OXFORD, Miss. – Statistically, Saturday’s game against Ole Miss was one of the worst performances of LSU quarterback Matt Mauck’s career. He threw a career-high three interceptions, the first of which was returned for a Rebels touchdown, and was sacked three times along with two penalties for intentional grounding.
But in the fourth quarter when the Tigers’ offense needed a big play, Mauck and wide receiver Devery Henderson came through.
Mauck’s 53-yard touchdown pass to Henderson on the first play of the fourth quarter put LSU ahead 17-7 and proved to be the game winner for the Tigers on a day that had seen No. 3 LSU struggle to move the ball against a suspect defense.
Henderson slipped behind the Ole Miss secondary on the play, and he outran two Rebels for the score.
“We were able to make a big play when we needed to with Devery,” LSU coach Nick Saban said. “Matt made a great play on that. We put a good drive together in the second quarter and scored a touchdown. [It was a] tough day for us in terms of how we wanted to execute. I don’t think we played with the character and attitude we needed. We just didn’t have the same energy level. That gets affected by anxiety. I really do believe that.”
It was not just Mauck who had a bad day. Saban did not think the Tigers’ offense had its personality in the game. The Tigers totaled 341 yards offense, but hurt themselves with the three turnovers and 10 penalties for 70 yards.
Mauck finished 16-of-29 for 189 yards and two touchdowns. His first scoring pass went to Michael Clayton to give LSU a 10-3 lead. Freshman Chris Jackson booted a 45-yard field goal after Ole Miss’ first touchdown.
“We didn’t look like ourselves,” Saban said. “We did everything we could do to get the players to focus on what they needed to do to execute and play good football in the game and not worry about the emotional aspects of what’s at stake and all that stuff. When we’ve done that in two games this year, we haven’t played very well. It’s not a good thing to do when you compete, being fearful and anxious about what might happen and what could happen.”
It was an offensive performance similar to the one in LSU’s 19-7 loss to Florida. Saban said the difference was Mauck did not once get frustrated in the game when faced with adversity.
“I talk to him when something good happens, but I talk to him more when something bad happens,” Saban said. “He never got frustrated. He has a tendency, because he’s such a competitor, to press. He never did that, and I think that was a key for us to have success on offense. I was really proud of him for that.”
Mauck said he was feeling under the weather but did not make that an excuse for his performance.
“I didn’t play very well tonight, but my teammates were great always coming up to me, patting me on the back and saying ‘keep you’re head in there. You’re going to be all right,'” Mauck said. “It really helped me out having their confidence behind me.”
Mauck said the offense tried to run some of its customary roll out and bootleg passes, but because of the Rebels’ defensive scheme those plays resulted in negative plays.
“It seemed like every time we called it they had two guys running off the edge right at you,” he said.
Offensive guard Stephen Peterman credited Ole Miss for playing a good game and said the Rebels had success with angling and slanting in the trenches.
“A lot of times they slanted and picked the play right and got in the gaps where we weren’t,” Peterman said. “You’ve got to tip your hats to them for playing a good game, but you’ve also got to tip your hats to us for finding a way to win.”
Clayton, who led LSU receivers with 83 yards on nine catches said, “It’s what we’ve been doing all season – overcoming adversity and playing hard for 60 minutes. Obviously, we had some things that didn’t go our way, but the main thing that championship teams do is keep coming back and keep bouncing back.”
Freshman tailback Justin Vincent rushed for 105 yards on 22 carries to lead LSU rushers.
“You’ve got to go play hard and aggressive in what you’re doing,” Saban said. “I felt like we played that way on defense but I felt like we were tentative on offense in what we did. Their defense played well. I don’t want to take anything away from them. We didn’t block very well up front. We didn’t throw the ball very effectively. It wasn’t a very good day for us on that side of it. It was a good thing we could run the ball a little bit at times. That changed the field position.”
Saban said the Tigers need to examine the game’s mistakes and focus on improving them.
“When we look at this film, we’re going to see that our execution on offense wasn’t what it needed to be and all those things are correctable and fixable. I think when you win, players don’t have the same attitude about trying to fix them. I think that’s going to be imperative for us to correct those things, get better so we can improve as a team.”