Sides Of The Football En Route To 38-0 Shutout Victory Over New Mexico
The LSU Tigers were in control on both sides of the football cruising to a 38-0 victory over the New Mexico Lobos. The Tigers were dom inant out gaining the Lobos a staggering 633 total yards to 88.
“It was a really good performance something to build off. I told our guys one time is an accident, second time’s a coincidence, and a third time’s a habit. They’ve won three in a row and we are building good habits. We look to build on that going into SEC play in the next month.” Brian Kelly on the 38-0 victory over New Mexico.
Offensively, the Tigers marched down the field on their first drive of the football game 57 yards on eight plays with a five yard touch down run from Armoni Goodwin. The Tigers would score one more touchdown right before halftime with another Goodwin touchdown run as LSU would take a 17-0 lead to halftime. The Tigers could have had a bigger lead at halftime as two touchdowns were taken off the board after Jack Bech’s big punt return touch down was called back because of a blindside block penalty and Kole Taylor’s touchdown catch was taken off the board because of an of fensive pass interference penalty.
“I’ve been coaching 32 years so I’ve had some of those games. I think in most of them, you know that you’re in a dominating performance and you just wish you had more points on the board at that time. It was pretty clear that they were going to have a difficult time moving the football on us. I thought our plan was excellent and we felt pretty good going into halftime even though it was 17-0.” Brian Kelly on 1st half.
Jayden Daniels was efficient tonight complet ing 24 of 29 passes for 279 yards. However, Daniels would not finish the game after hit ting his head on the turf following a 16 yard run in the middle of the third quarter. Garrett Nussmeier would enter the football game and was just as efficient throwing the football com pleting nine of ten passes for 135 yards and a touchdown pass to Brian Thomas Jr.
“He (Garrett Nussmeier) was decisive and made some really high level throws. I would have loved to see him hook up with Malik down the field, but he is a talented football player. He’s making good decisions, take what
By; Jace LeJeune
they give you, be disciplined, and you got another great quarterback.” Brian Kelly on Garrett Nussmeier’s performance.
The good news is that Daniels would have been cleared to go back in the game, but the coaching staff thought it was best to put Nussmeier in the game with the game being controlled by the Tigers at that point.
“Jayden strained his lower back; he could have gone back in but there was no need at that time of the game. He was all cleared by the doctors.” Brian Kelly on Jayden Daniel’s injury status.
Goodwin would also get injured early in the second half after holding his hamstring and getting carried off by trainers, but it was next man up for the Tigers and Noah Cain stepped up with 11 carries for 94 yards and two touchdowns in the second half includ ing a masterful 49 yard touchdown run.
“I thought they ran with low pads. They were physical. Noah Cain obviously played real ly well. I thought all of them played hard. They took it to the defense and that has been the emphasis all week. They are not big up front. They do a lot of things obviously. They run with low pads and I thought they were extremely physical at the running back po sition.” Brian Kelly on the running backs tonight.
Without Kayshon Boutte in the lineup, both Tigers quarterbacks spread the wealth to all of its playmakers. Jack Bech had six catches for 43 yards while also being the team’s starting punt returner tonight. Malik Nabers had six catches for 65 yards. Jaray Jenkins had five catches for 57 yards. Kyren Lacy had four catches for 41 yards. Mason Taylor had four catches for 34 yards. Brian Thomas Jr. has three catches for 76 yards and a touchdown. Then, Chris Hilton had a long catch himself of 51 yards. Overall, the Tigers had 414 yards passing and 219 yards rushing in the football game.
“There are so many of these guys that can make plays. To get Mason some playing time and watch him run after the catch, that’s what he does in practice. Then, to watch Jack, it was fun seeing him get going and have him out there. Jaray Jenkins continues to make play after play late in the second half when we need him to make plays. He catches the ball in traffic. I can go on and on. Malik Na bers, obviously, Brian Thomas, Chris is in volved. There are a lot of great players and we got the ball out to all of them.” Brian Kel ly on spreading the ball to all of the Tigers’ playmakers.
Defensively, the Tigers may have been been more impressive by making it tough for the Lobos to pick up even a yard throughout the game. The LSU defense continues to be impressive with their tackling even without Jay Ward and BJ Ojulari’s services in the football game. Linebacker Harold Perkins led all tacklers with eight. Ohio State trans fer Sevyn Banks made his LSU debut with four tackles. Greg Brooks was a menace all night long for the Lobos with four tackles, a sack, a tackle for loss, and a pass breakup. Saivion Jones, Ali Gaye, and West Weeks also had sacks with the Lobos only register ing two first downs.
“We’re pleased, obviously, anytime you get a shutout. It’s difficult to shut out an opponent anytime, college football is set up for success
on offense. We had three or four starters out on defense, and we had to juggle the lineup. We had Jarrick Bernard-Converse playing safety, and the guys really rallied. We held them to under a hundred yards.” Brian Kelly on dominant defensive performance.
However, the Tigers got a big blow when it was announced that Major Burns would miss a couple of games after suffering a neck injury.
“Major’s situation is that he is going to be lost probably for anywhere between three to six weeks with an upper neck injury. I don’t want to get in the specifics with any type of neck injury, but he has been cleared by all the doctors, but he will need some rest. It’s prob ably going to take three to six weeks before he gets back on the field.” Brian Kelly on Major Burns’ injury situation
The LSU Tigers needed to do what they needed to do by dominating on both sides of the football and improving to 3-1 on the season. Next up, the Tigers make their first SEC road trip to take on the 3-1 Auburn Ti gers...
LSU Head Coach Brian Kelly Talks About Taking On First SEC Road Challenge Against Auburn
In Monday’s LSU press conference, Brian Kelly talked about taking on his first true SEC road test as the Tigers’ head coach, and that it would prove to be a different chal lenge than what the team previously had in the first month of the season.
“We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. This month will tell us a lot, right? We’ve got an SEC slate in front of us over the next four weeks, which will challenge us to a new level. We’ll certainly find out even more about our grit and what kind of football team this will continue to grow to be.” Brian Kelly on SEC gauntlet coming up
“Now we get into, obviously, the SEC over the next month. Two games on the road, two at home, and we begin with Auburn. I think the first thing is that routines will stay the same other than we’re going to get on a plane, but we’ll be in a stadium that will not be proLSU.” Brian Kelly on first true road game as LSU head coach
The Tigers have built some momentum as the team is currently on a three game win ning streak. For Coach Kelly, not only the wins are starting to pile up, but the team is forming good habits that will help them along the way during this stretch.
So, I’ve been really proud of the way they have embraced change and done the things that we’ve asked them to do to become more consistent on a day-to-day basis and within our process and their preparation and their mindset, their habits, the way they think. We’ve been able to make the progress neces sary to have a modest winning streak, and this is modest.”
“I just wanted to make sure that from my perspective that this win this past weekend against a New Mexico team was significant in that we built some consistency with a group that has been willing to follow a whole new pattern. It’s been enjoyable.” Brian Kelly on three game winning stretch
The Tigers’ first challenge in this SEC gauntlet that stretches from Saturday all the way to November 12th is the Auburn Tigers that are currently 3-1 on the season after coming off an overtime victory against Missouri.
“Auburn has some talented football players offensively. Both backs are outstanding. Bigs by, obviously, he is a three-year starter, over 2,000 career rushing yards, 19 touchdowns. I think that’s kind of for us when we’re watch ing film, the running backs are outstanding players.”
“Ashford at quarterback started last week against Missouri. He, too, is a great runner. That’s going to be our biggest concern is to keep him in wraps in terms of running the football. He is very capable. He is a trans fer from Oregon. Extremely gifted athlete. Again, I think from our perspective, a guy that can throw it, but more importantly, a dual-threat quarterback that is dangerous running the football.”
“Outstanding receiving corps and a defense that has a guy that’s a game-wrecker in Der ick Hall. He is a guy that you’re going to have to find. We’ll have to game-plan and make sure we know where he is. Riley, outstanding linebacker. Again, a football team that’s play ing at home, coming off its SEC win against Missouri in overtime. It will be a great chal lenge for our football team.” Brian Kelly on Auburn
The Auburn Tigers have shown to play two different quarterbacks this season with op posite skill sets in Robby Ashford and TJ Finley.
“I think you always have to keep an eye on whether Finley plays as well. Certainly he gives you the throwing end of things, so we’ll have to prepare for both. We don’t have any firsthand information that one is playing over the other, but we’ll be prepared for ei ther one.” Brian Kelly on preparing for both Auburn quarterbacks
Kelly also updated the media on a couple of different injuries heading into the week.
“Jayden, no residual effect from Saturday. He will be able to practice. Let’s see, Jay Ward feeling really good. I think he is a go for Tues day. We’ll probably limit his workload on Tuesday, but he should be able to go. Armoni, it will be a day-to-day situation with him.”
With Ward and Major Burns being out this past Saturday, there has been a lot of con stant movement in the secondary and even though Burns is out for a couple of weeks, the secondary does have good news of not only Ward returning, but also Joe Foucha coming back to the team after his four game suspension.
“You would like a little more continuity. I think Matt and Kerry have done a good job of communicating what we need to do back there. I think it’s going to be a little bit easi er with Joe Foucha in terms of he is an ex perienced player, so it was a little bit more difficult when we had to move Jarrick back there because you didn’t have an experienced safety.”
“As we move forward now with Jay Ward probably coming back this week and being healthy and getting Joe, you’ve got experience back there. In one instance we would like a little more continuity, but on the positive side with Brooks, Foucha, and Jay Ward, you’ve got experience.” Brian Kelly on rotating starting lineup in the secondary
With the news of Hurricane Ian approach ing, Coach Kelly and his staff is carefully monitoring the situation.
” Yeah, no doubt. We’ve talked about a game plan in terms of what it might look like. Hopefully that’s going to pass through.”
“We’re going to get probably some rain of some kind, and that will be our first time in that kind of element. It’s a grass situation, so you put those plans together relative to what that would look like if, in fact, we did get hit with some severe rain.”
Jayden Daniels is continuing to improve on staying in the pocket and finding receivers in the progression as the New Mexico game was a big game for him in that instance.
“There are a couple of things. Decisiveness is starting to be part of the vocabulary instead of being hesitant, and that comes with knowledge of the offense.”
“I think the other thing is that he has become a lot quicker in his setup. I think I mentioned this quick feet, but slowing down and not rushing through progressions.”
“I think one of the bigger plays in his develop ment was the dig that he threw to Jaray Jenkins in the red zone. That was his fourth receiver through a progression.”
“Those are the kind of things you’re looking for in terms of development of a quarterback, and we’re starting to see that as well as the screen to Malik Nabers, how quickly that ball comes out. I think a little bit of everything was coming together, and the word I would use is just he is becoming more comfortable and more decisive.”
Last week was also the first start at punt re turner for Jack Bech, who showed that he was fearless returning punts against the Lobos.
” Fearless. Fearless. We’ll work on a couple of things where fearless shouldn’t be always the number one criteria for returning punts. We want some decision-making in that as well, but that’s how Jack plays, right?”
“He is at his best when he is not worried about any factors other than competing and getting the ball in his hands, and it’s fun to watch, right? That’s just the kind of player he is. You can see what kind of impact he can have in our punt return game.”
“Look, the trickle-down is the other ten guys, they want to block for him. That is an added incentive when you have a punt returner that can break it. It adds a great energy to the en tire group.” Brian Kelly on Jack Bech’s perfor mance at punt returner
Going back to Joe Foucha, the coaching staff is confident that he will just fit right in consid ering that he is coming off a suspension and not an injury.
“Yes, he has been actively involved. He has been involved in any articulation between our offense and defense that hasn’t involved game plan, which is quite a bit.”
Make sure to keep up with everything going on at Gridiron Football as tomorrow, I will post my takeaways from LSU’s victory against New Mexico.
Marcus Gradney
