LSU head coach Lane Kiffin recognized the defensive effort Blake Baker's unit displayed during a dominant 38-17 win over Auburn at Jordan-Hare Stadium in Week 8.
As Kiffin noted, the Bayou Bengals' defensive gameplan was to force Auburn quarterback Byrum Brown to throw the ball and stop him from scrambling out of the pocket. LSU got the job done, limiting Brown to 21 rushing yards on 19 carries and sacking him six times.
"I put some guys back in there on defense just because they really wanted to. They talked about really shutting them out in the second half and coming out and doing like we've done the week before," Kiffin said postgame about putting banged-up players back into the game.
"So I thought our defense played really well today, limited explosive plays. Blake did a really good job. I mean, the game plan was to make the guy throw and stop the run, and I think when you do that, I think it can look really good."
"The guy," in this context, is Brown. Unfortunately, Brown wasn't "the guy" against LSU because of Baker's execution. Brown completed 15-of-24 pass attempts for 160 yards, playing right into Baker's hands.
Brown recognized the poor performance from the offense, which had 16% of its plays end up in negative yardage.
“Just didn’t execute throughout the entirety of a drive,” Brown said postgame. “Get plays going, then shoot ourselves in the foot. Can’t win like that.”
Alex Golesh condemns Auburn's three-and-out problem against LSU
Coach Alex Golesh condemned the three-and-out problem that cut short momentum several times during the 21-point loss on the Plains on Saturday.
“This league, they're all gonna be tight,” Golesh said. “And you can't sequence it to where you essentially go three-and-out, they score, go three-and-out, they score. Like, that 14-point swing, it's hard to come out of.
“The belief piece of it — a week ago, we were down 14, come back. I said that a week ago, you can't live like that. That's a really, really miserable place to live.”
Three-and-outs on the first drive of the game have become too commonplace a practice for this offense. First halves of games have cost Auburn against LSU and Florida. The first half was almost a problem against Georgia, too.
Golesh admitted there was very little good to come from this game. Defensive coordinator DJ Durkin is certainly under an increasingly scrutinized spotlight as his group continues to falter, but offensive coordinator Joel Gordon is having his fair share of issues as well.
We'll see if the problem can be solved before a trip to Oxford, Mississippi, on Halloween to battle the Rebels.
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