THE BIG STORY

LSU will honor Virginia Tech before Saturday’s game in Tiger Stadium. It is the Hokies’ first road game since the April 16 campus shooting that claimed the lives of 33 students and faculty members, the deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history.

LSU senior associate athletic director Herb Vincent said after the teams leave the field following pregame warmups three skydivers will land in the stadium. One will carry a Virginia Tech flag, one will carry an LSU flag while the third will carry an American flag.

After the LSU band plays its pregame fanfare, Vincent said there will be a moment of silence for the victims. The LSU band will then perform Virginia Tech’s alma mater, LSU’s alma mater, then the national anthem.

Before the game, the Louisiana secretary of state’s office will present a quilt to the Virginia Tech alumni association during its pregame rally at LSU’s Carl Maddox Field House. Vincent said the quilt is comprised of squares made by people from the secretary of state’s office, LSU students and three Tigers offensive linemen: Herman Johnson, Ciron Black and Carnell Stewart.

A look at the league:

ALABAMA

Alabama coach Nick Saban reinstated suspended receiver Keith Brown and linebacker Prince Hall for Saturday’s game at Vanderbilt, but they don’t have their starting jobs back. “In fairness to the guys that competed in their place, they should have to compete with those guys to be able to play,” Saban said. Hall certainly won’t start ahead of true freshman middle linebacker Rolando McClain, who played great in the season opening 52-6 win over Western Carolina.

ARKANSAS

Arkansas junior tailback Felix Jones was a no-brainer pick as the SEC’s Special Teams Player of the Week on Monday for his performance in Arkansas’ 46-26 win over Troy last weekend. Jones racked up 287 all-purpose yards including 144 yards on three kickoff returns highlighted by a 90-yard kickoff return for a touchdown against the Trojans. The return marked the third time in his Razorback career he has returned a kickoff for a score. Jones returned a kickoff 100 yards for a touchdown against Mississippi State as a freshman in 2005 before duplicating the feat against Ole Miss as a sophomore in 2006. Jones is tied for the career lead in that category among active NCAA players and only Willie Gault (4) of Tennessee has more kickoff returns for touchdowns in his career in SEC history. He ranks second nationally in both kickoff returns and all-purpose yards after the opening weekend.

AUBURN

Auburn needs to do a better job protecting quarterback Brandon Cox, who was sacked five times (four in the first half) in Saturday’s season opening win over Kansas State. He was rocked so hard that he was in a daze, leading him to not call audibles at the line of scrimmages that would have led to running plays and better protections. that Cox said he simply did not recognize. “It was just not being focused at the time,” Cox said. “There were some blitzes they brought that we had gone over in practice that just didn’t register at the time. I was pretty banged (up). I was out of it much of the game. I got my bell rung pretty good. Going back and watching the film, there were definitely some checks I could have made that would have helped me out.”

FLORIDA

One weakness in the season opening win over Western Kentucky for the Gators was ineffective punt returns. Jarred Fayson tried to make too many cuts, so look for No. 1 punt returner Brandon James to recalim his job this week as he returns from a one-game suspension this week . . Also Florida coach Urban Meyer said he and his staff is working with true freshman punter Chas Henry to break Henry’s habit of taking more than two steps. He’s been a two-step punter in practice the past few weeks, but Meyer said he reverted back to his old form in Saturday’s game. “He is two steps and a false step, which concerns me,” Meyer said of Henry. “We’ve worked hard (to eliminate the false step). He’s a guy who takes his job extremely serious. He’s a guy you can talk to and challenge.”. . .Florida played 14 true freshmen in the opener.

GEORGIA

Georgia tailback Kregg Lumpkin will undergo surgery today on his broken right thumb and is out for Saturday’s SEC opener against South Carolina. Lumpkin, who wore a cast on the thumb Monday, suffered the injury on a third quarter run in Saturday’s win over Oklahoma State when he rushed through a hole and tried to brace himself when he fell. “I thought it was dislocated when I first looked at it,” said Lumpkin. “When I looked at it, it was leaning out of my glove.” The plan is to put a cast on Lumpkin and get him back special teams as soon as possible. “I just don’t know how long this thing’s going to last,” coach Mark Richt said on his radio call-in show Monday night. “I imagine he’ll be able to play a little bit of special teams prior to him being able to go back there and run the ball and hold onto the ball with a cast on his hand.

KENTUCKY

Kentucky plays Kent State this week, then Louisville next week. So don’t ask him about Louisville, or this is what you’ll get, the same thing a reporter got on Monday when he asked Brooks about Louisville: “”Everybody wants to bring up Louisville. They brought it up before the opener. Some of you all (the media) and a lot of other people are upset that Louisville wasn’t our opener. Whatever that means, we’re not playing Louisville, we’re not worried about Louisville, and I’m not worried about my players thinking ahead to Louisville. I’m worried about them focusing about Kent State, regardless of what the reasons are. Am I gonna worry when we’re playing Louisville that we have to go on the road and open SEC play against Arkansas the next week? We have tough games. Where Louisville falls in the schedule doesn’t predicate where our head is. Where our head is as a team needs to be focused on where we need to get better, and I think this group has it in hand.”

LSU

LSU kept its offense vanilla in its 45-0 victory at Mississippi State on Thursday night. LSU ran 50 times for 198 yards and passed 22 times for 149. The Tigers rarely threw the ball very deep downfield, but quarterback Matt Flynn said, “I did what the game told me to do, I didn’t do anything above and beyond.”
LSU coach Les Miles said there’s not much more than that. “You saw our football team,” Miles said at his weekly press luncheon on Monday. “That’s what we are. There was no real reason to hide things that we are doing. Don’t expect us now to unveil the Wotango Offense or the super-superior defense or double-superior or triple-superior defense.” What is a Wotango Offense? “I have no idea,” Miles laughed.

OLE MISS
Ole Miss will be without wide receiver/kick returner Dexter McCluster, out for six weeks with a shoulder injury sustained last week in practice. McCluster hurt the shoulder last year, but re-injured it by simply making a cut in practice. There was no contact. Last year, he missed the second half of 2006 after sustaining a concussion and shoulder injury when he was knocked out of the Vanderbilt game with a vicious hit on the opening kickoff.

MISS. STATE
With junior college transfer Josh Riddell coming off a one-game suspension, Mississippi State coach Sylvester Croom won’t hesitate playing him on Saturday at Tulane, especially after the fact starter Michael Hening threw six interceptions in the season-opening 45-0 loss to LSU. “If Josh practices the way I think he will, I may play both quarterbacks anyway,” Croom said. “But I’ll do on game day whatever gives us the best chance to win the football game.” Croom said he still has confidence in Henig, and that he and State offensive coordinator Woody McCorvey would “do some things to help him (Henig), which I won’t go into detail on.”

SOUTH CAROLINA
Blake Mitchell likely will start at quarterback Saturday at Georgia after his return from a one-game academic suspension. South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier stopped short of naming the fifth-year senior the starter, but said “there’s a good chance.” If Mitchell does not start, backup Chris Smelley may not be available. Smelley, who started the season-opener, is nursing a sprained shoulder and sat out Monday’s practice. Smelley, a redshirt freshman, split time with Tommy Beecher in the opener. Each threw a touchdown pass, but Beecher threw for more yardage (137 yards against 101) and Smelley threw an interception. “I haven’t decided for sure (on a starter),” Spurrier said. “We’ll keep it sort of suspenseful until later in the week.”

TENNESSEE

Tennessee coach Phillip Fulmer said his defense got no pass rush on Cal quarterback Nate Longshore on Saturday’s loss. Why? “They did a good job of throwing it quick, and they did a good job when they were throwing it down the field of keeping six and seven people in,” Fulmer said. “When you’ve got double teams all over the place, it can get you if you’re not careful because they can hold the ball longer. We need a nice mix of pressure, we need to create some one-on-one matchups and win some of those matchups. It was disappointing that we did not come away with a sack, but they very much intended for us not to do that with a moving pocket, the extra protection and throwing the ball quick.” The Vols relied on their front four - instead of blitzing extra players - to try and pressure Longshore.

VANDERBILT

Commodores junior receiver Earl Bennett was named Southeastern Conference player of week Monday for a school-record 223 receiving yards on 13 catches during Saturday’s 41-17 blowout of Richmond. It was the most passes caught in a season opener ever in SEC history. Bennett has caught a pass in every college game. He had 82 for 1,146 yards last year, making him the league’s first to top 75 in multiple seasons. “That’s one thing we wanted to try to do with Earl this year is throw some longer balls and give him a chance to make some plays for us, and he did it,” Commodores coach Bobby Johnson said. “Some of those catches were spectacular.”