LSU’s defense held visiting Louisiana Tech almost entirely in check other than a late touchdown with the game all but decided.
And, despite a surprisingly inconsistent showing by the offense, the No. 3 Tigers (2-0) held off the Bulldogs, 23-7, in the season’s Tiger Stadium home opener.
“You know, look, we’re happy with the win — we’re not happy with the production across the board,” coach Brian Kelly said. “We’ve gotta coach better. That’s the bottom line. And tonight we didn’t coach well enough. We got out-coached in a lot of areas. Hats off to coach (Sonny) Cumbie and his staff at LaTech. They did a great job tonight.”
LSU allowed less than 100 total yards for the first three and a half quarters until Louisiana Tech (1-1) nearly doubled its night with a 74-yard touchdown drive.
The Bulldogs meanwhile did themselves few favors much of the night with 12 penalties for 125 yards occasionally slowing themselves and often helping improve the Tigers’ field position.
“Those dudes up front, they’re the hardest working dudes on the team and taking all those double teams to free us up,” said veteran linebacker West Weeks, who led the team with 10 tackles. “So I appreciate those guys for doing that hard work for us, and it’s fun play behind a group like that.”
But LSU struggled to get into a rhythm in its own right with a variety of culprits popping up at different points: trouble winning up front, establishing the run game or separating downfield here or a missed throw or dropped pass there.
And a few players limped off at different points, including center Braelin Moore and big hybrid pass-catcher Trey’dez Green, neither of whom returned.
“One’s an ankle, one a knee,” Kelly said. “We’ll get MRIs tomorrow, and then we’ll know a little bit more.”
Star quarterback Garrett Nussmeier and company mounted a 98-yard drive late in the first quarter, highlighted by a 48-yard Zavion Thomas run and capped by a 7-yard dart to Oklahoma transfer Nic Anderson for his first touchdown in purple and gold.
The Tigers added three Damian Ramos field goals — a 23-yarder in the second and 46- and 19-yarders in the fourth — and a touchdown run by sophomore back Caden Durham to take advantage of a short field in the third quarter.
LSU finished the evening with 426 total yards, led by Nussmeier’s 26-for-41 passing (63%) for 237 yards and a touchdown and an interception in the first quarter and Barion Brown‘s eight catches for 94 yards.
“Honestly I was just out there having fun, letting the game come to me,” Brown said. “Not too worried about receptions or what I’m doing in the game. I was just trying to put our team in the best position to win.”
But the Tigers also racked up nine penalties for 77 yards, settled for field goals more often than not in the red zone and only converted three of their final nine third-down attempts after starting 6-for-7.
Outside of the Thomas run and a late 43-yarder by freshman running back Harlem Berry and adjusting to remove sack losses, the offense managed just 63 yards on 28 other attempts (2.25 yards/carry).
“You’ve gotta run the football,” Kelly said. “We didn’t run the football effectively tonight, and it made it difficult for us. We didn’t make great decisions. So, players gotta make plays, coaches gotta coach better. You can tell by my voice I’m not happy with the performance. But it’s a win, so, you always have to measure this by the outcome in this instance was what we wanted. It’s certainly not the way we wanted to get there, so we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Louisiana Tech finished with three sacks, eight tackles for loss and three more hurries.
Linebacker Mekhi Mason and defensive back Jacob Fields led the Bulldogs with 11 and nine tackles, respectively, including a sack and 1.5 tackles for loss for Mason.
Cornerback Jhamal Shelby Jr. finished with seven tackles, including one for loss, and a pass breakup, and former Edna Karr standout Michael “MikeMike” Richard intercepted the first-quarter deep shot off a Cedric Woods (Carroll) deflection.
And a pair of former Ruston High stars in defensive lineman Christian Davis (1.0) and linebacker Jadon Mayfield (0.5) were also among the Bulldogs to record sacks.
“I love how hard our kids played,” Cumbie said. “I thought our kids played really to the standard of what we’ve become to know of how they play in terms of they played fast, and they played really physical. I think they flew around tonight. I was proud of that effort. I think that our execution offensively was not where it needs to be for us to be able to win a conference championship and I know that we’ll get that fixed. I think the disappointing thing from an execution standpoint was we didn’t play as well on special teams, not as well as we played the prior week. We really made some critical errors and talking to our kids this week: against a team, any game, you have to maximize your opportunities. ”