It was an all-around impressive team performance for LSU in Saturday night’s win against Mississippi State, but the defense deserves specific recognition.
The unit looked sloppy in its first outing against a Power Five team in the loss to Florida State, but it tightened up significantly against a tricky Mississippi State air-raid offense. The Bulldogs’ touted the conference’s second-most productive passing game entering the game, but it totaled just 214 yards through the air in this one as LSU limited them to under 300 total yards.
The game-plan was fantastic, and credit for that largely goes to defensive coordinator Matt House, who has been named the SEC’s Coordinator of the Week by On3’s Matt Zenitz.
The buzz: During a 30-16 LSU win over Mississippi State, House held the Bulldogs to their lowest yardage output since Mike Leach’s first season as coach in 2020 (289 yards). After a Mississippi State touchdown on its first drive, the Tigers allowed just 202 yards and 10 points during the final three-and-a-half quarters. LSU had four sacks, recorded two takeaways and limited the Bulldogs to 3-of-14 on third downs.
It’s rare to slow down the air-raid as effectively as LSU did, and there’s a lot of reason to be encouraged with the progress of the defensive unit, which saw two players earn accolades from the league this week in [autotag]Jay Ward[/autotag] and [autotag]BJ Ojulari[/autotag].
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