It cost an extra $500,000 annually, but LSU held on to Charlie Weis Jr. in December. Pete Golding made an offer to keep his Baton Rouge-bound offensive coordinator in Oxford after the College Football Playoff, but LSU upped the ante.
Saturday furthered the case it was worth it.
Lane Kiffin made the wunderkind play-caller a priority for a reason. With complete trust in Weis Jr. to run the offense, Kiffin can run the program. And the offense hasn’t skipped a beat.
After eight weeks, LSU’s offensive is humming at an elite level. DJ Durkin’s Auburn defense swallowed 346 yards and 31 points before halftime on its own field. Every play seemed to set up the next.
What was clear, the dozens of direct snaps to the running back over the last two months led to Weis’s fourth-and-two play call early in the second quarter from the LSU 31. LSU held a 10-7 lead and decided to go.
Running back Dilin Jones took another direct snap, handed to quarterback Sam Leavitt who faked a toss to Winnie Watkins on the reverse and rolled right. Tight end Trey’Dez Green leaked into the flat all by himself for a simple pitch and catch.
Green went 11 yards for a first down. Nine plays later, Green was into the end zone to put LSU up 17. The rout was on.
Weis Jr.’s offense averaged eight yards per play in the first half. When you run the second most plays in the country, which LSU had through seven weeks, averaging eight yards on all of them will generally blow the doors off teams.
That certainly happened when LSU embarrassed Clemson with 51 unanswered points, steamrolling Mike Elko’s crew from Aggieland and put Durkin in a blender for 30 minutes on the Plains.
Saturday’s three-for-three start on fourth down could be Kiffin’s response to failing to trust his offense to get a yard at Kentucky. Instead, he put his trust in the defense which couldn’t stop the game-tying drive from Kenny Minchey and the Wildcats.
The offense deserves all the trust at this point.
No team in America has made more red zone trips. The Tigers tallied five more on Saturday and turned them four into touchdowns, two on the ground and two through the air. Green’s return from injury helped that cause tremendously.
The passing game has gotten better and better every week.
Consider Leavitt’s 57 completion percentage rate in the season opener and three interceptions the following week against a Sun Belt school. On Saturday, he followed his best performance of the season with another gem. The redshirt junior signal caller passed for a career-best 387 yards and three touchdowns without an interception for the second straight week. He owes the SEC offices in Birmingham a bit when they overturned an Auburn pick in the first half.
Jones ran for 92 more yards and was only stopped in the backfield once. Whatever the Tigers wanted, they took. Then when they slowed things down in the third quarter, they embarked on a 7:31 drive to extend the lead.
Weis Jr. probably isn’t long for Baton Rouge. Great coordinators at elite programs field job offers every December. Those will be coming for the 33-year-old at some point.
Right now, that’s none of LSU’s concerns.
Those are Alabama, Texas and Tennessee’s excellent defenses which will likely be the best three LSU sees all season.
With Leavitt healthier and settling into the system, there’s little reason to believe the Tigers won’t be able to consistently move the ball on anyone. The offense isn’t realiant on either the run or the pass and doesn’t have one player who commands all the attention.
It’s a well-oiled machine.
That machine gets a weekend off this week. Leavitt, Green, Jackson Harris and other will certainly spend time in the training room and should be as fresh as possible for Alabama’s trip to town.
With all those weapons and Weis Jr. at the controls, LSU will be a tough out in November.
Some of that is due to his decision last December.
