LSU Prepares For Late Season Stretch With No Margin of Error For College Football Playoff

A collapse, an embarrassment, a meltdown: Those words were described when talking about LSU’s 38-23 loss to the Texas A&M Aggies last week. However, as bad as the loss may feel to the LSU program and to Tigers fans, their goals are still ahead of them.

“No, we are not out of it. We lost our margin. We have no margin of error. We have to go back and look at the things we just talked about. We got the bye week. We will clean some things up and we will go back to work on ourselves and we will get ourselves ready to play better football.”

LSU HC Brian Kelly on playoff hopes

The LSU Tigers may have received their second loss of the season and have dropped from #8 in the AP Top 25 Poll to #16, but in the grand scheme of things, are still alive for a College Football Playoff. If they can win their final four games, that will put the Tigers at 10-2, but most importantly with only one SEC loss.

It is going to be easier said than done though as the Tigers start off in playoff mode with a College Football Playoff elimination game against Alabama in Tiger Stadium next week.

Before that crucial game kicks off a grueling four game stretch, LSU is on a bye week working on the issues that plagued them against Texas A&M. Here are five areas where Brian Kelly and the coaching staff needs to focus on to get ready for the last stretch of the season.

1. Find a More Efficient Running Game:

Perhaps, the most concerning issue was LSU’s inability to generate any sort of ground game against Texas A&M to help Garrett Nussmeier out. The Tigers only mustered 24 rushing yards on 23 rushing attempts, which is an absolutely dreadful one yard per carry. The lack of a running game made it tough for LSU’s passing offense to stay ahead of the chains or at least give its passing offense manageable third down situations. Even though it was by far their worst rushing performance of the season and that it did come against perhaps the best defensive front the Tigers played all year, their rushing attack has not had success all year long only averaging 115 rushing yards per game, which is ranked 111th of 134 teams. A bright side is that the final four opponents have not been as tough in stopping the runs as some of the other teams LSU has played with Oklahoma having the toughest run defense left on the schedule.

“Let’s look at it based on last week’s game. A&M is pretty good against the run. Two, a lot of the run game is based on individual matchups. We lost some individual matchups not collectively, but some individual matchups made the run game less effective. Then, quite frankly, making good decisions based upon when we should throw the ball out and when we should run the football based on numbers. Certainly, what we talked about before, those are decisions that are made post snap. We made some poor decisions post snap and didn’t execute at times, and it’s not just the five guys. When our run game has not gone well, we’ve lost some individual matchups up front. The quarterback is instrumental in reading if he has a loaded box or not and then, clearly, whenever there is an extra hat, making somebody miss. We collectively didn’t execute in the run game from that standpoint.”

LSU HC Brian Kelly on struggles in the run game

There is some talent in the running back room including breakout freshman standout Caden Durham along with an experienced offensive line, but offensive coordinator Joe Sloan needs to be more creative in the run game by calling more diverse running plays besides the inside zone. LSU had some success in getting the offensive linemen pulling out in front and letting their athletic offensive line being athletic. Wherever the answer may lie, if the Tigers want to make a push for the CFP, the running game issues need to be sorted out.

2. Stop the Quarterback Run:

While the biggest problem offensively was running the football, the biggest problem defensively was stopping the quarterback running game. LSU’s defense did a great job in the first half of frustrating Conner Weigman in the first half and in fact did so well that Mike Elko had to make a change at the quarterback position. In comes dual threat quarterback Marcel Reed and that helped change the complexion of the game.

After looking so dominant defensively, LSU simply did not have an answer for Reed, who led the Aggies to four straight touchdown drives with three of those touchdowns coming from Reed’s legs.

A part of that success had to deal with the defense not being ready for the quarterback change.

“It wasn’t the RPOs as much as it was the quarterback run game. It is the million dollar question. I would say that we need to spend more time because right now, I would run the quarterback against us. We have a plan for the running quarterback. I don’t know if we executed the level that we needed to. 20/20 is such that we should have spent more time on it. It sure looks that way. I don’t believe there was a sense that we weren’t capable of doing it after we faced a good running quarterback at Arkansas because we had a similar plan. We got to go back and double down on our preparation for the running quarterback.”

“You don’t run a defense expecting the number two quarterback to come in. We’ve prepared for that kind of offense. Everybody runs what they run. They ran zone read and they ran bash. We saw that last week. We’ve seen it every week. Those are things we just didn’t execute as well. We prepared for Connor to play and so a lot of reps were focused on the offense that Connor was part of. Throughout camp, spring ball, and the course of the season, we have a defensive structure that stops quarterback runs and stops read options because you have to. The fact of the matter is that we didn’t execute it as well.”

LSU HC Brian Kelly on struggling to defend the quarterback run

LSU will have ample amount of time to plan against the quarterback run game moving forward with four quarterbacks that can run the football starting off of course with Alabama’s Jalen Milroe and then with Florida’s DJ Lagway, Vanderbilt’s Diego Pavia, and Oklahoma’s Jackson Arnold.

Although LSU held up decently to other rushing quarterbacks like Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart and Arkansas’ Taylen Green, the question will be answered quickly against Alabama if defending dual threat quarterbacks is a major weakness for Blake Baker’s squad or if it was just a wrinkle that threw off this unit.

LSU LB Greg Penn chases down Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart (Photo taken by Billy Metcalf)

3. Field goal execution needs to be in sync :

Just two weeks ago, the special teams unit was raved for its performance against Arkansas, but like the team’s performance for majority of the second half fell apart leaving a lot of points on the table. Usually, it is just on the kicker, but in this case, the chemistry was off between the snapper, holder, and kicker as Damian Ramos’ timing was off on two kicks and for the third attempt, Peyton Todd was not even looking at Slade Roy when the ball was snapped.

“The battery is the snapper, the holder, the kicker. We got to get them together. It is not one without the other. We got to get all three of these guys working in unison. They were out of sync. As well as they were working the week before, I don’t know what happened. It was out of sync. We had the untimely snap. We didn’t have a great hold, but as you know, it’s the kicker that is going to get the blame because he is the one out there that will be getting the credit or the blame. It was the battery that was highly ineffective for us against Texas A&M. We got some work today on it, which very rarely that group is out there for an off week. We were out there today and spent a lot of time on them.”

LSU HC Brian Kelly on special teams miscues

Before the loss, the special teams was one of the most improved units this season, but not only did it leave points off the board, it also helped swing the momentum for Texas A&M. Making sure that unit is in sync will help the Tigers along this run, especially when it comes to potential close games that could be decided by special teams.

LSU Special Teams (Photo taken by Billy Metcalf)

4. Get LSU’s passing offense clicking at a more efficient and consistent level:

Heading into the Texas A&M game, the LSU passing offense was one of the best in the country as Garrett Nussmeier is sixth in the country in passing yards per game and is first in the SEC in passing touchdowns, but turnovers have been a big problem most notably in the Texas A&M game where Nussmeier threw three interceptions.

“It’s the process of a first time starter at quarterback. It’s the life of the quarterback at any level whether it is college or the NFL and Garrett knows that. He comes from a quarterback coach so he’s built for this. He is not a guy that is going to shy away from it. He was at the press conference and he took full accountability and responsibility with what happened. As you know, the quarterback gets too much of the credit and too much of the blame. He is up for the challenge of getting better and we are working to get him to the level he needs to be. He is excited about doing it so I am not worried about a loss of confidence because he knows this. He knows what this looks like and he knows others that have been here and are having incredible success in the NFL right now gone through a similar path of development and he is going through that too.”

LSU HC Brian Kelly on Garrett Nussmeier

While Garrett Nussmeier’s gunslinger mentality helps him especially with bouncing back from previous negative plays and although his performance this season has been a key reason why the Tigers are still in contention to play in the SEC Championship Game, Nussmeier has not been efficient in terms of his completion percentage by only completing a little bit over 50% of his passes in conference play.

The passing game has called for a lot of deep shots, but it is the shorter passing game that can help a struggling run game and an aggressive quarterback. In fact, his longest passing touchdown of the year was a short slant which Aaron Anderson missed two guys and outraced everybody for a 76 yard touchdown. LSU has a lot of offensive weapons in Kyren Lacy, Anderson, Mason Taylor, Chris Hilton, CJ Daniels, Zavion Thomas, Trey’Dez Green, and Caden Durham that they can utilize in the short passing game. Having an on-time short passing attack, especially the quick hitters on the outside and the throws over the middle will open up the big, explosive plays.

LSU QB Garrett Nussmeier (Photo taken by Billy Metcalf)

5. LSU needs to stay focused and locked in especially when it comes to closing games out:

There have been two versions of this year’s LSU football team throughout the course of the year and Brian Kelly explained it best himself.

“52 of the first 75 plays, our guys played very well. It was the last 23 plays. This is much more about how you finish a game. Now, we’ve been on the other end of two of them where we didn’t play well for the first 52 plays, but played great in the last 23. Now, the shoe is on the other foot where we don’t play well for the last 20 plays. Our guys have to learn from that. What we did well was that we prepared well emotionally, physically, and did the right things, but we didn’t finish. You got to finish in this league. We saw that in the Ole Miss game and we saw that in the South Carolina game. We finished. Maybe, we didn’t start the game that way, but we finished. We talked about that and then, we worked on the things that we believe that we need to get better at on both sides of the ball.”

LSU HC Brian Kelly

Now, how do you work on that during an off week? You can work on the things that you did well in the most complete game of the season, which was against the Arkansas Razorbacks with all three phases working together as one. That version of the team also finished the game as well. Being able to feed off each phase of the game positively makes this a dangerous LSU team, which makes it even more important to play complementary football.

That’s not what happened against Texas A&M. When one side of the ball fell apart, the other fell apart. As long as LSU can do that and can bring back its confidence in all three phases, this is still a Tigers team that can win out and challenge for a playoff spot.

The LSU defense celebrates after a stop. (Photo taken by Billy Metcalf)