Instant Analysis: LSU-South Carolina

A September win at Auburn seemed like a big deal at the time, but the value of that win quickly decreased as the season continued. Saturday night in Columbia, S.C., the LSU Tigers registered an October achievement that figures to carry a little more shelf life.

While Auburn’s season lies in ruins, South Carolina—fresh off four straight wins—brought a solid squad to Williams-Brice Stadium, as Les Miles’s team faced a stiff challenge in its bid to defend the SEC West title, the first step on the road to regaining SEC supremacy. In order for November’s apocalyptic encounter with Alabama to mean as much as possible, the reigning national champions had to stop Steve Spurrier’s boys first. Before the season, this matchup didn’t figure to be terribly competitive, but come game night, the Bayou Bengals had to brace for mortal combat, and a battle is exactly what they got from Cocky’s crew.

The Gamecocks spilled the tank on defense, much as they did in an agonizingly close loss to Georgia over a month ago. Playing with supreme and sustained passion, coordinator Ellis Johnson’s defense stuffed LSU’s ground game while plucking an interception to spur the Cocks to a 17-10 halftime lead. In addition to the defense displayed by the home team, South Carolina had the added advantage of a quarterback—Stephen Garcia—who could make a difference as both a passer and a runner. Scrambling to make improvisational plays whenever the pocket broke down, Garcia nimbly avoided Tiger pass rushers to make plays with his legs. The dual-threat artistry of a poised quarterback—foreign items for South Carolina fans in the Spurrier era—gave the home folks ample reason to believe that their team had finally found the trigger man who could engineer a major upset and carry the Gamecocks to the proverbial next level. LSU had some serious work to do in the second half if a season’s goals were to remain intact.

Sure enough, this tested roster rose to the occasion in an enemy SEC lair.

The turning point, one has to concede, came when Garcia—early in the second half—slightly limped off the field after absorbing a hit that produced a fumble and a Tiger recovery just past midfield. A superb play by LSU’s resilient defense brought about a turn of events that was felt beyond the game’s immediate flow. Far more than causing a change of possession and the flipping of field position, that play took away Stephen Garcia’s legs, and after that moment, a previously effective Carolina attack was reduced to rubble, as the Gamecocks never remotely threatened to score throughout the second half.

Football, though, is a game where prime performers have to play with pain, and while Garcia might still become a special signal caller in future seasons, he wasn’t able to answer the bell once his legs ceased to be a factor. LSU’s performance was so impressive precisely because the Tigers immediately seized upon the weakness they saw, exploiting a hard-working but deficient opponent at its weakest point.

After the Garcia injury, the Gamecocks—lacking a proven offensive line and unable to generate any semblance of a running attack from their setbacks—became vulnerable to the pass rush. With Garcia’s arm having to carry the entire workload for South Carolina, the Tigers wisely brought the house on almost every snap. Constantly dialing up blitzes and aggressive stunts, the Tigers showed pressure to the Gamecocks, tipping their hand and telegraphing their strategy. LSU’s braintrust decided that subtlety and disguise were no longer necessary; a wounded Garcia simply had to beat them with quick throws before the pass rush could arrive. Simply but significantly, the Tigers—putting all their chips on the table—bet big and won big. Carolina couldn’t keep LSU’s front seven away from Garcia, and as a result, the texture of this tussle turned on a dime.

But while LSU’s defense began to dominate, the Tigers still needed a few points from their quarterback tandem of Jarrett Lee and Andrew Hatch. While the record will show that Hatch threw the tying touchdown pass to Richard Dickson late in the third quarter of this conference collision, it was Lee who began to turn this game around when the Tigers needed to tie the score, quiet the Columbia crowd, and parlay their defensive excellence into points.

Lee stood tall in the pocket on multiple third and long situations to deliver strikes to his receivers on the Tigers’ tying drive. Able to avoid the quick punts that would have sapped his team’s newfound momentum, Lee gave LSU the final push it needed to ultimately wear down the inspired but still inadequate Gamecocks.

Because LSU was able to score while controlling the ball, the Tigers’ defense—which produced a steady stream of three-and-outs in their second-half surge—stayed fresh, while the Gamecocks’ valiant defense ran out of gas as the fourth quarter progressed. Having tied the game to establish a considerable amount of confidence, the Bayou Bengals—slowly eating away at their opponent’s reserves—used their fresher, faster legs to score an almost inevitable go-ahead touchdown with just over four minutes remaining.

(One can say "almost inevitable," as opposed to simply "inevitable," because the Gamecocks briefly had a game-changing interception sit on the fingers of defensive end Travian Robertson deep in LSU territory in the fourth quarter. When that pass slipped to the ground, however, South Carolina lost its one golden opportunity to turn the tide down the stretch, and LSU--as though driven by destiny--carried this contest to its predictable conclusion.)

After Jarrett Lee’s poised passing produced a tie in the third quarter, running backs Charles Scott and Keiland Williams did the dirty work in the fourth quarter. Pounding and punishing a sagging South Carolina front, the Tigers toiled in the trenches to run to paydirt and gain a clear competitive advantage that had been nearly 56 minutes in the making. After gaining a late 24-17 lead, the Tigers immediately intercepted a shaken and one-dimensional Garcia on the very next series, and Les Miles managed to survive for another week, on the road to Alabama Armageddon in November.

It took a long time, but with equal parts poise, patience and power, LSU showed its stuff to ultimately turn back a gallant opponent who, even in defeat, might have found an answer under center. The future might belong to South Carolina, but the present moment still belongs to Les Miles and the Bayou Bengals. Once again, a proud program pulled a hard-earned win out of the raging fire known as the Southeastern Conference.