The No. 5 LSU football team is tasked with quelling the most high-powered offense it has faced this year with Western Kentucky University and graduate student quarterback Brandon Doughty coming to town.
The Tigers (6-0, 4-0 Southeastern Conference) and Hilltoppers (6-1, 4-0 Conference USA) face off at 6 p.m. on Saturday at Tiger Stadium.
LSU senior safety Jalen Mills will be back on the field for his first full game of the season after suffering a left fibula fracture in the offseason. Mills said Doughty, who threw for 2,709 yards in WKU’s first seven games, is a one-of-a-kind quarterback who reads coverages well. He said the Tigers will have to disguise their coverages if they hope to stop him.
“He’s a great quarterback,” Mills said. “You can tell he knows the system. He also has a great group of guys that he’s throwing the ball to, so we just have to cover down on those guys and make the plays that we know we can.”
Doughty, who is 197-of-266 with a 74 percent completion rate, is a pocket quarterback. He’s been sacked seven times this season and has a negative rushing yards clip with -58 on the season.
Junior defensive end Lewis Neal said although Doughty makes a lot of quick throws for short yardage, a pocket quarterback is a dream come true for a defensive linemen.
“He stands in the pocket the whole time. That’s what you always want as a defensive lineman, you love a pocket quarterback,” Neal said. “In the SEC, you hardly ever see a pocket quarterback. We always have to worry about them scrambling. He is an NFL-type quarterback though, a great quarterback.”
“Pocket quarterbacks can throw though, so you always have to be on point.”
Neal recorded three sacks last weekend against the University of Florida and has seven of the Tigers’ total 17 sacks of the season.
Junior linebacker Kendell Beckwith said the Tigers must be prepared for the threat the Hilltoppers’ offense poses and have a good gameplan to stop it. He said communication,
lockdown coverage and getting after Doughty in the backfield is key to stopping WKU, which has already knocked off an SEC team this year.
“We just have to play great pass defense,” Beckwith said. “Along with playing pass defense, we have to pressure him. We’re going to have to put pressure on him, get him to move around a little bit. He can throw it. We have to be ready.”
Keeping a quarterback who averages 387 yards per game through the air could prove troublesome for the Tigers’ secondary, who has given up 200 or more passing yards in three of the last six games. Many of those yards were the result of blown coverages and resulted in an opposing team touchdown.
Despite situational struggles stopping an opposing team’s passing attack, the defense has proven it can clamp down when firing on all cylinders. In LSU’s three other games, it allowed less than 200 passing yards in each game. Along with 17 sacks, the Tigers have six interceptions under their belt.
The rushing game is almost nonexistent for opponents, as the Tigers have allowed 553 rushing yards this season.
Mills, whose return positively influences the pass defense, said he liked what he saw from the sidelines. Now that he’s back full-time, the Tigers are working toward the national championship game, and defeating the Hilltoppers this weekend is their first step in getting there.
“Our team is a bunch of hungry guys that want that national championship at the end of the year,” Mills said.