The Tiger Team We’ve Been Waiting to See

These Tigers been hitting lately.

There’s an argument to make that last weekend’s shutout of the Bulldogs was the game that put LSU on the right track, but this week against Auburn, it felt like all things were moving in the right direction for the Tigers from Death Valley for the first time all season.

Sam Leavitt accounted for more than 400 yards of total offense (387 in the air, 54 on the ground) and 4 total touchdowns to turn in what might be his best game of the season against a hungry Auburn team on the road.

After trading field goals to start the game, LSU took a 10-3 lead on a Leavitt to Jackson Harris 10 yard touchdown pass, and the Tigers never looked back.

Harris also had his best game of year, catching 9 ball for 178 yards and 2 touchdowns.

The Tigers got back Trey’Dez Green from injury for the first time since the Ole Miss game, and he rewarded them with a touchdown of his own to take the game to 17-3. Green finished with 5 catches for 50 and the score.

Dilin Jones rounded out the LSU offensive attack with 92 yards on the ground and a much needed touchdown for his stat book.

The Tigers might have been even more dominate on the defensive side of the ball, holding Auburn to under 300 yards of total offense and 10 points until late in the 4th quarter when they gave up the final touchdown for a score of 38-17.

What’s it All Mean?

The beast has awakened, and somewhere in the wreckage of Auburn’s football season, a warning flare is burning across the Southern sky.

LSU’s 38–17 demolition of Auburn was more than a victory. It was a declaration of war, delivered by Lane Kiffin, a man who has seen the abyss and decided to walk right past it without flinching.

Now comes November, that poisonous month when championship dreams either catch fire or crawl into a ditch.

Alabama arrives first, carrying its usual freight of arrogance and national championship mythology. Tiger Stadium will be a roaring madhouse. If Leavitt keeps his nerve and the defensive front continues hunting quarterbacks like wild boars in the field, LSU has a legitimate shot at blowing the whole operation apart.

Texas follows. Then Tennessee, in Knoxville, where hostile crowds and desperate football collide in a particularly ugly Southern ritual. Arkansas waits at the end, hoping to ambush a team exhausted by its own ambitions.

My prediction? LSU wins three of its final four games, finishes 9–3, and spends December clawing at the door of the College Football Playoff.

The Tigers are dangerous now. Not invincible. Dangerous.

And in the SEC, that distinction can get a whole lot of people fired.