ORLANDO— LSU didn’t have to pull out any special tricks to slow down Louisville’s Heisman trophy winning quarterback Lamar Jackson.

LSU bottled up Jackson in a 29-9 win versus Louisville in the Citrus Bowl on Saturday. LSU’s game plan was simple: win one-on-one battles and have sound technique.

“It’s just simple,” Neal said. “Win with technique. We don’t have to trick anybody. We just line up in front of them and win the man in front of you.”

Facing the challenge of defending Jackson, who coming into the game accounted for 51 touchdowns and 4,928 yards of total offense, LSU’s defense held the sophomore signal caller to 186 yards of total offense.

Jackson, who did not complete his third pass of the game until the second half, went 10-of-25 for 153 yards passing. When Jackson tried to make plays with his feet, he ran into multiple LSU defenders he ultimately ran into multiple LSU defenders. 

LSU sent more blitzes than usual, which was in large part to throw off Louisville coach Bobby Petrino, LSU coach Ed Orgeron said.

“I thought it was very brilliant on Dave’s part to mix it up,” Orgeron said about LSU’s eight sack performance. “Give them a different line up in something but play something else. We did it all game. He was one step ahead.”

Hours and hours of film study went into defensive coordinator Dave Aranda’s preparation. 

Sophomore defensive end Arden Key said Aranda didn’t sleep the past two weeks.

“When you give Dave three weeks to prepare, he’s going to prepare,” Orgeron said. “I remember we had off on the Christmas break. We practiced Thursday morning. The coaches got off around noon. And we came back to work on Monday at 11 a.m., and he had a notebook full of Louisville.”

LSU players said they watched tape on Jackson everyday, including defensive end Tashawn Bower, who said he stayed up until 3 a.m. before the game studying film.

“We prepared for him a lot, and I think it showed off,” Bower said.

Added Tre’Davious White: “Watch film. We watch film. And the schedule that Coach O has for us, we’re in the film room way more than we were in the past and I feel like that helps us out as players because we get on the field and we’re able to rep, rep, and not too many mistakes.”

As a whole, Louisville only mustered 220 yards of total offense and were 2-for-17 on 3rd down.

Playing running quarterbacks earlier in the season helped LSU before it faced Jackson, Neal said.

“We’ve been doing it all year,” Neal said. “It wasn’t a doubt in my mind we couldn’t do it again … We didn’t see it as a challenge. We knew it was going to be great game because he got the award for a reason.”

Louisville’s high-powered offense, which came into the game averaging 45.3 points per game, failed to get into the end zone settling for three field goals.

Junior safety Jamal Adams, who registered eight tackles, said the goal to was to simply contain Jackson.
“We just wanted to play LSU football,” Adams said. “We weren’t worried about him scoring or him getting yards. We were just worried about stopping him and doing our assignment and playing LSU defense.”