LSU football started fast in its Week 4 game against the Southeastern Louisiana Lions, after going three-and-out on its first possession, that is.
Southeastern won the toss and deferred to the second half, putting the ball in the hands of Joe Sloan and the LSU offense. After a very underwhelming opening script for Sloan, the drive ended in a 53-yard Grant Chadwick punt.
However, Blake Baker’s defense answered the call again, as they have all season. It was able to disrupt the entire Southeastern squad, leading to a three-and-out drive that ended in an 18-yard punt for the Lions, which would help set up the Tigers first score.
“More than anything else for our defense, they want to play to a standard,” LSU head coach Brian Kelly said.
When the Tigers got the ball back, a pair of drops by Barion Brown and Aaron Anderson made it seem as though LSU fans were in for another week of underwhelming offense.
Garrett Nussmeier forged through the early mistakes and took a one-yard quarterback sneak to make the lead 7-0; seemingly, that was all the offense needed to get started.
Following the Nussmeier score, a long drive for the offense spanning the end of the first quarter was capped off by a 2-yard Ju’Juan Johnson rushing touchdown, making the score 14-0 Tigers.
After that, they never looked back.
Johnson would earn another rushing touchdown, Brown would record his first touchdown of the year, Nussmeier would gain a career-high 26-yard rush on a scramble to extend a scoring drive and Zavion Thomas would score to make it 35-0 heading into halftime.
While it most definitely wasn’t a perfect first half, with three drops and three penalties for 25 yards, LSU’s offense was able to stand confidently on its own two feet for the first time this season.
In the second half, the Tigers continued that momentum out of the gate, with Nussmeier extending the LSU lead 42-0, before giving up the first score of the game to Southeastern, which cut the lead 42-7.
Midway through the third quarter, LSU backup quarterback and Mississippi State transfer Michael Van Buren entered the game for the Tigers for the first time this season.
After a time-chewing sequence of events, including a third and fourth down conversion, a missed field goal and the end of the third quarter, Van Buren recorded his first touchdown as a Tiger and extended LSU’s lead 49-7.
As the fourth quarter clock continued to burn down, so did LSU’s patience, drawing three false start penalties, and two of them in a row. Van Buren settled his team down and fed Kyle Parker a 27-yard receiving touchdown over the middle for his first of the year.
“It’s easy to line up. You shouldn’t jump offsides, you need to stay locked in,” Kelly said of the penalties.
Parker’s touchdown would be the final score for the Tigers on this Saturday evening.
Southeastern would tack on a field goal, but the Tigers had a truly dominant evening on both sides of the ball.
However, the highlight of the night was the final score, 56-10. LSU had only scored a combined 66 points all season prior to tonight.
Nussmeier and Van Buren combined for 530 total yards of offense, and spread the ball out to 13 different Tigers, with four of them earning their first trip to the end zone on the season.
Overall, the Tigers, for the first time this season, put together a truly complete body of work. Offense, defense and special teams all contributed to the domineering victory, but there is still much to work on.
“They came and were mature about the way they practiced this week, and you can see it on the field,” Kelly said.
LSU got into penalty trouble late in the game, totaling seven for 50 yards tonight.
Next Saturday, the Bayou Bengals will hit the road for the first time in almost a month when they travel to Oxford, Mississippi, to challenge the 4-0 Ole Miss Rebels in their second SEC game of the year.
