By Hunt Palmer
Sudden change in a football game rarely comes with a warning.
For 35 minutes of game action, LSU dictated terms to Texas A&M in front of better than 108,000 black-clad fans in Kyle Field Saturday night.
As Garrett Nussmeier rolled to his left on third and two from the LSU 21 yard line, LSU looked very much like the favorites to play for the SEC Championship. LSU led 17-7 with eight and a half minutes remaining in the third quarter.
The Tigers had moved the ball into scoring position on five of seven drives offensively, and the defense harassed Aggie starting quarterback Conner Weigman into 6-for-18 throwing. He’d been sacked twice.
For the next 23 minutes of gametime, LSU looked very much like it didn’t belong on the same field as a Texas A&M team knocking on the door of the program’s first attempt at competing for an SEC crown.
While redshirt freshman quarterback Marcel Reed prepared to enter the game for the first time in the place of a mightily struggling Weigman, Nussmeier floated an ill-advised pass across his body that was intercepted and returned inside the LSU 10 yard line by BJ Mayes.
Reed took the next snap eight yards for a touchdown, and Texas A&M was off and running.
Literally.
After Reed entered the game, Texas A&M ran for 144 yards on 23 carries. That’s 6.3 yards per carry and included five runs for better than 10 yards. The Aggies scored on all five drives Reed piloted, four touchdowns and a field goal.
Reed completed two passes.
After baffling Weigman for eight drives, only one of which produced points, LSU’s defense was aimless against Reed’s running ability.
Dating back to LSU’s win over Ole Miss, the Tiger defense had allowed two touchdowns in eight quarters when the second half begun. That number was doubled in the final 23 minutes.
While LSU’s defense searched for answers to the Aggie rushing attack, the Tiger offense failed to find any semblance of one and gave up on it altogether.
LSU ran the ball 12 times in the second half. Those dozen carries resulted in zero yards. Two in the third quarter, negative two in the fourth.
Nussmeier was asked to shoulder the entirety of the LSU offense. While he threw for 405 yards and two scores on the road, he turned the ball over three times and only completed half of his passes.
For LSU to win games against good teams, the passing game must be the backbone, not the full body of work.
LSU protected Nussmeier marvelously for three quarters. The Tiger quarterback spread the ball around to nine pass catchers who all had multiple receptions. On third downs, LSU converted a respectable 47 percent.
The productivity in the passing game was excellent.
Three bad decisions, forced in part by a total inability to run the ball, were the byproduct.
The first interception that set in motion the avalanche of Aggie domination was on a third and two. Most teams would run the ball on third and two. LSU can’t or won’t against the better defensive fronts. Neither is conducive to positive results in the games LSU needs to win to become the championship program it’s been in the past.
While the loss dumped a cooler of ice water on SEC Championship hopes, the College Football Playoff remains in sight for the Tigers.
A rough prognostication would suggest the SEC could produce three at-large births in addition to its champion. That puts LSU in a pool with Texas A&M, Georgia, Texas, Tennessee, Alabama and Ole Miss.
LSU has already handled Ole Miss who has Georgia left to play. So does Tennessee. Texas, Georgia and A&M are likely to produce a champion and two at-large candidates.
LSU and Alabama have an elimination date in two weeks.
The Tigers are going to have to watch tape of Reed ripping through their icy white defense for two weeks because Jalen Milroe, DJ Lagway, Diego Pavia and Michael Hawkins Jr. remain on the schedule.
Yielding better than five yards per carry and an 80 percent touchdown rate to that quartet means you can make reservations for the Birmingham Bowl instead of the playoff.
The good news for LSU is that three of those games are at home, and the road game is at Florida whose next two weeks might yield lopsided losses to Georgia and Texas. If so, The Swamp may sound more like the Louisiana coastal wetlands when that first line hits the water than the intimidating force it can be.
Saturday night exposed LSU’s already evident weaknesses, but it didn’t erase all hope. Next time LSU can’t run the ball or stop it?
That will.
