The No. 20 LSU Tigers defeated the Vanderbilt Commodores 41-7 on Saturday night in Nashville after suffering a 44-34 loss to the Mississippi State Bulldogs in the season-opener.
On offense, the Tigers racked up 498 yards of offense while converting four out of 12 times on third down and being perfect on fourth-down conversion attempts.
Here are four takeaways from the Tigers’ dominating victory as they’ve evened out their record.
1. LSU established the rushing attack.
Last week against Mississippi State, LSU totaled just 80 yards on the ground. Saturday against Vanderbilt, the offense doubled that total for 161 yards. Sophomore John Emery Jr. carried the ball 12 times for 103 yards and a touchdown and averaged 8.6 yards per rush.
Freshman Josh Williams saw the field in the fourth quarter and held the ball eight times for 30 yards. Tyrion Davis-Price also had eight touches for 29 yards.
One key going into this game was to get the running game more established, and LSU gave the Commodores defense a tough challenge on the ground.