Every play counts.
 
It’s cliche. The thing about cliches, though, is that they are true.
 
LSU found that out the hard way Saturday afternoon in Little Rock, Ark., in its 31-23 loss to the Razorbacks.
 
You take one play off, you miss that one tackle, you blow one assignment, and before you know it, the other team has six on the board.
 
LSU had found a way to be on the right side of those mistakes so far this season. In fact, the Tigers have thrived in these close games. The balls always seemed to bounce the Tigers’ way.
 
On Saturday, they didn’t.
 
Arkansas had two fumbles, but neither was lost.
 
LSU had three fumbles, and all were lost.
 
This game didn’t come down to turnovers, though. It came down to the big plays.
 
LSU baseball coach Paul Mainieri always emphasizes that it’s not the home runs that kill a team — it’s when they pile on. The Tiger defense allowed those home runs to accumulate, and that spelled disaster from the start.
 
The biggest one came at a time when there was no need for anything to happen.
 
With 1:18 left in the first half, LSU took the ball at its own 30. All they had to do was run out the clock. Yes, Arkansas had timeouts remaining. But all LSU had to do was pick up a first down rushing the ball.
 
Instead, someone on the sideline thought LSU had some type of quick-strike offense, so they tried to score.
 
It failed.
 
LSU turned it over. But then Arkansas turned it right back over.
 
OK, so then you learn from your mistake, and you try to just run out the clock, right?
 
Wrong.
 
If at first you don’t succeed, fail again. And LSU did.
 
They gave Arkansas the ball back with six seconds left, failed to play prevent defense (that still boggles my mind) and failed to make tackles when they needed to. The result was seven points that ultimately decided the game.
 
Let me just be frank here: LSU absolutely choked this game away when there was so much on the line.
 
The defense went into a coma in the first half. They gave up the home runs.
 
Then they came back to life for most of the second half.
Meanwhile, the offense was awake in the first half. They were playing decently.
 
And then they went into a coma when Jarrett Lee touched the ball once in the second half. I’m obviously not saying Lee was the cause of the offense’s quagmire, but there was no reason for him to be in there for one play in the second half. It made no sense.
 
Oh, and the play calling near the goal line after a stuffed punt in the third quarter was atrocious.
 
You don’t call a play on second down from the three yard line that is designed to be run from the one. And you don’t call a fade to a tight end on third down. You just don’t do those things.
 
Anyway, the entire team couldn’t wake up when everything was on the line, so now it’s time to play the bowl waiting game.
 
I’m not even going to begin speculating about where LSU should and should not go because there are too many hypothetical situations remaining with the upcoming conference title game.
 
The good news is that the waiting will be nowhere near as stressful for LSU as it would have been with a victory against Arkansas. It would have been a question of whether they would make the national championship game or some other BCS game.
 
Now there is no chance of making any BCS game, which is the bad news for the Tigers.
 
But that’s what happens when you drop the ball when every play counts.
Andy Schwehm is a 21-year-old English and psychology senior from New Orleans. You can follow him on Twitter @TDR_ASchwehm.
  Blog: Boise’s bus breaks down, to no surprise Read: Football: Loss to Arkansas bumps LSU down in bowl pecking order
 
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Contact Andy Schwehm at [email protected]