By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
It would have helped LSU in its historically lopsided series the wrong way against Alabama not to have played former Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban after both teams had open weeks.
But that’s how it usually was when Saban – clearly the most brilliant college football coach in history – was Alabama’s coach from 2007 through 2023. LSU and Alabama usually each had open dates before playing in that era from 2009-24, and Saban was 12-4 against LSU over that span, including a win in the national championship game in the 2011 season. That game came after a few open weeks, and Saban took full advantage in a 21-0 win.
So did new Alabama coach Kalen DeBoer, who went 2-0 against LSU in his first two seasons against then LSU coach Brian Kelly in 2024 and interim coach Frank Wilson in 2025 after open weeks for both.
New LSU coach Lane Kiffin was supposed to change that. He was seen as the next Saban in many circles. He would be the one taking advantage of the open week, and not the one getting taken advantage of by the Alabama’s coach like LSU coaches Les Miles, Ed Orgeron, Kelly and Wilson before him.
But on Sunday, Kiffin praised DeBoer and his staff for the number they put on Kiffin and his staff in a dominating, 31-13 win on Saturday in Tiger Stadium.
“If you take everything else and leave it the same and just take the red zone (the opponents’ 25-yard line and in), we go there four times and get 13 points,” Kiffin said on his weekly teleconference Sunday afternoon. “They go there four times and get 28 points. So both our offense and defense played really poorly in the red zone. I credit them, too.”
Alabama changed what it was doing on the both sides of the ball in the red zone.
“I don’t think many people get us over years on things,” Kiffin said of his offense. “They took the bye and did a lot of things in different ways that they had never done. And really they did things that we normally pick up on, and they had a really good plan for that. And they executed it very well. They were very aggressive. And when you do that, it’s high risk, high reward.”
And Alabama was rewarded in such situations repeatedly.
-After LSU reached a first and goal at the Alabama 8-yard line in the first quarter, two rushing plays netted three yards. On third down, Alabama linebacker Caleb Woodson risked it with a blitz and hurried LSU quarterback Sam Leavitt into an incompletion. LSU settled for a field goal and 3-3 tie.
-After LSU reached a third and four at the Alabama 9-yard line in the second quarter, Leavitt threw incomplete passes on third down and on fourth down. And Alabama stayed ahead, 10-3.
-LSU reached the Alabama 27-yard line on its next possession in the second quarter, but defensive tackle Devan Thompkins sacked Leavitt for a 9-yard loss. Then Leavitt threw an interception to linebacker Luke Metz in traffic.
“That was a poor interception,” Kiffin said Saturday. “Just trying to do too much. Throw the underneath route. That was the poor decision of the day. There were other times that we didn’t protect him well.”
-The Tigers took the second half kickoff to a third-and-four at the Alabama 22-yard line. But blitzing and risking linebacker Xavier Griffin hurried Leavitt into an incompletion. And LSU settled for a field goal and 10-6 deficit.
-After Alabama went up 17-13 in third quarter, LSU went for it on fourth and three from the Alabama 36-yard line early in the fourth quarter. And Leavitt’s pass to wide receiver Jackson Harris was broken up by linebacker Caleb Woodson.
-Down 24-13 midway in the fourth quarter, LSU went for it on fourth and 10 from its own 25. And Thompkins sacked Leavitt for a 7-yard loss.
“They hit a number of them (high risk-high reward strategies) on critical plays, especially on fourth down,” Kiffin said.
And while Leavitt completed 35 of 47 passes for 380 yards, many of those yards ended up being empty as he threw no touchdowns, ran for none and was sacked four times.
Meanwhile, Kiffin praised the play of Alabama quarterback Keelon Russell, a sophomore first-year starter who completed 17 of 24 passes for 206 yards with three touchdown passes and no interceptions. He also avoided the rush well as LSU sacked him only twice.
“I thought their quarterback played really well,” Kiffin said after watching film. “He didn’t make a mistake. He made a lot of really good plays – whether that was keeping a throw alive when there was a guy right there, or we’d have them all covered, and he’d take off. I thought he played really error-free football, which is really hard to do.”
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