Problems in Tigertown

It was not supposed to be this way in Baton Rouge.

Not this year. 

Not with this offense. 

Not with this defense.

Not with this quarterback.

And certainly not with this start. LSU won its big opening game and seemed to have it all in front of them.

Even Brian Kelly, the head coach, called this his best team…ever.

So, how did we get to the point of panic on the bayou before October even arrived?

The Tigers lost their first game of the season last weekend, falling to Ole Miss 24-19 in a game that didn’t seem to be that close.

In the process, they fell from the fourth-ranked team to No. 13 in the blink of a loss. Now, as they enter their first bye week of the season, there is a lot to fix, but there is still plenty of time to do so. 

“Disappointed in the loss, certainly,” Kelly said after the game. “There is a game within the game. You start with the first half, where our inability to sustain anything on the offensive side of the ball put our defense on the field for 50 plays.

“At the end of the day, when you put it all together for four quarters, we didn’t play complementary football, which you have to do in this league. You have to be able to complement your offense and defense. When our offense started to move the ball, our defense couldn’t get the stop.”

This is not just a case of one bad game, either. The Tigers have looked sloppy in wins against Louisiana Tech and Florida. And that win against Clemson the first week, well, it doesn’t look so good now that Clemson has lost two more times. 

The real question at LSU is what’s wrong with the quarterback. Garrett Nussmeier started the season as one of the favorites in the Heisman Trophy race. 

That’s a long time ago, it seems. He looks like a pitcher who has lost his fastball and could even be injured. 

With no running game, the LSU offense has been less than strong. The Tigers are 80th in the nation in scoring offense, averaging 27 points per game. 

It’s even worse if you take away the 56 points LSU scored against FCS and Southland Conference foe Southeastern. Their average drops to 19.7 points against FBS teams.

The bigger issue might be the Tiger run game. LSU ran for just 57 yards against a defense that was one of the worst in the SEC going into the game. 

Meanwhile, the Tiger defense struggled to stop the Rebel ground game, especially at the end of the game when they needed to regain possession for one last drive. Instead, the Rebels ran the clock out on any LSU comeback. 

There is still plenty of time left for LSU to fix this season and make a playoff run, but this is not what fans expected. 

For LSU to fulfill the promise of their head coach, they must find a way to improve significantly quickly. There are some big teams left on their schedule, which are both good and bad.

It all depends on how they fix what is broken.

Jim Gazzolo is a freelance writer who covers sports in Southwest Louisiana. He is also the host of Poke Nation, which airs weekly on CBS-Lake Charles.