By Hunt Palmer
Time to reset.
LSU’s most complete performance of the young season came Saturday night. No one is here to hand out trophies for blasting South Alabama, but LSU swiftly dispatched its visitors from the Sun Belt with contributions from all three phases of the game.
The mission when coming off the field in Las Vegas a month ago was simple. Improve, handle four consecutive lesser teams and set up a showdown with Ole Miss. Mission accomplished.
The Tigers have shown improvement.
Caden Durham has emerged as a budding star. At South Carolina, he used his quicks and toughness to carve up an active defensive front. Saturday, he showcased the track speed the made him a state champion in Texas. On the game’s first snap he caught a simple swing pass and cruised by the South Alabama defense like a thoroughbred bolting out of the gate.
His second touch of the game went for a cool 86 yards down to the one yard line. Durham accounted for 217 total yards and didn’t play a snap in the second half due to a foot injury that head coach Brian Kelly suggested was not significant.
As LSUJ’s running game has taken strides, the Tiger defense has eliminated the big plays Nicholls and South Carolina produced. It’s now been three weeks since ball carriers were streaking down the field on LSU. The first two runs of the first half were chunk runs for South Alabama, but only one of the other 31 runs went for 10 or more yards.
“We’re really doing a nice job up front,” Kelly said. “We’re not giving up running lanes that put our backers in position where they can’t go downhill and make plays. I thought the front six, the front seven did a pretty good job today.”
Coverage is still an issue. The Tiger safeties have had their issues there, and a huge test looms in Ole Miss. But holding South Alabama to 10 points is a sign of improvement.
“Bottom line is we’ve gotten better over the last five weeks,” Kelly said. “That’s what we needed to do going into this off week as we get ready for an SEC schedule.”
The improvements have come from scheme and execution, but they’ve also come from personnel.
Durham isn’t the only freshman making an impact. Saturday night Dashawn Spears made five tackles, three of them solo. His talent level elevates the secondary. Ahmad Breaux started the game and made a pair of solo tackles including a tackle for loss. The staff raves about his future. Gabriel Reliford and Da’Shawn Womack, a sophomore, met at the quarterback for a sack.
As Kelly continues to stack recruiting classes, the talent will show itself.
Entering the day, LSU’s looming matchup with Ole Miss looked ominous. Much of the same cast that hung 55 on LSU last year has returned in Oxford, and the Rebs entered the day leading the country in total offense.
Kentucky didn’t care.
The Wildcats wrecked Ole Miss at the line of scrimmage and held the Rebels to 17 points. LSU put together its best defensive effort four hours later, and all of a sudden, the game takes on a different look.
Arkansas is flawed. Texas A&M’s offense is clunky. Florida is a mess. Vanderbilt is..Vanderbilt, and Oklahoma needed a late pick-six to survive Auburn who has lost three September home games for the first time in program history.
The bye week offers a chance for the Tigers to self-scout and start cultivating a game plan for the Ole Miss. Meanwhile Lane Kiffin and company will prepare for a trip to South Carolina. LSU found out first-hand that crowd is not overly welcoming, and that defensive front is unpleasant to deal with.
Suggesting LSU has played to the level of a playoff team would be misguided. Suggesting LSU could make October and November quite interesting should the Tigers beat Ole Miss in two weeks? Not so much.
After taking that gut punch against USC, this is as good a September outcome as was possible.
“We’re heading in the right direction,”: Kelly said. “We thought we closed the gap last week. I think we continue to close the gap, and quite frankly we have to. As we get into SEC play, the teams that we play, they’ll expose you if you don’t. We’re making the progress that we need to.”
Kelly said after the game that the team’s second bye week at the end of October will be a week for recovery. This week will be a “work week”. And Kelly knows that the time for tinkering left town with South Alabama.
“Tuesday we’re going to put the guys on the field we think can win SEC games for us,” he said. “As we’ve said, and we’ve talked about this, we’ve rolled a lot of guys in there. We get to two weeks from today, there’s not going to be a lot of rolling. This has kind of been, to get it on film, these are the guys that should be starting.”
With all due respect to Nicholls, South Carolina, UCLA and South Alabama, the fun starts in 13 days.
102,000 on hand. Playoff dreams on the line early. The Lane Train and the Nuss Buss.
All aboard.
