If all that matters is the final score, LSU did what it had to.
LSU beat South Carolina, 36-33, and is still very much in the SEC Championship and College Football Playoff hunt.
If we're allowed to dig a little deeper, there are quite a few reasons to be concerned about the Tigers' outlook for the remainder of the 2024 season.
LSU survived more than anything against South Carolina, bailed out by multiple questionable officiating calls and Gamecocks quarterback LaNorris Sellers not playing in the second half because of an ankle injury. LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier is very lucky that two pick-sixes got called back because of penalties, the second an especially egregious interception in the red zone when the Tigers were still down four points.
Everyone knew the offense would take a step back this season without Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels, but the offensive play-calling and decision-making against South Carolina left a lot to be desired. Never was that more apparent than on a second-half 1st-and-goal on South Carolina's two-yard line that resulted in zero points.
Here's the sequence of plays dialed up by LSU offensive coordinator Joe Sloan:
- Kaleb Jackson run
- Josh Williams run
- Josh Williams run
- Pass play on 4th-and-goal at the one-yard line that predictably didn't work and was compounded by Nussmeier tripping on the feet of his center.
LSU's offense looked better after it started leaning on freshman running back Caleb Durham, who had 66 second-half rushing yards and a touchdown, but the execution was still lacking far too often for a team expected to contend for the SEC.
The bigger concern was the Tigers' defense that looked as bad as it did a year ago when Brian Kelly wasted a historic offense. LSU went out and spent huge money to fix the defense, making defensive coordinator Blake Baker ($2.5 million) the nation's highest-paid assistant coach but it didn't stop there. Needing a fix for a defensive line that badly underperformed a year ago, Kelly also hired Bo Davis away from Texas ($1.25 million) and Kevin Peoples ($700,000) from Missouri. Kelly believed throwing money at the problem would make it go away, but what we saw Saturday in Columbia showed those festering issues linger.
For as much as Kelly championed his team's resiliency afterward, LSU was sloppy and soft for much of the day against the Gamecocks. LSU looked allergic to tackling at times, letting the Gamecocks make it look easy moving the ball down the field. It was obvious to everyone inside Williams-Brice Stadium that South Carolina had no hope of efficiently passing the ball once Sellers went out, and yet the Tigers still couldn't stop the run. Rocket Sanders ran all over LSU, including a second-half 66-yard touchdown run, to finish with 143 yards and two touchdowns. LSU looked overmatched and clueless against Sellers in the first half when the Gamecocks raced to a 17-0 lead.
"We want to be better defensively," Kelly said after the game. "All of this that you saw today, on both sides of the ball, all of it is correctable. All of it can be coached and all of it can be executed. If we couldn't coach it and it couldn't be executed, then we have to take it out. If it's a scheme, we can't call it anymore.
"Everything that we did today, we have to do better coaching it and we have to do a better job executing it. We're capable of doing it. We have to be better, and we will be."
Are Kelly and the rest of his coaching staff capable of fixing the execution issues? As Don Draper would say, "That's what the money is for," but LSU hasn't gotten a great return on its massive investment so far. There appear to be some obvious talent issues too, especially upfront on both sides of the ball, but if it's all correctable, Kelly needs to make it happen immediately before the season goes off the rails. Multiple industry sources familiar with LSU told CBS Sports on Saturday they believe the on-field issues are a result of a disconnect between Kelly and his LSU players, with his personality and style not resonating as well in Baton Rouge as it did in South Bend.
LSU's next two games look very winnable against UCLA and South Alabama, but later games against No. 4 Alabama, No. 5 Ole Miss and Texas A&M will demand much better coaching and execution if the Tigers want to be victorious.
The positive news is it's hard to look much worse than LSU did at times Saturday, and yet somehow the Tigers still left Columbia with a win. For Kelly, it showed the team's perseverance and was indicative of a team DNA that "won't let the rope slip." The bad news is there won't be questionable officiating calls and quarterback injuries to save LSU every week.
Against South Carolina, LSU felt like a team dangerously nearing the ledge. It won't be able to survive many more performances like Saturday's before it falls off.
