LSU didn’t need long to show Clemson what kind of night it was going to be. Once the Tigers got their ground game rolling, the whole thing tilted fast, and by the end of a 51-10 rout, the running attack had become the engine behind the blowout.
That start came with a little chaos. Jordan Seaton got whistled for a 15-yard penalty in the second quarter after he plowed a Clemson defender into the bench after the whistle.
It was an unnecessary flourish from the Colorado transfer, who hadn’t played a snap in 10 months and had already dealt with a two-hour lightning delay before the opening kickoff. But LSU shrugged off the setback, and the drive kept moving.
After an incomplete pass on the next play, quarterback Sam Leavitt took off for a first down. He then hit wide receiver Winston Watkins on a completion that pushed LSU inside the Clemson 35, and Leavitt followed with 18 more rushing yards over the next two snaps before scoring to make it 31-3.
By the end of the night, LSU had piled up 309 rushing yards and averaged 5.3 yards per carry. The first half told the louder story: 213 rushing yards, which was more than LSU had managed in all but one game over the last two years of Brian Kelly’s tenure. Leavitt ran for 100 yards and two touchdowns, Dilin Jones added 91 yards and a score, and Watkins even chipped in a 14-yard run in the first quarter.
“It was great. I feel like you (saw) what we did out there,” Jones said after LSU’s offense totaled 644 yards, with 507 coming in three quarters. “It was amazing.”
Leavitt and Jones combined for 226 rushing yards on 35 carries, good for 6.5 yards per attempt. Leavitt said he wasn’t trying to force the issue on the ground.
“I never come into the game with that expectation, whether I’m going to run more or not; it’s just what happened,” Leavitt, who had 12 rushing attempts, said. “When running lanes open up, and it’s the best play at hand, I’m going to take it and take care of my body.”
LSU did open things up through the air later on, with Leavitt throwing for 107 yards in the third quarter alone. Still, the foundation had already been laid in the run game, which was a clear break from how LSU’s offense operated under Kelly and ex-quarterback Garrett Nussmeier.
“We’re still going to have to improve, but the guys played well together, they seemed to move well together,” LSU coach Lane Kiffin said. “You didn’t have a lot of negative plays, which is really critical to not get behind the sticks.”
What made the performance even more striking was how little continuity LSU had up front. The line included two transfers, Seaton and Aliou Bah, along with fifth-year senior Bo Bordelon making his first career start. Trey’Dez Green, center Braelin Moore and right tackle Weston Davis were the only returning starters on the field for LSU, yet the run-game operation barely missed a beat.
The workload didn’t even fully reach LSU’s main backs until late. Caden Durham and Harlem Berry, the team’s top rushers from last season, didn’t enter until the fourth quarter, after LSU had already built a 44-3 lead. Behind Leavitt and Jones, UCF transfer Stacy Gage finished with 33 yards on eight carries, a steady 4.1 yards per attempt.
“The guys up front, they know exactly what to do, how to block it,” Jones said. “I trust them.”
For an offense that had almost no real game experience together and was working under an entirely new staff, LSU delivered a statement against a Clemson team that had been viewed as nearly ranked in the AP poll and as a conference championship contender.
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