LSU Tigers Defense, Sam Leavitt Cruise Against Short-Handed Mississippi State

It was expected as soon as it was known that Kamario Taylor and Fluff Bothwell wouldn’t be playing in this game, but the LSU Tigers cruised to a 31-0 victory over the Mississippi Bulldogs on Saturday afternoon.

Lane Kiffin’s squad improves to 5-2 on the year and 2-2 in conference play.

The Tigers defense wasn’t allowing much of anything to get going for the Bulldogs, while the offense met little resistance.

Mississippi State’s offense was clearly handcuffed without its stars. Redshirt freshman walk-on Billy Puckett performed fine considering the situation, but there wasn’t much that the offense could do.

Puckett was 16-of-26 for 121 yards, no touchdowns and an early interception to Ty Benefield. 

While it’s normally Princewill Umanmielen who is wreaking havoc in opposing backfields, it was Jordan Ross in this game. He had a sack, 2.5 TFLs and was generating a ton of pressure even when he wasn’t getting to Puckett.

It was a different story entirely for LSU and Sam Leavitt, who had a much-needed bounce back from the past two weeks of disappointment. Leavitt was 31-of-38 for 289 yards and four touchdowns. He was relatively unbothered by the Bulldogs pass rush.

The Tigers knew they didn’t need to do anything crazy on offense in this game because of the other side. It was more consistent yardage gain rather than a ton of big plays, which is why they “only” had 31 points. The longest play of the day went for 27 yards, and the next longest just 14.

This was actually Leavitt’s first game for LSU in which he didn’t turn the ball over. There was a fumble, but it went out of bounds. Most importantly, he took care of the ball and didn’t throw an interception. 

Leavitt leading the nation in picks was sort of inflated from the game against the Louisiana Tech Bulldogs where he threw three picks in one half, but it’s still a tag that was earned. He had thrown an interception in each prior game this year.

Jackson Harris continues to be a big-play target for Leavitt, picking up two more touchdown catches. His emergence was necessary after Trey’Dez Green went down. The passing game was more diverse with its target share in this one, which has been needed.

This win won’t do much for the outside perception of LSU, given the state of the Bulldogs’ roster, but it was still the best-case scenario.

Now it will be back on the road for a matchup with the Auburn Tigers next weekend, before the bye week. The Bayou Bengals will desperately need to shed their road issues in order to keep their season afloat.