Lane Kiffin was approached by the officials after halftime. He was presented the option of running the second half clock.
He declined. While the outcome of the game was never in doubt, Kiffin wasn’t coaching to beat McNeese. He was coaching to improve his program.
The Tiger head coach called a timeout after the second half kickoff and lit into his team which led by 35 points. He never called a kneel down up 49 points on an FCS team late Saturday night. His team ran its offense until the final whistle.
The rest of the stadium had tuned the game out. Chants of “Pizza! Pizza! Pizza!” rang out from the southwest endzone bleachers as kids swarmed from surrounding sections to stack empty Papa John’s boxes 10 feet high while LSU set a program record for first downs for the second time in five weeks.
The FCS-SEC matchups create no drama. If you’re the college football fan who craves the edge-of-your-seat thrillers with everything on the line, these games don’t deliver. Season ticket holders stay home. Kids and clients get their chance to use seats by the thousands.
Kiffin doesn’t care about any of that. He sees these lopsided tilts as an opportunity to rep starters, then rest them, evaluate young players and make future opponents think.
LSU checked all of those boxes Saturday night in a start to finish snoozer.
Speculation surrounded Sam Leavitt’s status. He suited up and started. Again, he played with patience in the pocket and delivered a bevy of bullets. His first seven throws were on the money. Six went for completions and the seventh was a touchdown that Winnie Watkins cold dropped all alone in the vacated Cowboy secondary.
Kiffin and Charlie Weis Jr.’s coaching is taking a hold with the Tiger signal caller. He’s playing with more discipline and unlocking the LSU passing game. In the last two games, he’s 35-for-46 (76%) with five touchdowns. He’s only registered five rushing attempts. None came Saturday.
Deuce Geralds and Princewill Umanmielen each notched a sack. Tamarcus Cooley picked off an early pass. The Tiger defense forced an interception and seven straight punts.
The first team offense scored touchdowns on seven of eight drives. Then it was time to look at reserves.
After Watkins dropped a pair of passes, freshman Corey Barber Jr., stepped in and made seven catches including his first two college touchdowns. Harlem Berry showed his slippery skills and breakaway speed for 125 yards on 15 carries for an average of better than eight yards per tote. Not to be outdone, Stacy Gage busted loose for two touchdowns from 39-plus yards.
As far as making future opponents think, they now have to account for Geralds taking direct snaps, Husan Longstreet fielding punts and Landen Clark using his wheels in the redzone. We saw all of that Saturday night.
Setting program records for first downs and plays run is nice. Saturday was never about stats, though.
The Bluegrass, Bulldogs and Auburn await in October, and all three of those squads have serious flaws that were exposed while LSU throttled McNeese.
Saturday was the appetizer to October’s entrée over the next 21 days. Some like to skip the small plates for the main course. Not Kiffin, he’s obsessed with it all.
The win will be a footnote in LSU’s 2026 story, but it revealed a lot about the mindset of the program well beyond that.
