Lane Kiffin's LSU Is Learning the Hardest Lesson in the SEC

LSU football has hit a point in its season where it cannot afford to lose another game. And it still has the toughest stretch of its schedule ahead.

But two losses are not really the full problem. It's how poorly LSU has executed situational football all season. Two losses are just an everyday reminder of these problems.

LSU has shown flashes of good football, pieced those flashes together more consistently, but now the ability to play situational football has gone out the window for Lane Kiffin's first LSU team. That's what has cost LSU its games.

A Complete Lack of Awareness

Against Ole Miss, a completely flat first half killed the game from the jump. LSU fought back and brought the game down to a fourth-down play in the red zone.

For Kentucky, LSU wasn't ready coming into the game for Kentucky's biggest strength on offense: running and playing close to the line of scrimmage. Something LSU holds as a strength of its own.

But LSU, throughout the game, let drives continue defensively with penalties, soft defense and poor execution on the game's biggest plays.

Some that rise to the top of the mind is the third and 10 with just under nine minutes to play, where LSU let up a first down after having four defenders one yard past the line of scrimmage with three defenders within five yards of the line.

Luckily for LSU, the drive ended in a missed field goal, but a stop there gives LSU the ball back with a 27-24 lead and a chance to drive down and get a field goal, or even better, a possible touchdown. Both would've significantly altered the end of the game.

After that drive, LSU had two more drives with chances to ice the game, and neither drive lasted over five plays, with one resulting in a painful fumble from Sam Leavitt.

The final play of the game was perhaps the most bewildering though.

The outcome was an untouched, wide-open and overall uncontested rushing touchdown from Kentucky's quarterback Kenny Minchey.

The formation started as an empty backfield with two receivers out wide left and a trio of two receivers and a tight end right off the right-hand side of the line.

LSU had a very simple look: four lineman with the edges in a standing rush position, two linebackers over the middle and the secondary over top of their assigned receivers. A very typical look for LSU's defense.

But Kentucky spaced out to a five-wide formation, with the trio on the right expanding to occupy space outside of the hash. A simple five-wide formation from the two-yard line.

It's clear in that moment that LSU was thinking pass.

The linebackers spread out as well, with safeties overtop on both sides, with both safeties nearly directly behind another defender.

From the broadcast, it looked like the most obvious quarterback draw. There wasn't a soul past the defensive line. The middle of the field was completely unprotected.

The ball was snapped; the defensive line rushed and was pushed by the guards and center outside, and the linebackers and defensive backs started covering. The defensive lack of awareness created the biggest running lane LSU's defense has allowed all year.

How no one on LSU's defense saw that part of the field was open and thought to switch coverage and hand off coverage to protect this shows the lack of awareness and veteran leadership on the field.

LSU is clearly missing Whit Weeks. Maybe not in the down-to-down production, as Davhon Keys has played well, but he's certainly missed in moments like this.

A Lack of Identity

The talk of the town around this game is all about the fourth-and-one decision to punt instead of go for it on LSU's 43-yard line with 97 seconds left in the game.

This decision isn't the reason LSU lost. The multitude of moments listed above is.

But this decision is one that raises concerns too.

LSU had the same situation against Texas A&M - albeit a much different score, 21-3 as opposed to the Kentucky game's 27-24 score - and went for it and not only picked up the first, but found the endzone.

“That’s probably part of why we were hired here — that aggressiveness — and I almost didn’t do it,” Kiffin said two weeks ago after the Texas A&M game.

Kiffin was leaning toward punting because his defense had been playing well that day.

"That's not how we roll," Kiffin ultimately decided. "It's not how we talk to our team, you know, being conservative."

“We go for it," Kiffin added. "We take shots.”

But that mindset was gone just two weeks later.

That's concerning for LSU fans.

Kiffin got hired to do that, make those decisions to make plays that win games. Anyone can punt there, but Kiffin has historically been aggressive.

But now that he's here, that's changing. He's becoming more conservative, something that his mentor and biggest role model would've done and he would've protested when he served under his mentor, Nick Saban, from 2014–2016 at Alabama.

At Ole Miss, Kiffin was himself.

Now it feels like he's fading into this Saban-ized version of himself.

Something that doesn't hold an identity like Saban's teams did, but it also isn't a Kiffin team. It's a weird medium with no identity, no consistency in decision-making, and it's costing LSU.

LSU has a good team. It needs to find its identity, stick with it and improve week by week if it wants to make the playoffs in Kiffin's first year at LSU. It has the talented players, the right scheme and even the execution; now it has to find its identity and consistently show up every game.

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