Derrius Guice had nothing but green in front of him.
After an evenly matched first half in which both teams scored 10 points, the sophomore running back took a handoff behind left tackle and accelerated through a hole he could have driven a car through that Maea Teuhema, K.J. Malone and J.D. Moore afforded him.
61 yards later, Guice was in the end zone for the first of two times.
“I saw the end zone and the fans,” Guice said. “Everybody else was gone.”
LSU (4-2, 2-1 Southeastern Conference) pulled away from Southern Miss (4-3, 2-1 Conference USA) behind a 35-point second half, sparked by Guice’s touchdown on the opening drive, to defeat the Golden Eagles, 45-10.
Guice took 16 handoffs for 162 yards on the night, while junior quarterback Danny Etling broke his LSU career-high, throwing for 276 yards with three touchdowns and one interception.
“You have to losen up the defense,” said LSU coach Ed Orgeron. “[Against Missouri] we took shots but we didn’t complete them. It looked like we completed them tonight.”
The Tiger defense surrendered a touchdown in the first quarter for the first time this season on a 15-play, 75-yard game-opening drive, capped off with a one-yard punch-in by junior running back Ito Smith.
The Golden Eagles outgained LSU, 135 to 121, in the first half, but the Tigers stymied the rest of their drives after letting Southern Miss knock in a 37-yard field goal in the second quarter.
Senior defensive end Lewis Neal said if not for a slew of penalties, Southern Miss wouldn’t have scored that much.
“We stopped them like three times and the penalties gave them a first down,” Neal said. “It was penalties that gave them the drive and momentum to go down the field.”
Smith, who entered the game as the eighth-leading rusher in the nation with 711 yards, finished with 16 attempts for 64 yards. He added 46 through the air on six catches.
“This was a taxing offense,” Orgeron said. “This offensive coordinator knows what he’s doing. He gets his players in space and they attack your man coverage. They can give you some fits. 
Junior wide receiver D.J. Chark was the lone Tiger finding the end zone in the first half after he took an end-around 19 yards for six, the second such rushing touchdown of his career.
Following Guice’s score, junior safety Jamal Adams broke the game open with a forced fumble and recovery on junior running back George Payne. Adams’ 11 tackles trailed only senior linebacker Kendell Beckwith’s 15.
Two plays later, Guice took a handoff 20 yards for the touchdown, giving LSU a 24-10 lead.
“Our line was doing what they do every game,” Guice said. “The line did a great job of setting up the blocks and making big holes for me to run through.”
Chark tallied the Tigers’ third second-half touchdown in as many drives when Etling connected with him on a 15-yard route. Chark did the rest as he turned out of his curl route and sped past a quartet of Golden Eagles all the way to the house for 80 yards.
Etling did most of the work on the next drive, tossing a deep ball to junior wide receiver Malachi Dupre for a 63-yard touchdown, 41 of which traveled in the air. It was Dupre’s first touchdown of the season after reeling in six as a sophomore and five as a freshman.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Dupre said. “I started screaming. When he heard me screaming, he faked the ball [to] Darrel, he said, and he just turned and saw me and threw it as far as he can. I was screaming at the top of my lungs, ‘Yo! Yo!'”
“Just put it out there for Malachi to run underneath and get it,” Etling said. “He’s a superb athlete, so anytime you see him wide open just give him the ball.
Dupre added one more touchdown, LSU’s last, on a 23-yard strike from Etling.
He led LSU’s receiving effort, reeling in all three of his targets for 100 yards and two touchdowns.
“Me doing it in practice every day doesn’t count,” Dupre said. “In the games in the beginning of the season we weren’t clicking on them and I wasn’t doing my best job. Tonight I went out there and played the way I’m supposed to.”