Lane Kiffin didn’t back away from his belief after LSU’s 31-0 win over Mississippi State. If anything, he doubled down on it.
“This team was built to be a championship team,” Kiffin said, adding that it could “match up with anybody if we were healthy.”
That’s the catch. LSU is not healthy, and it won’t get everybody back.
Several key players are already done for the season, Sam Leavitt is working through a hamstring injury, and Saturday’s win came with Princewill Umanmielen and Jackson Harris both leaving the game. Kiffin has five SEC games left, and the path to the College Football Playoff likely means winning all five with the roster he has now, not the one he expected to have.
The schedule leaves no room to breathe. Three of those five games are away from Tiger Stadium, and LSU hasn’t won an SEC road game since a 34-10 victory at Arkansas on October 19, 2024.
Since then, the Tigers have dropped eight straight conference road games. If Kiffin is going to make a playoff push in year one, that skid has to end next Saturday at Auburn.
That trip is a lot tougher than it looked a week ago. Auburn just knocked off No.
1 Georgia, 27-24, in Athens. Tennessee, another LSU road opponent, beat Alabama, 26-10.
Florida went into Austin and beat Texas, 27-24. Kentucky, fresh off its overtime win over LSU, followed that up by beating Oklahoma, 21-13.
LSU still has Alabama and Texas coming to Baton Rouge, but the weekend results did nothing to soften what’s ahead.
Kiffin kept circling back to the one game LSU let slip away, the 35-34 overtime loss at Kentucky. “We screwed that fricking game up so many times,” he said.
“Just handed it away.” Injuries have clearly taken a toll, but he didn’t pin that loss on the roster situation.
LSU had chances to finish it and didn’t.
Against Mississippi State, the Tigers did finish when it mattered.
The Bulldogs crossed midfield on seven of nine possessions and reached LSU territory five times. They outgained LSU on the ground, 170-90, and piled up 291 total yards.
None of it produced points. Mississippi State went 0-for-5 on fourth down, including a goal-line stop late in the first half that preserved LSU’s 21-0 lead.
“0-for-5 on fourth downs was obviously really critical,” Kiffin said.
He praised Blake Baker’s approach on third and fourth downs and credited the players for carrying it out. Jordan Ross created problems in the backfield, Dylan Carpenter stepped in after Umanmielen exited, and the secondary came through with several key stops.
LSU’s backups helped keep the Bulldogs off the board in the fourth quarter. It was the Tigers’ first shutout of an SEC opponent since 2007, a stretch of 154 conference games.
Still, the result comes with a built-in asterisk. Mississippi State played without starting quarterback Kamario Taylor and running back Fluff Bothwell.
Taylor had entered the week with 17 touchdown passes, and his running threat gives Jeff Lebby’s offense another layer of stress for defenses. With both starters available, some of those red-zone trips might have ended differently.
Kiffin brushed past the injury angle on Mississippi State’s side. “I know people are going to talk about injuries and that will be a storyline,” he said.
“But there ain’t a team in America that has more significant players standing on the sideline than us. So, not a lot of pity there.”
That line fits the broader reality of LSU’s season. The Tigers have taken a beating physically, but Kiffin’s own comments about what a healthy team could be only sharpen the point: availability matters, and it matters on both sides.
Saturday at least showed LSU can adjust. Baker shuffled pieces around after losing his top pass rusher and kept the defense making stops.
On offense, Leavitt turned in his best LSU game even while dealing with the hamstring issue Kiffin said he aggravated in practice. He completed 31 of 38 passes for 289 yards and four touchdowns without an interception.
Before Saturday, he had thrown eight picks in the first six games, at least one in every outing.
With less mobility than usual, Leavitt stayed patient in the pocket and worked through the options in front of him. He completed passes to nine different receivers.
Harris caught two touchdown passes before leaving injured, while Eugene Wilson III and Malik Elzy added the other two. Kiffin said the staff had spent the week urging Leavitt to trust his receivers, and for one full game, he did exactly that.
Kiffin also wanted a full four-quarter effort, not just a fast start. At halftime, with LSU up 21-0, he told the team to play like it was trailing by 10.
“That was really a challenge to complete the game, play a complete game,” he said. After the Kentucky collapse, he wasn’t about to let the scoreboard lull his team into easing up.
LSU added 10 more points after halftime and never gave Mississippi State a chance to get back in it.
That doesn’t mean the Tigers have answered every question. Mississippi State was missing its starting backfield, and LSU was at home. The real test is still coming, and it will say more about the offense, Baker’s defense and Kiffin’s ability to navigate a roster that keeps getting thinner.
LSU visits Auburn on October 24, then gets an open date before Alabama and Texas come to Tiger Stadium on back-to-back Saturdays. The Tigers close with trips to Tennessee and Arkansas.
Arkansas has struggled despite its win at Vanderbilt, but LSU has not earned the luxury of treating any SEC road game lightly. Run the table, and the Tigers finish 10-2 with a real playoff case.
Slip once more, and they’ll need help.
Kiffin said he avoids talking about the playoff with his team. “I don’t ever talk about playoffs,” he said.
“I don’t ever talk about that because that’s just outcome.” But he admitted he made one exception Friday night before Mississippi State.
“We have to win tomorrow,” he told the players. “There is no, there’s no other option, but winning this game.”
The message landed. LSU got the stops, Leavitt took care of the football and the Tigers handled a team they were expected to beat.
Kiffin still believes a healthy LSU could go toe-to-toe with anybody. The version he has right now is starting to play cleaner football.
The next question is the one that matters most: can it win five straight, with three of them on the road?
In Other News...
LSU Defense Just Took Another Hit It Couldnt Afford
LSUs defense was already working through plenty of strain, and it took another scare early against Mississippi State when edge rusher Princewill Umanmielen left in the first quarter after making his second tackle. He was evaluated by LSU trainers on the field before spending the rest of the first half on the sideline, a development that immediately raised more concern for a unit that has been hit hard already this season.
The Tigers have already lost two other starting defenders to injuries, so any health issue on that side of the ball carries extra weight. Umanmielens status loomed as the kind of update LSU could ill afford to wait on, especially with the defense trying to hold together depth and production at the same time. [Read more 🡒]
LSUs Dominant Win Also Exposed One Offensive Concern
LSUs 31-0 shutout of Mississippi State was about as complete a Saturday as the Tigers could have hoped for. Sam Leavitt carved up the Bulldogs with four touchdown passes and no interceptions, and the defense and special teams did their part in a game that never really gave Mississippi State a chance to settle in, especially with the Bulldogs already short-handed at quarterback and running back.
Even so, the win didnt fully paper over one lingering offensive concern. LSU still had trouble getting much going on the ground, and that part of the attack remains worth watching as the schedule stiffens. The Tigers were efficient enough to overwhelm Mississippi State anyway, but if they want this kind of control against better opposition, the run game will need to become more than a background piece. [Read more 🡒]
LSU Got The Bounce-Back Win Fans Wanted At A Cost
LSU got the kind of clean, confidence-building win it badly needed Saturday, blanking Mississippi State 31-0 behind a defense that set the tone from the start. The Tigers made life miserable for the Bulldogs all afternoon, stuffing key drives and repeatedly ending possessions on failed fourth-down attempts while the offense did enough to keep the pressure on the other sideline.
The broader concern, though, is what came with the victory. LSU added injuries to key players, including wide receiver Jackson Harris and edge rusher Lamar Brown, even as Sam Leavitt and Dilin Jones helped steady the offense and Leavitt looked more comfortable with his timing and confidence. For a team trying to build momentum, the result was exactly what it wanted, but the health of a few important pieces leaves the next stretch of the season a lot less comfortable. [Read more 🡒]