No. 5 Alabama turned a tight game into another one-sided finish against LSU on Saturday night, ripping off a 21-0 run after trailing 13-10 late in the third quarter and rolling to a 31-13 win in front of 102,321 at Tiger Stadium.
For a brief stretch, LSU had the crowd roaring. Dilin Jones punched in a 5-yard run with 2:44 left in the third quarter to put the Tigers ahead 13-10, and the home team led for exactly two minutes and eight seconds total. Then Alabama answered in a hurry.
On the very next scrimmage play, Keelon Russell uncorked a 57-yard pass to Rico Scott that carried Alabama to the LSU 18-yard line and silenced the stadium. Three plays later, Russell found Josh Ford for a 7-yard touchdown with 36 seconds left in the quarter, and the Crimson Tide had the lead back at 17-13.
From there, the game slipped away fast.
With 9:49 remaining, Ryan Coleman Williams brought back an LSU punt 32 yards to the Tigers’ 25. Five seconds later, Russell hit Cederian Morgan for a 25-yard touchdown and a 24-13 cushion. After LSU failed on fourth down from its own 25 - Sam Leavitt was sacked for minus-7 yards - Alabama needed only three more plays before Russell connected with Kaleb Edwards for a 4-yard score and a 31-13 lead with 6:23 to play.
“It got kind of ugly there in the end.” … Lane Kiffin on getting outscored 21-0 late as LSU signed off on annual series with Bama early. Updated gamer w/quotes:
- Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) November 8, 2026
Leavitt said the failed fourth-down try was a backbreaker.
“Not getting it on fourth down is pretty brutal,” Leavitt said, and he added later, “I thought we were just about to go win the game,” Leavitt said, still somewhat in shock. “It was crazy to see.
We were really in the game for a long time. It got out of hand really quick.
It kind of shocks you. It’s like, ‘Wow, it’s 31-13 right now.’”
Alabama, meanwhile, kept its poise after a shaky stretch in the third quarter. Red Morgan said the response was the difference.
“I would say it’s really a mindset thing,” Alabama defensive back Red Morgan said. “We know bad things will happen, but what we do after that is the key.
It’s how we respond. In that fourth quarter, we came out and responded.”
Russell was in the medical tent with an injured ankle while LSU was moving toward its go-ahead points, and backup quarterback Austin Mack was warming up on the sideline. But Russell returned to spark the decisive sequence, and he said he could feel the mood shift when he reentered the game.
“When I went into the tent, I saw a lot of our heads go down,” said Russell, who finished 17-of-24 passing for 206 yards and three touchdowns with zero interceptions. “So, I felt like I had to keep my confidence and keep myself going.
I didn’t want to see my team down, and we were in the fight together. They knew they needed me, and I trust everyone on this team.
We jut all wanted to keep going.”
Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer said the long completion to Scott changed everything.
“I liked the response when we were down in the third quarter,” he said. “The big play by Rico sparked us, and it was instantaneous.”
He added that the Tide never let the moment cool off.
“No lull there,” DeBoer said. “And then, Ryan (Coleman-Williams) had the big return.
It’s a good football team we played there. Just got to play four quarters.”
LSU didn’t, and Alabama did. The Tigers are now 6-3 overall and 3-3 in the Southeastern Conference, while Alabama improved to 7-2 and 5-2 and looks headed toward another playoff run.
The result also fit the pattern of Alabama’s dominance in the series. The Crimson Tide’s current 14-2 edge over LSU began with the 21-0 national championship shutout on Jan. 9, 2012, in the Louisiana Superdome. Before that, LSU had won two straight and nine of the first 12 meetings in the century.
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The frustration for LSU came from missed chances that piled up as the game went on, including failed fourth-down tries and a missed field goal that kept points off the board when the Tigers needed them most. Afterward, Lane Kiffin said the loss has to be put behind them, but for LSU the bigger issue is harder to ignore: against Alabama, the margin keeps getting decided by execution, not effort. [Read more 🡒]