LSU avoids questions, upset with incredible finish

BATON ROUGE, La. -- Gary Crowton had some explaining to do. That is, if LSU's offensive coordinator had stuck around long enough.

After the type of call Crowton made -- one that luckily, improbably, incredibly beat Auburn on Saturday night -- you tend to slip out the back door, drive right home and perhaps pour yourself a stiff one. Minutes after LSU's 30-24 victory, someone mentioned seeing Crowton do just that -- run a go route from the assistants' locker room to the parking lot.

Quarterback Matt Flynn gives LSU the win with just a second to spare in regulation. (AP)

Luckily, coach Les Miles had Crowton's back -- somewhat -- after Matt Flynn, who threw for a career-high 319 yards, tossed the game-winning 22-yard touchdown pass with one second left to beat Auburn.

"It was, 'OK. OK, Gary,'" Miles said when he heard the call come down from the press box.

Hardly a ringing endorsement for the play that should have made LSU an upset victim for the second straight week. More than that, failure would have ruined the Tigers' hopes of getting to the BCS championship game and diminished severely its chances of getting to the SEC title game.

You've heard of the Bluegrass Miracle? Crowton's call was nearly the Death Valley D'oh!

LSU had the ball, third down, eight to go from Auburn's 22. Auburn led 24-23. LSU had one timeout left. Auburn had two. The smart, sane, season-saving play would be to run the ball into the middle of the line and summon kicker Colt David for a game-winning field goal.

Instead, clock management and logic both left the building. Neither team saw fit to use its timeouts. Not Auburn to stop the clock so it could get the ball back if LSU scored. Not LSU to get David on the field. As the clock kept winding, incredibly, Crowton saw something no one else did and called for a streak into the end zone by Demetrius Byrd.

Never mind eschewing the obvious field goal, if Flynn's pass is a) knocked down; b) bobbled or c) tipped in any manner whatsoever, the game -- and the season in many ways -- is over.

"I just said that in the locker room," Auburn offensive coordinator Al Borges said. "My hat's off to them. It was gutsy. I don't know if I would have done it. Most people would have (kicked the field goal)."

Instead, we have this incredible sequence of events:

• With eight seconds left, the ball is snapped.

• With six seconds left, Flynn takes a short drop and launches a line drive to the left in the back of the end zone.