SEC Championship Game -- LSU 42, Georgia 10: Another Second Half Blowout Sends the Tigers Title-Hunting

We were told after the Alabama game a few weeks ago that LSU had two obstacles left: The game against Arkansas and the SEC Championship Game against the winner of the SEC East. We were told both times that the teams would be difficult outs for LSU, perhaps the most challenging teams aside from Alabama that they would face.

And for a few minutes, at least, each of those final challenges looked like they might be too much for the Tigers in their quest for the first perfect season in Baton Rouge in 53 years. In the case of Georgia, the Dawgs led 10-0 early in the game and 10-7 at the half, with even that LSU touchdown in dispute when replays seemed to show Tyrann Mathieu tossing the kickoff return to the line judge before the ball had crossed the line.

It didn't matter.

In the second half, LSU did what it has done to nearly every team it faced in its march to 13-0: Take a competitive game and turn it into a blowout. The Bayou Bengals put up 35 unanswered points in the second half, often capitalizing on the kind of ill-timed mistakes that every team seems to make against the LSU defense.

On the stat sheet, the Tigers were far from dominant, gaining just 237 yards of total offense to Georgia's 296. Jordan Jefferson passed for only 30 yards the entire game. All of LSU's 13 first downs came in the second half. But the Tigers won the way they always have under Les Miles -- unconventionally, unafraid and unwilling to apologize for yet another win, no matter what you think of the aesthetics.

The only obstacle that stands in the way now is either a rematch against Alabama, the only team that managed to keep LSU from dropping a truck on it in the second half, or a new opponent in the form of Oklahoma State. Once again, the pundits will almost certainly tell us that this team is different. And maybe LSU will fall behind early in the game, and maybe they will once again have to force the other team into making some mistakes to roar back in the second half.

But after what we've seen over the last four months, it will be very hard to pick against the Tigers. It might not be the prettiest game in the world, but the odds are that the Tigers will win it, and the team that wins them all is the one that claims the championship when the season ends.