LSU’s win streak officially came to an end against Tennessee in dominant fashion on Saturday.
LSU has been synonymous with slow starts this season, and against Tennessee, it was debilitating.
A slew of early miscues and missed opportunities spelled doom for the Tigers. On the opening kickoff, Jack Bech muffed a short pooch kick that Tennessee recovered deep in LSU territory. That led to a quick touchdown and from there the Volunteers were off to the races.
“When you fumble the open kickoff, and give an extra possession to a team that obviously plays fast and loves extra possessions and then give them another three points, spot them 10 points on special teams, you put yourself in a huge hole. That’s what we did,” Head Coach Brian Kelly said.
LSU took the gamble of electing to receive, but immediately negated that potential advantage with the turnover. After an empty opening possession for LSU, Tennessee drove right down the field getting just a field goal this time, but the momentum was rolling at this point. Tennessee got points on each of its first four possessions, and before LSU had a chance to try to regroup from another slow start, it was staring a 20-0 deficit in the face.
LSU gained some of the momentum back, scoring near the end of the half to make it 20-7, but not long after, the next crucial mistake came.
LSU got the ball again with less than a minute to go in the half with a chance to make it a one-possession game before halftime. After stalling around the Tennessee 45-yard line, LSU decided to go for it on fourth down, but a sack gave Tennessee the ball at the LSU 47-yard line with just under 30 seconds in the half. From there, Tennessee got itself into field goal range and what could’ve been a six-point halftime deficit became a 16-point halftime deficit for LSU.
“I felt like we have to make something happen in those situations,” Kelly said of the decision to go for it on fourth down. “I’m not somebody that kind of looks at what happened in the past, I still feel confident in my group. It still was a green-go scenario for us.”
This gave Tennessee the momentum back going into the second half, and it was off to the races from there. Tennessee scored on its opening possession in the second half, and that’s where it felt like the air had been taken from the tires of LSU.
Tennessee got out to a 30-point lead before LSU got on the scoreboard again. The once boisterous LSU crowd had cleared out of Tiger Stadium, leaving a loud sea of orange in the stands. The game ended 40-13, capping off the first big lump of the Brian Kelly era at LSU.
When examining what went wrong for LSU, the miscues early on tell the story. Muffing the opening kickoff is always a nightmare start, but the mistakes kept coming. LSU went for it on fourth down three times and came up short all three times. By comparison, Tennessee also went for it three times on fourth down, converting each time.
“That falls on coaching, that’s on me and I have to coach better,” Kelly said. “We’ve got to coach better, we’ve got to coach our team better. That’s the group we have. And we’ve got to coach and better congratulations to Tennessee. They played well today. They were the better football team. They certainly deserved the win today but we have to coach this football team better.”
Kelly gave a pretty simple explanation, coaching. At the current moment, Tennessee is a better team on paper than LSU. In a game like this, coaching, decision-making and execution are paramount to success. Tennessee outclassed LSU in that department, and the scoreboard is evidence of that.
Unfortunately, now for LSU, things won’t get much easier. The Tigers travel to Florida next week, a team not on the level of Tennessee, but another tough SEC team to face on the road. After that, LSU has another top-10 opponent in Ole Miss coming to Baton Rouge, before a bye week sets LSU up with Alabama. Despite the struggles, Kelly did still give a positive outlook on what remains of the season.
“We don’t have anybody walking through that door that’s going to change this football team dramatically,” Kelly said. “So we have to focus on ourselves as coaches and do the things necessary to make this team better. We may be slow to the punch in terms of going to seven-man protection to help our offensive line, we’re gonna have to do some things like that and help this football team. They want to win. They’re gonna play hard. And so that’s why again, I’ll say I liked this team.”
The game against Tennessee was a humbling reminder for LSU of what progress still needs to be made to be an SEC contender. There’s room to improve, but this season has made clear that the gauntlet of the SEC waits for no one.
