Nine games into LSU’s 2026 season, the numbers around Baton Rouge are staggering. The results? Not nearly as impressive.
LSU dropped a 31-13 decision to No. 5 Alabama on Saturday night, and the loss had a familiar feel in Death Valley.
Alabama has now won seven of its last eight trips to LSU, with most of those victories coming by comfortable margins. The Tigers are 6-3 and still hanging onto their College Football Playoff hopes by a thread.
That’s a hard place to land for a team that entered the year with massive expectations. Plenty of observers had LSU pegged as a playoff team. Some even picked the Tigers to win it all.
Instead, the program has spent the season trying to justify a massive investment. LSU fired Brian Kelly after things unraveled a year ago, then chased and landed Lane Kiffin in a very public recruiting battle that also included Florida.
Kiffin’s deal is worth about $91 million overall, including $13 million this year plus incentives. LSU also paid Kelly a $54 million buyout.
And that was only part of the bill.
The roster spending was enormous, too. Sources told CBS Sports’ Chris Hummer that the 2025 LSU roster cost roughly $18-20 million. Double that figure, and the 2026 team sits a little north of $40 million.
“LSU is almost in a tier of its own this year,” an anonymous SEC front-office staffer told CBS Sports.
That kind of spending was supposed to buy a different outcome. Instead, LSU has just one more win through nine games than it had last season. For donors who opened their wallets to land Kiffin and the No. 1 transfer class in the country, per the 247Sports Team Rankings, that’s not the return they were looking for.
There’s still a path forward, but it’s a narrow one. LSU likely needs to win out to keep its playoff hopes alive, and that won’t be simple with Texas still on the schedule and a road trip to Tennessee ahead.
Even so, the on-field product is clearly better than it was a year ago. LSU’s offense has become far more dangerous, and the defense has made real strides, especially against the run. Through nine games, the statistical jump is obvious.
2025 Offense 2026 Offense 2025 Defense 2026 Defense
Points/game
23.6
37.1
19.0
17.7
Yards/game
341.8
504.1
327.9
261.1
Pass yards/game
240.8
324.9
201.9
176.4
Rush yards/game
101.0
179.2
126.0
84.7
This is a more talented LSU team, and the box score shows it. Sam Leavitt is far more dynamic than the combination of Garrett Nussmeier and Michael Van Buren Jr.
Jackson Harris has become a real problem for opposing defensive backs. Trey’Dez Green is a matchup nightmare.
Princewill Umanmielen has delivered at EDGE, and Jordan Ross has done the same. The roster is loaded with NFL talent, and it shows every Saturday.
But talent hasn’t solved the final problem: finishing games.
The schedule hasn’t been the main culprit either. LSU’s 2025 slate ranked No. 12 in toughness, per ESPN FPI, while the 2026 schedule ranks No.
- Last season’s first nine games included losses to No.
13 Ole Miss, No. 17 Vanderbilt, No.
3 Texas A&M and No. 4 Alabama.
That wasn’t exactly a soft landing.
This year, LSU has been in every loss, but the small mistakes have piled up anyway. Against Alabama, the Tigers went 0-for-4 on fourth down and lost the turnover battle 2-0.
The second quarter told the story: LSU gained 129 yards, crossed into Alabama territory on every drive, and still came away empty. A missed field goal, a failed fourth-down try and a costly interception from Leavitt let Alabama carry a 10-3 lead into halftime.
The same theme showed up in LSU’s overtime loss to Kentucky. With less than two minutes left in regulation and facing fourth-and-1 from its own 43-yard line, Kiffin chose to punt in an effort to ice the game.
Kentucky got the ball back and tied it with a field goal anyway. In overtime, LSU scored first and kicked the extra point.
Kentucky answered, and Will Stein went for two and the win.
Those are the kinds of moments LSU has to clean up if this season is going to end the way the program expected. Maybe the bounce goes the Tigers’ way down the stretch. Maybe Kiffin’s choices look different under the weight of those expectations.
Either way, the man being paid handsomely to fix it is running out of time.
In Other News...
Alabama May Be Giving Austin Mack A Huge Chance At Vanderbilt
Keelon Russells ankle injury has opened the door for Austin Mack, and Alabama appears willing to let the former five-star recruit take some meaningful snaps against Vanderbilt. With Russell banged up, head coach Kalen DeBoer said Mack could see the field in an effort to protect the starter for the games ahead, giving the Crimson Tide a chance to see what they have in a quarterback who has spent most of his time waiting behind the scenes.
For Mack, the timing matters. He has had limited playing time since arriving in Tuscaloosa, but this could be the kind of opportunity that changes the conversation around his future, especially with a possible transfer in the background. Vanderbilt may not be the biggest stage on Alabamas schedule, but it could be a valuable one for a quarterback still trying to show he can handle real game action. [Read more 🡒]
Alabamas Defensive Front Just Got A Boost Fans Have Been Waiting For
Devan Thompkins gave Alabama a timely jolt in the win at LSU, finishing with two sacks and snapping a drought that had stretched back to Week 3. It was the kind of interior push the Crimson Tide have been trying to rediscover, and it came in a game where the defense as a whole finally looked disruptive again, piling up four sacks for its best total since Week 5.
Terrance Greens return from injury helped make that happen. He made his presence felt with a sack of his own and steady work against the run, giving Alabamas defensive front a more complete look and drawing praise from the coaching staff for the way he changed the lines energy. For a unit that has been searching for consistency up front, Greens impact may have been just as important as the numbers beside Thompkins name. [Read more 🡒]
Alabama Just Forced A Playoff Ranking Debate Fans Will Obsess Over
Alabamas win over LSU has done more than pad the rsum in November. It has reopened the kind of playoff-rankings debate that gets college football fans arguing all week, with analysts split on where the Crimson Tide should land when the next set of rankings comes out. Some see the victory as the kind of statement that can push Alabama as high as No. 3 or No. 4, while others think the committee could still leave the Tide closer to the middle of the top 10.
The messier part is what it means for Tennessee, because the comparison between the two teams is now impossible to ignore. Head-to-head results and strength of schedule both have a way of complicating the conversation, and Alabamas latest win only sharpened the question of how much weight the committee will give each factor. However it shakes out, this is the sort of ranking fight that could linger well beyond Tuesday night. [Read more 🡒]