It’s Sunday morning, which means it’s time for Two Truths and a Lie, LSU-Texas A&M edition. The Tigers bounced back in a big way Saturday night, cruising to a 35-6 win in what some viewed as a de facto playoff elimination game. And in the process, LSU told us plenty about what this team can be.
Truth No. 1 – Sam Leavitt’s still got it.
The biggest concern with Sam Leavitt has never been his talent. The arm talent is there, and the athleticism is something to marvel at at times.
His biggest issue against Ole Miss was processing things quickly enough, with his internal clock seemingly running at double speed as he scrambled frantically under pressure. Whether it was him being banged up so he had to slow down, or it was something he and Kiffin worked on this week, it worked.
Leavitt looked fantastic on Saturday. He finished the game with 334 yards of offense, including 312 in the air.
He still struggled at times with accuracy on slants and in-cutting routes in the intermediate passing game, but overall he was night and day different from his first three weeks of the season.
There were several balls he dropped into a bucket, which was something refreshing to see and a confidence boost for anyone in purple and gold.
Truth No. 2 – This win was the reason why you hired someone like Lane Kiffin.
After the buildup to the Ole Miss game, and the frustrating ways they managed to lose that game, it was hard to see the big picture for some. This is a marathon not a sprint.
Kiffin has echoed that sentiment a lot since he started his tenure in Baton Rouge. Sure, you want to win every game, but it’s also important to win the next game. As cliche and coach-speak as that sounds, it’s also very true.
Over the last two years, LSU was just 2-5 in games coming off a loss. Those two wins were against 4-8 South Carolina and Nicholls State. After Saturday night’s 35-6 win over A&M, Kiffin is now 7-0 in his last seven games coming off a loss. Four of those wins were against ranked teams, and all seven have come by an average of 17.8 ppg.
The Lie – Blake Baker was, and is, a problem.
Trinidad Chambliss was the problem a week ago. And while it would’ve been nice to leave Oxford with a win, it’s becoming pretty clear that Ole Miss and Chambliss are going to do to a lot of teams what they did to LSU last Saturday.
There was a not-so-quiet concern about Blake Baker’s track record struggling against mobile quarterbacks.
Marcel Reed has looked like prime Lamar Jackson against Baker’s defenses the past two seasons. For whatever reason, Reed ran wild on the Tigers with five touchdowns and 9.8 yards per play in the two previous meetings.
On Saturday, he did nothing of the sort. He finished with just 93 yards of total offense, zero touchdowns and 2.6 yards per play.
