By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
LSU is a like a baseball team without a closer.
That’s why it lost its second game this season by one point on Saturday night – 22-21 to No. 6 Texas in Tiger Stadium – and third of the four by eight points or less at an average of 3.3 points.
In baseball, teams that lose a lot of one-run or close games are bad teams. LSU (6-4, 3-4 Southeastern Conference) is not a good team. It has lost close to three good teams and was even close against a fourth until late in its 31-13 loss to No. 5 Alabama last week.
But teams that are on the threshold of winning and and can’t finish are in the end still just bad teams. That’s what LSU is now.
“I get it,” LSU coach Lane Kiffin said when asked how he sells LSU’s Brian Kelly-like record and choking ways to the fan base and media base that he got so excited over the last several months. So excited that they thought he was the reincarnation of a younger Nick Saban. Then they all watched Kiffin get a seven-year, $90 million contract and watched a portal roster grow from estimates of $25 million to something closer to $50 million and a No. 1 transfer class of 42 players.
And they incrementally saw all of that add up to 6-4 and 3-4 after Kelly and interim coach Frank Wilson went 7-6 and 3-5. LSU looks like a 7-5, 4-5 team this season with a split at No. 8 Tennessee (8-2, 5-2 SEC) and at Arkansas (4-6, 2-5 SEC) over the next two weeks. That is no bang for your buck.
“This really hurts,” said LSU defensive back Ty Benefield, who intercepted two passes and made eight tackles with a sack. “This is something that really matters to us. I’m trying to stay positive and rally behind my guys.”
But the same things keep happening, and LSU keeps losing.
“But we’re also down on a final drive – one play to win it,” Kiffin said. “But I get it. We didn’t come here to take games to the last play. But, I get it. I’d be pissed, too. We lost, so it doesn’t really matter that we were seconds from winning.”
And that you outgained Texas, by nearly 100 yards, 366 to 273, and outgained Alabama last week by not far from 200 yards, 457 to 285. And outgained Kentucky by 410 to 401. Pretty losses that in the end are pretty ugly. Because the talent is there for yards and leads, but the How To Win Awareness of baseball master Skip Bertman is out on strikes.
LSU led Texas, 21-16, with six seconds to go in this one as the Longhorns faced a second-and-goal at the Tigers’ 4-yard line. Texas had run four plays from the 16-yard line and in and did not score at that point. LSU just had to stop them for one or two more plays.
On second-and-goal, Texas running back Raleek Brown appeared to be about to go in motion to the left, but he stopped. Then he turned the other way, then back, and he finally took off to the left of quarterback Arch Manning. And LSU linebacker Davhon Keys took off, but a little too late, and couldn’t catch up to him in time.
Manning threw perfectly to Brown in the left flat for the easy 4-yard touchdown with :03 left and the 22-21 win.
“I mean, obviously, Davhon has him,” Kiffin said. “But you know, a lot of plays before that could’ve got us not to that spot.”
Yes, offensive plays for first downs toward a field goal or touchdown in the fourth quarter to put the game away. But, no. After Texas cut LSU’s lead to 21-16 with 11:37 to play, the great Lane Kiffin/Charlie Weis Jr. offense went into Les Miles mode on its final three drives of the period. The Tigers gained one yard in three plays on its next drive and punted, then 21 yards on five plays with one first down before punting and finally eight yards on three plays and punting.
LSU quarterback Sam Leavitt had gaudy numbers again in defeat. They were better than Manning’s, but they were empty numbers – 27 of 37 for 244 yards and two touchdowns with three interceptions, including two from the red zone to the end zone.
LSU running back Dilin Jones put up fancy numbers, too, with 125 yards on 19 carries and a glimmering 44-yard touchdown between left guard and tackle for a 21-10 LSU lead with 5:52 left in the third quarter. But in the fourth quarter, he managed only 15 yards on six carries.
“I left some points out there,” Jones said. “There are some different things I could’ve done in the run game to help us come out with the win.”
That’s admirable of Jones to say. But that’s what Kiffin should be saying.
Grant Chadwick’s weak, 32-yard punt after LSU’s third straight punt in the fourth quarter set Texas up at its 42-yard line with 2:19 to play.
You knew that was enough time for one time from a Manning.
And Arch Manning answered with the 58-yard, go-ahead touchdown drive in 12 plays over 2:16.
Brown rushed for just 35 yards on 15 carries and caught only four passes for eight yards, but he had the critical touchdown catch.
“We finally got the ball to him (Brown) in some space, and he made a play for us,” Texas coach Steve Sarkisian said.
“I had to put some spin on that ball, and he got it and took it into the end zone,” said Manning, who overcame three interceptions and a pedestrian night of 19-for-35 passing for 174 yards. But add one big final drive and one crucial touchdown to that. He also rushed for a 1-yard touchdown and 7-0 lead in the first quarter.
“What an atmosphere,” Manning beamed as he became the third member of the “Book Of Manning,” which will have to be updated on SEC Storied, to beat LSU in Tiger Stadium after his uncle Eli Manning in 2001 for Ole Miss and his grandfather Archie Manning for Ole Miss in 1968.
“This is what college football is all about,” Manning said.
“We talked all week about being great in special situations when they come up,” Sarkisian said, which is what closers do in baseball and what LSU this season doesn’t do in football.
“I thought our guys had great poise and composure in that final drive,” Sarkisian said. ” To execute showed a lot of guts for Arch for sure.”
Texas had everything LSU didn’t, particularly the guts to gut it out. Manning guts.
Where is LSU’s guts in those “special situations?”
Where against Ole Miss, Kentucky, Alabama and Texas in the end with the lights on? Nowhere.
“I kind of planned that this may happen that we would play to a defensive game like this,” Kiffin said. “Now, obviously I didn’t think we’d throw the three interceptions.”
Neither did Sarkisian plan for three Manning interceptions.
Yes, this was a battle of two quarterbacks who played liked they badly needed to report to the next Manning Passing Academy in Thibodaux as soon as possible, and not wait until next summer.
Both of these QBs need to go to the next Manning Passing Academy … as campers, not counselors.
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) November 15, 2026
But the difference is Texas overcame it. And Texas had a closer at quarterback with the grit to finish strong after a weak game.
That’s what good teams do.
“We planned if the game gets like that – a low scoring game,” Kiffin explaned. “Then, ‘Let’s try to pressure Arch, and see if he can beat us.'”
And that’s just what he did. Good plan. He closed another chapter of The Book Of Manning on LSU.
And LSU has turned the page back to 2025.
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