By Hunt Palmer
At Tiger Stadium’s 100th birthday party, Brian Kelly was the one who got his wish.
Dating back to January, Kelly has preached about the importance of complementary football. Last season his offense gave and gave while the defense just took and took. No game evidenced that more than the 55-49 loss to these same Ole Miss Rebels in Oxford.
Kelly set out to create a balance between the offense and defense, and his new defensive staff and players delivered it Saturday night.
“Many people were expecting maybe a similar shootout to last year,” Kelly said. “I didn’t think that would be the case…I can’t say enough about the defensive effort tonight. Sacks, harassing the quarterback, making the big plays when they needed to, and that’s what we’ve been talking about in terms of getting better every week on both sides of the ball. That was complementary football.”
The defense did all the heavy lifting early.
Kelly decided to take the football first, and his offense left the starting gate like a jalopy with two flats.
The Tigers went three and out in less than 50 seconds. LSU’s second drive was another three and out, and the third ended on Garrett Nussmeier’s first of two interceptions in the game.
LSU gained just 42 yards on three first quarter drives and held the ball for less than five of the first 15 minutes.
The Tiger defense responded.
Ole Miss was turned away on back-to-back trips into the red zone, first on a missed 32-yard field goal from Caden Davis and second on a failed fourth and one try from the four yard line.
Despite the offense’s dismal start, the defense held Ole Miss scoreless in the first quarter.
It was the second stanza where the Ole Miss offense started humming a little bit. The Rebs started the scoring with a field goal. Minutes later Ulysses Bentley IV exploded for a 50-yard touchdown scamper on a fourth and one play to give the Rebels a 10-0 lead.
LSU’s defense had been forced to play far too many early snaps, and the big play finally bit.
The Tiger offense responded.
Trailing 10-0, Nussmeier and the offense went 75 yards on six plays for a touchdown and took better than five minutes to do it. That drive allowed the Tiger defense to catch its breath.
However, Ole Miss went right back down the field for seven more points when Trey Harris climbed through Major Burns in the endzone for a touchdown reception that restored the 10-point lead.
The Tiger offense responded.
LSU cruised down the field and got three points on Damian Ramos’s 33-yarder with 33 seconds to play before halftime.
Lane Kiffin decided to try to score before the half, and the Tiger defense showed back up. Whit Weeks made one of his career-high 18 tackles and stripped Henry Parrish Jr. Freshman Dominick McKinley fell on it at the Rebel 28 to set up LSU’s second field goal in the final minute of the first half.
Twice in the third quarter the Rebels had a chance to take a two-score lead. Twice the Tiger defense didn’t allow it.
When Ole Miss kicked a field goal to take a seven-point lead in the third, LSU’s offense answered with a field goal drive.
When Nussmeier followed up a Zy Alexander interception with one of his own, the LSU defense forced an Ole Miss punt.
Finally, when the defense had given all it had in regulation, it was time for the offense, facing a seven-point deficit with 3:17 to play, to put the ball in the endzone.
The Tiger offense responded.
Nussmeier piloted a 13-play, 75-yard drive that featured a pair of fourth down conversions. The second was fourth and five from the 25, and Nussmeier delivered the throw of the game, a seed that hit a streaking Aaron Anderson in stride for the tying touchdown with less than a minute to play.
In overtime, both units were at their best.
The LSU defense, with a little help from the relentless Tiger Stadium crowd, backed Ole Miss up 15 yards on three snaps to force a field goal. The offense won the game with one play.
Every facet of the Tiger team contributed for the program’s biggest win since Alabama in 2022.
LSU’s perceived strengths played like it.
Nussmeier threw for 337 yard and three scores. LSU’s veteran offensive line didn’t allow a single sack on 51 pass attempts, even when it was late and Ole Miss, the nation’s sack leader, knew the pass was coming.
“You can ask me all you want about the run game, but the bottom line is what won this game for us was our offensive line keeping (Nussmeier) clean with no sacks,” Kelly said.
Kyren Lacy went for 111 yards and the game-winning score.
Those are the knowns.
What Kelly and his team didn’t know was whether or not this new defense could hold its own against Kiffin, Jaxson Dart and company for four quarters.
He got his answer.
Ole Miss managed just 23 points in regulation, and Dart got hit like a pinata the entire second half. He was sacked six times total and hit a handful of others as he threw the ball away. LSU forced a pair of turnovers and created red zone stops.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was effective.
Kelly understands that the mess LSU put on the field defensively in 2023 couldn’t be fixed instantly. It’s now undeniable that strides are being made.
“(The players) understand the defense so much better,” Kelly said. “They’re doing their job. And it’s really been just a consistency in messaging, and how do you execute at the highest level when you need to? To do that, you have to be locked in one play at a time. We were not great at that early on, and we’re getting so much better.”
Every goal LSU had when they buckled the chin straps in August for fall camp is firmly on the table.
Only three SEC teams remain unbeaten in league play—Texas, Texas A&M and LSU.
Back-to-back road trips to Fayetteville and College Station await before the second open date. A loss in either would vaporize the margin for error in November. A pair of wins would set the stage for another electrifying Saturday Night in Death Valley when Alabama comes to town.
For now, it’s all eyes on Arkansas for the Tigers. Kelly, I’m certain, will take a victory any way he and his team can get it.
At least now he has options.
