What a weird night.
LSU did the only thing that mattered tonight inside Tiger Stadium: they won, beating South Carolina 20-10 to improve to 5-1 on the year and 2-1 in league play, but boy was it annoying watching it play out in real time.
Saturday played out almost the exact same way as the week 3 win over Florida: South Carolina was begging to be blown out, LSU’s defense made life hell for LaNorris Sellers and company, but the offense was consistently inconsistent and it kept the game from entering
blowout territory.
The first four offensive plays was almost a perfect snapshot of the night as a whole: maddening LSU offense and South Carolina mistakes. LSU went three and out on its opening possession, and lost three yards on the very first play from scrimmage; meanwhile, South Carolina fumbled the ball on their first play, and LSU turned that mistake into a Damien Ramos field goal to give the Tigers an early 3-0 lead. I hope you enjoyed those three points because they would be the only time LSU would score off of a South Carolina mistake
The Tigers had a great shot to go up two scores early, but a 13-play, 71-yard drive ended on a sour note when Ju’Juan Johnson fumbled the ball inside South Carolina’s one yard line. Had he held on to the ball for half a second longer, LSU’s up 10-0 and the Tigers are off and running; instead, Johnson did cough up the ball, and South Carolina busted a 72-yard touchdown run to grab a 7-3 lead. Coulda, woulda, shoulda. That was kind of the theme tonight.
Give credit to LSU’s offense though, the Tigers responded immediately with a touchdown of their own. Caden Durham ripped off—get this—a 23-yard RUN, and got LSU into South Carolina territory, and three plays later Garrett Nussmeir found Trey’Dez Green for a six-yard touchdown to put LSU back on top 10-7. Turns out throwing a jump ball to your 6’7” tight end who had legit D1 basketball offers is a winning strategy. Green, incidentally, had maybe his best game to date as a Tiger: eight catches for 119 yards, and that touchdown. More of that, please.
Garrett Nussmeier was…well, he was Garrett Nussmeier tonight. Nuss ended the night 20 of 33 for 254 yards with two touchdowns and two terrible interceptions. The first came in the first half on a ball that was overthrown and ended up in triple coverage; Nuss’ second interception came in the third when it looked like LSU had finally gotten the offense going. Nussmeier scrambled for 21 yards, and on the very next snap, Ju’Juan Johnson ripped off a 56-yard run to get LSU to the Carolina 11; but on 2nd and 8 at Carolina’s nine yard line, Nussmeier went full Nussmeier and threw into double coverage for his second pick of the night.
But, on this night at least, the three LSU turnovers didn’t cost LSU because the Tiger defense was, once again, excellent. Sellers was sacked five times, and the Tiger defense was credited with six TFLs. AJ Haulcy was in on 11 tackles, and TaMarcus Cooley intercepted Sellers in the second quarter.
In a weird way I leave tonight encouraged. LSU gained 420 yards of offense and ran the ball 30 times for 166 yards. They were committed to running the ball, which is what they weren’t doing two weeks ago in Oxford, and Nuss used his legs a couple of times tonight. If LSU takes better care of the ball this is maybe a 34-10 type of win and we’d all swear that the Tigers are back and ready to rip through the rest of the SEC.
In my eyes, LSU took steps today. Let’s see if that growth carries over next week on the road against Vanderbilt.
