Lane Kiffin spent Monday making one thing clear: the fourth-down decision at Kentucky was not a snap judgment, and it was not the same kind of call as an earlier fourth-and-1 LSU fans were eager to compare it to.
The moment came late in regulation at Kroger Field, with LSU leading 27-24 and facing fourth-and-1 at its own 43-yard line with 1:46 left in the fourth quarter. The Tigers initially lined up to go for it. Then both teams took timeouts, the staff talked it over, and LSU chose to punt instead.
That choice opened the door for Kentucky. The Wildcats moved down the field in the final 1:37 and nailed a 33-yard field goal as time expired to force overtime. LSU scored first in the extra period, Kentucky answered with a touchdown of its own, and the Wildcats finished off the 35-34 win with a two-point conversion.
On Monday, Kiffin defended the thinking behind the call.
"I get it. There's a lot of times like, OK, why don't we do this?"
Kiffin told reporters Monday Oct. 12.
"I do the same thing afterwards, but all those things are talked about before. There's a lot of times and things like that I think sometimes you're just watching on the fly, you don't realize, what don't we blitz here?
That sounds great until you give up a touchdown and you lose the game in regulation, where hopefully you stop them.
"Obviously, you're playing to stop them but if you do give up a field goal into the wind, what are the percentages of making it? And even if they do, you're still 50% chance of winning and going into overtime. All those go into those decisions at the time."
ESPN’s West Durham and Dusty Dvoracek were openly surprised on the broadcast when LSU chose to punt rather than try to get the yard it needed to end the game on the spot. The reaction from fans was just as sharp, with plenty of LSU supporters voicing frustration on social media.
Some of that pushback tied the Kentucky call to a fourth-and-1 LSU faced against Texas A&M a couple of weeks earlier, when Kiffin and offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. also had a fourth-down decision to make. But Kiffin said those situations were not the same.
"Don't mistake every fourth-and-1 for being the same. You know, when you have a fourth-and-1 that you can punt, and that's the last possession of the game, and they have no timeouts, and you just have to hold them to win the game. That's a different situation than a random third-quarter fourth down."
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