The Tigers had no excuses on Saturday, and they didn't need any with a 27-14 victory over UL Monroe.
It was a tighter game than it probably should have been, and a pair of missed 4th down attempts from the 1-yard line were the difference. But the Tigers took one step closer to bowl eligibility and .500, with one game remaining against Texas A&M.
The result in that game will also determine whether it's Ed Orgeron's final one as the Tigers' head coach. No pressure.
With all that in mind, here are my three quick takeaways from the Tigers' victory over the Warhawks on a late night in Baton Rouge.
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1. THESE KIDS DESERVE A BOWL GAME
LSU fans will probably remember this season more for the frustrations and disappointments than anything else, but there is another option.
You can remember it for the roster that had every opportunity to quit, to stop preparing the way it has to, to stop fighting for victories in a season that developed into a dead-end long ago. But they haven't.
Even in a pair of tough losses to Alabama and Arkansas, you saw a team playing quality football and with plenty of chances. The defense gets a bulk of the credit, and the undermanned offense has reasonable excuses for their frequent lulls. But it hasn't been for lack of effort. The extensive list of things this group has had to manage on and off the field has been well-documented. All the second-year players have now gone through the full COVID lockdown season AND the Ed Orgeron eject button season.
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And all that is why LSU fans really should be pulling for these players, each individual one, to get their shot at the bowl experience. The result rarely has real significance, but that's only part of the reason it exists. Because whether you're looking forward to watching the *insert brand here* bowl at some stadium you've never heard of, there's more to a bowl than the game. Heck, even if they're just in it for the bowl gift, whatever it is, after the season they've gone through, this LSU squad deserves it.
This point isn't performance based, by the way. I'm aware LSU was alarmingly close to another Troy-caliber upset. If not for a pair of narrow misses on 4th down from the 1-yard line, this game could've turned into a nightmare. But it didn't, so that's that.
LSU went into Saturday needing wins in its final two games to get bowl-eligible. They took care of the first half, and the easier one. Next week they'll have to step up to No. 16 Texas A&M, a tall task, but one that feels achievable.
Say what you want about the talent level, good and poor performances. The team won't quit, despite having every possible reason. Don't quit on the team, either.
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2. MY MAIN CONCERN FOR MAX JOHNSON
Max Johnson is a good college quarterback. You don't put up the numbers he has if that's not true. I'm just not sure if he's a great college quarterback.
We've seen it in flashes. We all know what he did in the final two games of the 2020 season. We know about all the gaudy passing numbers he's rolled up in some impressive LSU wins. But now, with essentially a full year on the job, the progression is the biggest question.
Even against an overmatched UL Monroe squad I saw many of the same issues that have appeared to put a cap on Johnson's potential impact. He's an excellent athlete, but he only seems to use it to his advantage in panic scrambles. He has the ability to extend plays (in the way opposing QBs have driven LSU's defense crazy), but that's rarely the case. He's as effective a passer as anybody with time to operate, but it rarely ends well when things get off-schedule. In Johnson's defense, he did juke and create time on what turned into a long touchdown to Brian Thomas Jr. in the second half.
He was justifiably pumped up after the big play. But those moments have been too few and too far between.
He's been a quarterback with an innate ability to sniff out the big play, but he's been frustratingly inaccurate, in most cases high. High misses over the middle are simply begging for trouble. One came on a drive in the second quarter against UL Monroe, leading LSU to an ill-fated fake that was intercepted. The Warhawks took advantage for their first touchdown of the day. Still, we all won with a Boogie Night touchdown (that's a nickname, for what it's worth).
As we head into LSU's final guaranteed game of the season next week, LSU football has a lot of questions to answer. That includes at every spot of the coaching staff. But it also includes significant questions at the most important position on the field.
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Is Johnson's clear connection with Kayshon Boutte and Jack Bech enough to get him another season at the controls? Will a less hectic season provide a steeper growth curve and a QB that can bring LSU back to the heights it expects?
Garrett Nussmeier is redshirting the rest of the way, so it won't come this season. But I'd guess there'll be another serious QB competition in LSU's near future, because I know I haven't seen enough.
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DEFENSE WON'T LET LSU QUIT
If you had to describe the identity of this LSU defense with one player, who would it be?
The correct answer is Damone Clark. The impressive linebacker has gobbled up tackles and charged up a Tigers defense that has been beat up, and also embarrassed a few times. But when this team needed big performances to create energy around a squad that felt dead in the water, he was and is the catalyst.
Clark entered the week just three tackles behind the top mark in the entire NCAA, and finished with tied with Cam Lewis for a team-high 7 tackles against UL-Monroe. This LSU squad held the offenses of Alabama and Arkansas to 36 points combined. When those teams faced off on Saturday, the final score was Alabama 42, Arkansas 35.
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It's a blitzing identity. It's a pressure and man-to-man identity. It's an effective identity, even if it's a bit different than the heads-up, grind-it-out schemes that fans have become accustomed to.
The defense has been let down in back-to-back games, despite playing well enough for an LSU victory in both. Clark will get his reward when the NFL draft scouts come calling. Daronte Jones has set himself up for another job, heck, maybe even at LSU, after a painful start.
It's little consolation, but it's nice to see the LSU defensive tradition is still alive and well.