Mississippi State (1-3) would have been better off if it could have avoided the trip to Baton Rouge. The Bulldogs would have prevented injuries and saved themselves from Saturday’s 51-0 loss to No. 13 LSU.
The Bulldog defense allowed a whopping 599 yards of total offense and 31 first downs. LSU (3-1) converted 80 percent (12 of 15) of its third downs and the Tigers did not punt once.
The Bulldogs did worse on offense. State’s offense began 13 drives–they ended with a fumble, eight punts and four interceptions. The Bulldog offense never drove across midfield and only finished with 130 yards.
“Where I come from that’s what they call an old-fashioned butt whooping,” said MSU head coach Sylvester Croom. “To be very honest with you, and as I told the players, I never dreamed that we would get drummed like that today.”
When quarterback Omarr Conner received time to throw the ball he made errant passes.
Conner, who strained his MCL in the third quarter, threw three interceptions and finished four of 12 for 44 yards. The MSU offensive line allowed only three sacks, but it seemed like more due to all of the hurries. The Bulldogs ended with 90 yards passing. LSU finished with 327 yards through the air.
The Bulldog ground game never got up and running. The colossal LSU defensive line dominated the line of scrimmage from start to finish. Jerious Norwood carried 10 times for 20 yards and State rushed for only 40 total yards, while the Tigers racked up 272 on the ground.
“I thought we had a good week of practice and I thought we had good plans,” a stunned Sylvester Croom said. “Right now we don’t execute very well. We don’t block very well and we sure don’t tackle very well at all.”
Tackling is something the Bulldogs have worked on in practice for the last two weeks, but Saturday they were just diving at the feet of LSU players, and as Croom said, they were tackling with no arms.
LSU began the afternoon with a seven play 74-yard drive that was capped by running back Alley Broussard’s 11-yard touchdown run through the gut of the MSU defense. Broussard ended the game leading all four LSU running backs with 75 yards and three touchdowns. The 6-foot, 233-pound sophomore scored LSU’s next two touchdowns on one and 16-yard runs.
State got great field position late in the first quarter when an MSU punt bounced off the back of an LSU player. State’s Cody Upton recovered the fumble at the LSU 36.
Two plays later Omarr Conner’s wobbling pass was picked off by defensive back Corey Webster to end any hope of a Bulldog score.
“I expected more out of our team,” defensive end Ronald Fields said. “I didn’t expect it to be a loss like that.”
It’s the worst loss that LSU has put on the Bulldogs since 1969.
Tiger defensive end Marcus Spears intercepted Conner midway through the second quarter and returned it 35 yards for a touchdown making the score 27-0.
Red shirt freshman quarterback JaMarcus Russell was put in the game for the Tigers’ next series. Russell hooked up with Early Doucet on a 12-yard touchdown pass to make the half time score 34-0.
LSU wide receivers seemed open on every play. Russell completed nine passes out of 12 attempts for a total of 137 yards, while starting quarterback Marcus Randall completed all seven of his attempts for 103 yards.
The Tigers had 353 offensive yards at halftime–twice as many as the Bulldogs amassed during the entire game.
Kyle York replaced Conner when he limped off the field in the third quarter. York helped State put together its longest drive of the afternoon going eight plays from their own two-yard line to the 43-yard line before having to punt.
York finished the game four of 14 for 46 yards. Between the two quarterbacks State completed 31 percent of its passes.
York will make his fourth career start at Vanderbilt.