Lane Kiffin doesn't believe Auburn's defenders played a clean and respectful game against his Bayou Bengals on Saturday during a 38-17 win for LSU. In particular, Kiffin accused Auburn's defenders of hip-drop tackling tight end Trey'dez Green.
Kiffin claims he pulled Green from the game because of the hip-drop tackles, which aren't outlawed yet in college football but are being looked at after the NFL got rid of them.
“He played well. He’s not 100 percent as you could see,” Kiffin said during his weekly teleconference (h/t Tiger Rag). “He’s still kind of limping, and pushing through. Fortunately, he didn’t get hurt worse when they were trying to hip-drop tackle him.
“So, that was unfortunate, and he was really concerned about that. And so we actually took him out.”
Green suffered a knee sprain against Ole Miss in Week 3. He made his return at Jordan-Hare Stadium during the Sam Leavitt masterclass on Saturday, hauling in five catches for 50 yards, with one of those catches being a touchdown.
Clearly, Kiffin may have had second guesses about doing that during a game where he unnecessarily put other guys at risk.
Lane Kiffin needlessly risked injuring his LSU defenders against Auburn
Kiffin sounds like a guilty man. After all, he put his starting defenders back in late in the fourth quarter, just because they asked.
When explaining that decision, Kiffin focused on how angry they were and offered the excuse that LSU's bye week comes after vanquishing Auburn.
“There were a couple right behind me that were getting pissed at our backups letting them go down the field,” Kiffin said. “So they asked me. They really wanted to have a second half shutout, and so I let them go back in, knowing that we had a bye next week. Maybe I shouldn’t have. But I like the mentality of the guys. That’s how we try to build a highly competitive program that has guys who want to think that way. They want get back in there. They want to play. They want to preserve good defensive days like that.”
Truthfully, it's a terrible look that Auburn is a team that angers opponents when the offense is driving down the field. That requires immediate introspection from Alex Golesh and Joel Gordon, because the offense should be keeping the team in games when the opponent's offensive skill-position players are on a heater.
Hopefully, this could be addressed before a trip to Oxford, Mississippi, this coming weekend. The Rebels are not taking Auburn lightly, and the offense having no teeth against LSU is worrying when you consider this was a successful USF system from last year that was imported to have success immediately.
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