Lane Kiffin smelled blood in the water early against Auburn in Week 8. Kiffin told LSU quarterback Sam Leavitt that if he simply protected the ball, the Bayou Bengals would dominate Auburn.
The head coach was correct.
Kiffin explained postgame his motivational tactics for Leavitt, following a dominant 441-all-purpose-yard, four-touchdown performance. Leavitt didn't have any turnovers.
"Yeah, it was obviously a really poor decision on the one that he got lucky to get back. So you just told him, 'Hey, you got lucky on that. We can't have another one of those,'" Kiffin said to the media following the 38-17 LSU win at Jordan-Hare Stadium.
"I just told him that this was a game — you guys heard me say before — when I feel a game early that, 'OK, we're really going to dominate this game if we don't screw up,' I say that a lot to the players and to the quarterback especially. "OK, hey, this is going to be a take-care-of-the-ball game," because we're playing really well on the other side and we've got really good matchups. So he really played really well outside of that play."
Leavitt came into the game with hamstring issues and looked hampered by them during his scrambles.
Even so, Auburn EDGE Jared Smith had the lone sack on Leavitt all afternoon. Leavitt was hardly pressured and took advantage.
Auburn struggles against agile LSU backfield
While Leavitt dominated Auburn in a way no quarterback had all season, it was the threat of his legs that made it such an ugly afternoon.
Auburn's Achilles' heel all season has been facing a lightning-quick threat out of the backfield.
It was running back DeSean Bishop for Tennessee against Auburn, and it was running back Jadan Baugh for Florida against the Tigers.
If you have a mobile threat out of the backfield, you have the means to beat Auburn. Looking at the rest of the schedule, you worry about Mississippi State quarterback Kamario Taylor, if he can make it back from a foot injury that forced him out of a Week 8 loss to Oklahoma. You definitely worry about Alabama quarterback Keelon Russell. Ole Miss running back Kewan Lacy's health is shaky, but if healthy, he'll be a spooky matchup on Halloween.
We'll see if Auburn can fix its struggles against physical speedsters out of the backfield. It will define the Tigers' ceiling for the rest of the 2026 season.
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