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Hurricane Rita 10 Years Later: The Night the Tennessee Vols Ruined the LSU Tigers Homecoming

By Caleb Calhoun

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A decade after Hurricane Rita followed Hurricane Katrina, we remember a Monday night college football game when the Tennessee Vols stunned the LSU Tigers.

It’s weird to look back on now given how the season played out and the scope of what was going on at the time.

But lost in the disastrous 2005 football season for the Tennessee Volunteers and also the damage and tragedy from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, we almost forget about what was one of the most glorious moments in Tennessee football history at the time it happened.

We are talking, of course, about a Monday night game in 2005 in which the Vols stunned the LSU Tigers in Baton Rouge 30-27 in overtime after coming back from a 21-0 deficit.

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It was an awkward storyline to start with. The LSU Tigers were starting their first year with Les Miles as head coach. Tennessee, meanwhile, was coming off of a 10-3 season in which they started three different quarterbacks, two of whom were freshmen, and were returning the entire football team.

Both teams were inevitably Top 10 teams and in the Top Five in many preseason polls, but the buildup to the game increased the storyline.

The destruction from the hurricanes forced LSU to postpone its first game, and its scheduled home game with Arizona State had to be moved to Tempe, Ariz., turning it into a road game. The Tigers won a thriller 35-31 after JaMarcus Russell converted on a fourth down late in the game with a beautiful pass to Early Doucet that went for a touchdown. The Tigers were 1-0 getting set to host the game.

Tennessee, meanwhile had trouble getting any rhythm with its quarterback rotation of Erik Ainge and Rick Clausen, struggling to win its opener against UAB and losing to Florida in Urban Meyer’s first year 16-7 in the second game.

The initial date for the Tennessee-LSU game was Saturday, but the damage from the hurricane forced it to be postponed until Monday. The result was that almost no Vol fans were able to travel to the game.

Heading into Baton Rouge, Tennessee was supposed to be the victim of LSU’s feel-good story. This was their home-opener after the major destruction of two hurricanes, the night they were supposed to forget about life and enjoy football. LSU looked like a Top Five team after its first win, and Tennessee didn’t know if it could generate any offense.

Everything was supposed to fall in place for LSU. And their fans, desperate and excited for good news, started things off in a classless way, harassing the Tennessee team bus physically as it rolled into Tiger Stadium.

Phil Fulmer had named Ainge the full-time starter over Clausen going into the game, and with his help, the Vols played right along into the Tigers story.

An Ainge fumble on the first drive followed by a Joseph Addai touchdown made it 7-0 LSU. Later, a flea-flicker set up a second touchdown to make it 14-0.

And the climax of the LSU section happened when, backed up in his own end zone, Ainge desperately tried to throw the ball away to avoid a safety…right into the hands of an LSU lineman that went for a touchdown. 21-0 Tigers. This was clearly LSU’s night, and the storyline was perfect.

But while they clearly felt as sympathetic as anybody about what had happened to the state of Louisiana, Tennessee had a job to do. Fulmer made a quarterback switch and brought in Clausen, a guy who had transferred from LSU three years earlier.

Down 21-0 at halftime and having gone four straight quarters without scoring a point, the Vols finally got on the board in the third quarter after Clausen engineered a third-quarter touchdown drive that ended with a touchdown pass to Bret Smith. But LSU countered with a late field goal, and the Tigers were up 24-7 in the fourth.

Tennessee then required a time-consuming drive to get back on the board, capped off by a fourth down quarterback sneak for a touchdown by Clausen. It was 24-14 LSU, and on a hot weeknight in Baton Rouge, the crowd was tired at this point and just wanted to get out with a win. That seemed likely because Tennessee’s offense was only capable of long drives and would not have time for two more of those.

But after playing great all night, the defense finally gave the team the break it needed. Thanks to an idiotic pass by Russell that should have shown why he never would have made it in the NFL, Jonathan Hefney intercepted a pass intended for Dwayne Bowe and took it to the LSU 1. Despite being down by 10 and in the middle of the fourth, that is when everything changed. The momentum was all in Tennessee’s favor, and you knew with the way their defense was playing the game was a toss-up.

After Gerald Riggs scored the touchdown to cut it to 24-21, the LSU fan base and players tried to get re-energized. But that was hard to do, and once again, the defense did its job by shutting down the Tigers offense.

Tennessee got the ball back and tied it up with a field goal, and after teams exchanged turnovers, we were headed for overtime.

The defense once again stiffened and held the Tigers to a field goal. You knew Tennessee would win then.

Against a gassed LSU defense and with a very fresh Riggs, he got the ball every snap except one when the Vols offense was on the field. And with no trouble, he eventually pounded into the end zone for a game-winner.

30-27, final.

This was an incredible comeback, and after the loss to Florida, to come back and beat a Top Five team on the road like that was truly elating.

Unfortunately, the momentum did not last, as Tennessee stumbled to its first losing season in 17 years while LSU finished 11-2 and won the SEC West.

But for one glorious night during that season, the Vols snatched away a storyline that was supposed to be all about LSU. You never forget road victories like that.

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