Sept 8, 2001

Stats

By MARY FOSTER
AP Sports Writer

BATON ROUGE, La. - LaBrandon Toefield ran circles around Utah State. The rest of his LSU teammates weren't as impressive.

Toefield rushed for four touchdowns - the second most in LSU history - to lead the No. 13 Tigers to a 31-14 victory over Utah State on Saturday night.

"Even though we made a lot of mistakes and it wasn't our best game, we still won," Toefield said. "The offensive line did a great job of blocking and so did the receivers."

Toefield has scored seven times in the first two games. He finished one score away from Kevin Faulk's record of five touchdowns in a game.

But other than Toefield, who gained 183 yards on 27 carries, LSU (2-0) was not impressive against the overmatched Aggies. The Tigers begin Southeastern Conference play next week against Auburn,

"We made some great big plays on offense, but I think we're going to have to be able to do that and we're going to have to be more consistent on defense to be the team we want to be," LSU coach Nick Saban said.

LSU had six fumbles and lost three of them. The Tigers also had seven penalties for 65 yards. They converted nine of 14 third-down chances.

Unlike last week, the Tigers played their starters the entire game.

LSU also had problems with its return game. Domanick Davis, the Tigers dangerous return man who had 60 kickoff return yards last week, missed the game with a knee injury. In the first half LSU fumbled the first two punts and muffed the third. They recovered them, but had minus-11 yards on punt returns for the game.

"We didn't do the things on special teams that changed the game around that I would like to see," Saban said. "We certainly missed Domanick Davis back there."

Devery Henderson fumbled in the third quarter, setting up Utah State's second touchdown of the game, a 1-yard run by Emmett White that cut LSU's lead to 10 points. White had 22 carries for 108 yards.

In the fourth quarter, Henderson fumbled on the Utah State 30, turning the ball over to the Aggies. Utah State drove to the LSU 25 before Jose Fuentes was sacked, fumbled the ball and the Tigers recovered.

Utah State (0-2), 1-32 against Top 25 teams, took home $550,000 to soften the loss.

"I love the kids to death because of their effort tonight," Utah State coach Mick Dennehy said. "I thought that they played a darn good football team eyeball to eyeball and didn't take a step back."

Utah State scored first. After LSU went three and out, the Aggies used their first possession to stage a 15 play drive that ate up 70 yards and 5 minutes and 49 seconds. Fuentes, who completed 30 of 52 passes for 235 yards, hit Chris Cooley with a 3-yard touchdown pass and Utah State was up 7-0. Fuentes also was intercepted twice and sacked twice.

LSU tied it on Toefield's 1-yard run.

In the second quarter, Toefield bulled his way in from the 5-yard line and sprinted 70 yards, running through and away from the Utah State defense for touchdowns. John Corbello added a 34-yard field goal to put LSU up 24-7 at the half.

Utah State has been outscored 37-3 in the second quarter in their first two games.

After being held scoreless in the third quarter, LSU iced the victory on Toefield's final score of the game, a 4-yard run a minute and a half into the fourth quarter.

Rohan Davey completed 13 of 24 passes for 229 yards. He was sacked once.