To hear a podcast about this weekend’s loss to Georgia, click here.
LSU (5-2, 3-2) spent most of Saturday afternoon against Georgia (7-1, 4-1) trying to find answers to its own mistakes.But while the Tigers were figuring out their own troubles, they never answered the question of how to stop Georgia’s offensive dynamic duo.Bulldogs’ junior quarterback Matthew Stafford and sophomore running back Knowshon Moreno combined for 427 total yards and four touchdowns in a 52-38 rout of LSU in Tiger Stadium.”We had some big plays — We needed them today,” Stafford said. “Knowshon had some great runs, guys made some good plays catching the football, and that’s what kind of got us going.”The 52 points were the most LSU has surrendered since a 58-3 loss to Florida in 1993.”We stopped them on big plays, but we made mistakes on big plays,” said LSU senior linebacker Darry Beckwith. “We cannot play that way with a team of that caliber.”Moreno rushed for 163 yards and one touchdown, averaging 7.8 yards per carry.The Belford, N.J., native has rushed for 100 or more yards in three straight games and leads the Southeastern Conference with 925 yards on the season.Moreno scorched the LSU defense with several big runs throughout the game and had his longest rush of the season with a 68-yard touchdown scamper in the third quarter.He also had a 47-yard run in the first quarter to put Georgia on LSU’s 24-yard line.The run led to a Stafford touchdown pass on a fade route to Georgia senior wide receiver Kenneth Harris on the first play of the second quarter.”There were places where he ran that nobody else could run,” said LSU coach Les Miles. “He made some great cuts.”Stafford threw for 249 yards and two touchdowns on the night.His second scoring toss came on a 49-yard pass to Bulldog freshman wide receiver A.J. Green in the third quarter.”[Stafford’s] first pass of the day, he had an open receiver and missed him and was a little down about it,” said Georgia coach Mark Richt. “He got right back in the saddle and started throwing strikes.”Richt said Stafford was able to focus downfield on his receivers “with everything flying around him.””He’s really doing that as fine as I’ve ever seen him do it, and he couldn’t have done it much better than anybody I’ve ever coached tonight,” Richt said.Georgia’s offensive line put Stafford and Moreno in position to make plays, allowing only one sack and five tackles for loss.The Bulldogs’ offensive line helped Georgia hold the ball for more than 32 minutes.”Up front they made it very difficult for us,” said LSU senior defensive end Rahim Alem. “The quarterback was very well protected. They also ran the ball very well, and that hurt us.”Richt said his offensive line had trouble at times but did enough to win the battle in the trenches.”I’m not going to sit here and say that they dominated the game,” Richt said. “But they fought like mad and gave Matthew enough time when needed and gave Knowshon room to run.”Miles said Georgia’s rushing performance led to LSU’s inability to rush Stafford successfully.”As long as they had the lead, there’s little reason for them to spread you out and just toss it over the line and allow us to get in the backfield,” Miles said. “It’s hard to pressure a team that is running the football pretty well.”Richt said his team was able to handle “a few shots in the mouth” in a game that featured two teams that have accounted for five of the past seven SEC championships.”Both teams threw a bunch,” Richt said. “The line did that, and our team did that in general.”Contact Robert Stewart at [email protected]