LSU head coach Lane Kiffin was happy with what he saw from his Tigers during a 38-17 win over Auburn at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
LSU had 552 yards of total offense, sacked Auburn quarterback Byrum Brown six times and AU backup quarterback Tristan Ti'a once, and had the ball for 33:41 of game clock.
According to Kiffin, the way LSU played on the Plains was a reflection of what he always envisioned in this reported $40 million-plus NIL roster investment. Kiffin recognized that injuries prevented this group from clicking, particularly to quarterback Sam Leavitt in the spring.
"This is where we planned on being," Kiffin said. "Would have loved for it to be that way every game, but we just kind of -- probably realistically it was going to be a little bit slower with Sam missing all of spring and basically, outside of Trey'Dez, every skill player that plays is new.
"And so them just meshing together with Sam missing spring in the passing game and now you see them, a lot of receivers go in there and play and make plays and they mesh together really well."
Kiffin said that his team is hard to beat when it doesn't "screw up games." With no turnovers against Auburn, LSU certainly played as clean a game as possible.
Alex Golesh unhappy with every aspect of Auburn's loss to LSU
There was no such optimism on Alex Golesh's side.
Golesh claimed there was no shred of a silver lining in any facet of the game after the worst loss of his tenure.
"That was a really, really, really bad performance on both sides," Golesh said to the media in his postgame comments.
The immediate thought for many fans is to can defensive coordinator DJ Durkin. The safeties led the way in tackling because Leavitt and Dilin Jones penetrated past the first and second levels repeatedly. Leavitt had all day to process the field in front of him due to the lack of pressure.
Joel Gordon's play-calling also inspired very little optimism. There's still no run game established. Brown has to do everything himself. Behind an offensive line that is still trying to find the right mix and lost left tackle Jacob Strand due to an injury against LSU, Brown didn't have much open field to work with.
It's unclear what would improve this product before a trip to Ole Miss on Halloween. If the goal is bowl eligibility, the team only needs to steal one against the Rebels, Arkansas, Mississippi State, or Alabama. Samford should be an automatic win.
If this goal is a special season of eight wins or more, there may need to be a shakeup in play-calling. It's unclear if Golesh is willing to do anything that drastic before the end of the season. He did preach patience after upsetting UGA, after all.
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