squire / Getty Images; Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic)
