On Saturday night in Death Valley, the LSU Tigers were able to defend their home turf against the McNeese Cowboys. After leading the game 17-0 at the half, they scored another 17 after the break. The game ended 34-7 in favor of the Bayou Bengals.
Despite the 27-point margin of victory, this game didn’t feel like a win in the eyes of most. When you beat an FCS opponent, not a whole lot can be said. However, if you lose that game, a lot can be said. While the home team did come out victorious, it left more questions than answers about this football team.
LSU should have won by a bigger margin and they should have corrected their offensive woes from a week ago. While the defense was much improved as expected, the offense actually looked worse throughout the game. Max Johnson completed 18 of 27 passes for 161 yards and three touchdowns. His 5.9 yards per attempt left a lot to be desired.
Tyrion Davis-Price had a run of 21 yards in the game but outside of that run, he tallied seven carries for 16 yards. That 2.3 yards per carry essentially matched his output against the Bruins. Corey Kiner finished the game with 11 carries for 56 yards. He hit runs of 12 and 23 yards to get into the endzone. The other nine carries went for 21 yards.
Backs aren’t going to hit on every run, but against an inferior opponent, they should be dominating that line of scrimmage to let the backs run. Of the 126 yards rushing, 104 came after contact for these runners. Simply put, the offensive line is creating no room for them to run.
The Tigers quarterback duo were sacked a total of three times, with McNeese getting pressure on 11 of the drop-backs. The quarterbacks were taking hits on almost every pass attempt, or so it seemed. If they are struggling against an FCS opponent, what is going to happen when they start facing off against teams like Alabama and Texas A&M.
This week we have the updated game-by-game win probabilities for LSU, the Football Power Index has LSU going in the wrong direction. Based on the way this is looking, Ed Orgeron’s hot seat is only going to get hotter.