By David Vitrano

L’Observateur

LAPLACE – Although LSU’s appearance in the BCS National Championship game in January was pretty much a foregone conclusion, even before defeating Georgia for the SEC title Saturday, but who the team would face was the matter of much discussion leading up to last weekend’s games.

Accordingly, last week L’Observateur asked visitors to its website which team they thought the Tigers should face in January.

It has already been decided LSU will pay Alabama for the national championship in a rematch of one of the most hyped games of the season. That should be OK with a large portion of poll respondents as nearly half of those who voted said the Crimson Tide is who they wanted to see the Tigers play for the title.

One-third of respondents said they would like to see LSU play a more offensive-minded team like Oklahoma State. When the Tigers faced Alabama during the regular season it was a battle of defenses that ended with the Tigers winning, 9-6, in overtime.

About two in 10 respondents wanted to see LSU face Houston, which until last weekend, was the only other undefeated team. As a member of Conference USA, however, that was an unlikely scenario. Tulane, also a Conference USA team, went undefeated in 1998 but was never really considered for a spot in one of the top bowls because of the weakness of its schedule.

Lastly, just 2 percent said they wanted to see the Tigers face Stanford’s Andrew Luck, who many consider to be a good prospect for the top draft pick next summer.

A full breakdown of results follows:

• 45 percent of respondents chose “Alabama because rematch or not they are the second best team in the country.”

• 32 percent of respondents chose “Oklahoma State because it pits the nation’s most explosive offense against its best defense.”

• 2 percent of respondents chose “Stanford because I want to see Andrew Luck play against the Tiger defense.”

• 20 percent of respondents chose “Houston because they are the nation’s last unbeaten team.”