LSU gets a breather from SEC play on Saturday night, but the Tigers aren’t exactly strolling into Tiger Stadium with a full head of steam.
No. 11 LSU is back home for a matchup with McNeese State at 6:45 p.m. on SEC Network, and the setting looks like a classic buy game on paper.
The problem for LSU is everything around it. The Tigers are coming off a 35-6 win over Texas A&M, but they’re also dealing with a growing injury list that has turned this week into more of a survival exercise than a victory lap.
Three key starters, including both No. 7s, are expected to miss extended time. Two more reserves are done for the season.
Quarterback Sam Leavitt’s status remains uncertain after he played through a hamstring injury. With Lane Kiffin’s first LSU team trying to manage the fallout, this game gives the Tigers a chance to catch their breath before SEC play ramps back up.
McNeese, meanwhile, arrives at 2-3 and 1-2 in Southland Conference play under a familiar face. Matt Viator is back for his second year in Lake Charles after coaching the Cowboys from 206-2015, when he put together a 78-33 record, won four Southland titles and was named Southland Coach of the Year three times.
After a 19-39 run in five seasons at Louisiana-Monroe and three years as an assistant at Louisiana-Lafayette, Viator returned to the program he once turned into a winner. McNeese went 5-7 in his first season back and 4-4 in league play.
The Cowboys bring one thing that could at least make LSU work for a while: a strong ground game. McNeese is averaging 189.4 rushing yards per game, good for third in the SLC and 24th in the FCS, and its 5.8 yards per carry leads the conference and ranks sixth nationally.
Louisiana Tech transfer Omiri Wiggins has been the engine. He leads the SLC and sits No. 20 in the FCS with 375 rushing yards and three touchdowns on 56 carries, while averaging 6.7 yards per attempt.
He’s coming off a 116-yard outing against East Texas A&M.
McNeese will be short-handed there, though. Quarterback Devin Lippold, the team’s second-leading rusher, is out for the season with a wrist injury.
That puts more pressure on senior Tre’Vonte Citizen, a Lake Charles native who was a four-star prospect at Lake Charles College Prep in the class of 2022. Citizen originally committed to LSU before flipping to Miami, then returned home in 2024 after a major knee injury kept him off the field for two seasons at Miami.
He has 24 carries for 85 yards this year.
That run game is going to run straight into one of LSU’s biggest strengths. The Tigers rank No. 2 in the FBS against the run, allowing just 47.5 rushing yards per game.
McNeese’s quarterback situation has been just as unsettled. Texas Tech transfer Jake Strong was supposed to be the returning starter after taking over last season.
He began this year as the starter against Stephen F. Austin, but left in the first half with a throwing shoulder injury.
Lippold stepped in for the next three games before his wrist injury opened the door for Strong to reclaim the job. Strong finished last season with 2,008 passing yards on 164 completions in 278 attempts, with 11 touchdowns and 13 interceptions, and added 469 rushing yards and seven scores on 117 carries.
This season, he is 28-for-46 for 321 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions.
LSU has its own uncertainty under center. Kiffin still has not named a starter with Leavitt nursing the hamstring injury.
He also said he would consider sitting some starters against McNeese because of the injuries that have already hit the roster. Elon redshirt sophomore transfer Landen Clark has been the backup and has flashed in limited work, while USC redshirt freshman transfer Husan Longstreet, a former five-star, could also get a look.
There are a few McNeese names worth tracking beyond Wiggins. Linebacker Landon Barrett leads the team with 31 tackles and has added three tackles for loss and an interception after being named Southland Defensive Player of the Week last week.
Cornerback Mason Edwards leads the conference with eight pass break-ups and has 9 tackles. Wide receiver Curtis Deville Jr., a Purdue transfer, is second on the team and ninth in the SLC with 284 receiving yards on 15 catches, and he is tied for the conference lead with four receiving touchdowns.
The numbers around the matchup tell the rest of the story. LSU is 140-25-8 against in-state opponents and has not lost to one since Tulane beat the Tigers 31-28 in 1982.
LSU is also 2-0 all-time against McNeese, with meetings in 2010 and 2011. The 2015 game was ruled a no contest after lightning delays and was never rescheduled.
Against FCS teams overall, LSU is 20-0 since the Division I split in 1978.
No one is calling this a toss-up. The bigger issue for LSU is how much it wants to expose already-thin starters in a game it should control. The Tigers should be able to lean on their defensive front, force McNeese into a one-dimensional script and use the second half to sort through depth at several spots.
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