LSU’s Patrick Peterson has never been short on confidence, which is a prerequisite if you’re going to play cornerback at the level he does in the SEC.

“I’m always talking out there on the field. That’s a huge part of my game,” Peterson said. “I just love to talk, and I love to talk trash and back it up. Every receiver I guard will tell you that I’m going to talk. I don’t care if we’re losing. I’m going to be talking until the clock has zeros on it.”

Entering his junior season, Peterson returns as perhaps the premier cornerback in the country. He’s already been tabbed as one of the top 10 defensive prospects for the 2011 draft by ESPN’s Todd McShay.

In Peterson’s mind, there’s no “perhaps” to it when talking about college football’s best corner.

“I believe I’m the best corner right now in the country, but I definitely have to go out there and prove myself and prove it to anybody who thinks they’re better than me,” said Peterson, who led all SEC cornerbacks with 15 passes defended last season. “I just have to go out there every single day with a chip on my shoulder, knowing that I want to be the best and what I want out of this career.”

What makes the 6-1, 211-pound Peterson so special is that he can just as easily manhandle a receiver physically as he can swoop in with blazing closing speed to knock a ball away.

In the open field, few corners are better tacklers. Peterson had 43 solo stops last season, which was second on LSU"s team to linebacker Kelvin Sheppard.

Peterson also scored a pair of touchdowns, one on a 37-yard interception return against Mississippi State and another on a 53-yard return of a blocked field goal.

“People talk about explosive playmakers,” Sheppard said. “He’s our explosive playmaker on defense.”

Even with the early departure of safety Chad Jones to the NFL, the Tigers return a secondary that could be one of the best in the league in 2010. Jai Eugene has moved from cornerback to safety, and sophomore Morris Claiborne looks like he’s following in Peterson’s footsteps as the Tigers’ next great cornerback.

“I think we’ll have two corners, Peterson and Claiborne, that may be as good a corner tandem as there is,” LSU coach Les Miles said.

Peterson said it’s definitely the most speed the Tigers have put on the field in the secondary and across the board defensively since he’s been in Baton Rouge.

“We might be a little smaller, but there’s a lot of toughness out there,” Peterson said. “You win games in the fourth quarter with toughness.”

For Peterson, he’s still haunted by the fourth quarter/overtime from the Alabama game each of the past two seasons.

As a freshman, Peterson had the coverage on Julio Jones when he made a sensational 24-yard catch at the 1 to set up the game-winning touchdown for Alabama in overtime.

And then last season, Peterson had to leave the game briefly with cramps. Up until that point, he’d clamped down on Jones. But with Peterson getting treatment on the sideline, Jones gathered in a receiver screen on the left side, shook off an LSU defender and raced 73 yards for a touchdown that changed the complexion of the game and put Alabama ahead to stay.

There was even more heartache for Peterson later in the fourth quarter. He appeared to intercept a pass on the sideline that would have given LSU a chance to reclaim the lead. But the officials on the field ruled that Peterson was out of bounds. It looked like on the replay that he did get one foot down with possession, but that’s not the way the replay official saw it -- and the call wasn’t overturned.

“It’s still tough,” Peterson said. “My freshman year, I was on the field when (Jones) had the big catch. He made a great play. When I went in this year, I was like, ‘I can’t let him catch one on me,’ and he didn’t catch a ball on me the whole game.

“I don’t want to blame it on anything, but I had the flu the week prior and wasn’t getting fluids inside of me. But that play goes through my head every single day. I kid you not.

“This year, I’m going in thinking, ‘No catches and no cramps.’ ”

One thing Peterson insists he’s not thinking about, not yet anyway, is whether or not this will be his final season at LSU.

He’s exactly what the NFL is looking for, that big, physical corner who can cover.

“There’s too much to do here before I start thinking about that,” Peterson said. “We’ll just have to see. I still need to improve on the little things, and I also have to take care of some unfinished business on the field.”