LSU left Oxford with a loss, but the part that stood out most wasn’t the final score. It was how flat the Tigers looked to start.
Ole Miss rolled to a 32-24 win Saturday night, handing LSU its first loss in the Lane Kiffin era and sending the Tigers down to No. 10 in the latest AP Poll. LSU mounted a serious second-half push, but an interception in the final minute shut the door on the comeback.
That early stretch was the jolt nobody saw coming. Ole Miss feeding off Vaught-Hemingway Stadium made sense.
The Rebels had the crowd, the energy and the urgency. LSU, though, looked drained from the opening snap.
The offense opened with three straight punts, and Trinidad Chambliss had the Tigers on their heels before they could settle in.
By halftime, LSU was staring at a 24-7 deficit after Chambliss put together an eight-play scoring drive that took less than two minutes. The Tigers didn’t really find their footing until after the break, when the run game started to come alive and Sam Leavitt looked more comfortable directing the offense.
"I'm proud of the way the guys battled back," Kiffin said, per ESPN's Mark Schlabach. "It was really good.
But at the end, we didn't finish. We could have finished on defense and stopped them.
We let them go down and score. And then on offense, we moved down and then stalled there at the end."
The second-half surge gives LSU something to build on, but the opening 30 minutes told a tougher story. If the Tigers had brought more from the start, Saturday night might have ended differently.
Kiffin also made clear the week had taken a toll, and he sounded relieved to see it come to an end.
"I'm sure I'll be criticized for saying that, but yeah, I am," Kiffin said, happy that this week is ending. "I was thinking that all week, especially today, and I would have said that in a win or a loss.
You know, that was really emotional driving in on the buses for a lot of reasons. And I'm not saying this because I would have said this anyway since you asked.
It was just really a lot of emotions of gratefulness for this place and for the six years. It went well beyond football."
LSU’s fast start against Clemson hasn’t carried over into the last two games, and that’s the part that has to change as conference play begins.
In Other News...
LSU's Offense Just Raised A Bigger Sam Leavitt Concern
LSUs offense took a needed step forward on the ground against Ole Miss, piling up 172 rushing yards and getting a strong day from Dilin Jones, who ran for 106 of them. Even with that improvement, the passing game still left plenty to sort through, and the overall balance of the offense did not fully erase the concerns that have hovered around Sam Leavitt since the start of the stretch.
Leavitt finished 16 of 27 for 158 yards with a touchdown and an interception, while adding 63 rushing yards and another score on the ground. Lane Kiffin pointed to missed chances through the air, said some of the issues were tied to Leavitt missing practice, and stressed that the offense has to protect better and execute cleaner moving forward, which makes the next step for the passing game an important one for LSU. [Read more 🡒]
Lane Kiffin Turns LSU Loss Into Bigger SEC Scheduling Frustration
Lane Kiffin spent part of his first SEC teleconference back in the LSU spotlight talking less about the loss itself and more about the setting around it. After Ole Miss beat LSU in Oxford in Week 3, Kiffin pointed to the fact that the game was played there for the second straight year, framing it as more than just an inconvenience for the Tigers and more like a scheduling issue with real competitive weight.
For LSU, the complaint lands in a familiar place because Oxford has long been one of the leagues tougher road environments, and Kiffin noted the home-field edge and crowd noise as factors that hurt his team. The bigger frustration now is not just what happened in the game, but how the setup kept LSU in the same uncomfortable spot twice in a row, leaving the scheduling conversation hanging over an otherwise straightforward result. [Read more 🡒]
LSU Gets A Telling Warning From Mike Elko Before SEC Showdown
With LSU heading into another SEC test, Texas A&M coach Mike Elko offered a useful scouting lens on what his defense expects to see when the Tigers line up across from them. Elko pointed to LSU quarterback Sam Leavitt as a competitive, physical presence, the kind of player who can shape a game by staying tough through contact and keeping plays alive.
Elko also touched on how little direct exposure he has had to Lane Kiffins offense, even while making clear he respects what Kiffin has built over the years. For LSU, that combination matters because it frames this matchup as more than a simple talent check. It is also a chess match against a coach who likes what he sees from the Tigers quarterback and knows enough about Kiffin to understand how much discipline this game could demand. [Read more 🡒]