Lane Kiffin and LSU Football prove they are FOR REAL with a DOMINANT WIN over Texas A&M

The reason why, to put a bow on that injury conversation, the reason why the injuries suck is because you're a really good football team with potential to go and win. And you saw that Saturday night. I think the biggest takeaway for me was like, you see the potential of what the Lane Kiffin and Charlie Weiss offense looks like when you have a quarterback who is playing well. Like it looked dynamic. It was electric. Even without Sam Leavitt moving, honestly, you kind of took a little bit of points off of that potential because he was sitting in the pocket and throwing and you took away basically his superpower, right? And even the run game, I thought with Dylan Jones, got a little clunky towards the end of the first half and the beginning of the second half. But Sam Leavitt was phenomenal. He made some of the best throws he's made all season. Jackson Harris, I think is your clear cut. I won't say wide receiver one because Winnie Watkins has been great as well, but I think those are your clear cut top two receivers right now. I still think the offensive line leaves a little bit to be desired. They're not perfect. They were good enough on Saturday, but it was so, so, so good to see Sam Leavitt be comfortable in the pocket and make some of these throws that make the Lane Kiffin offense go. And that was my main takeaway. If he can continue to do that, be the pocket passing quarterback, just be good enough there because his legs are phenomenal. They are tantalizing. And if he gets them back, hopefully he does within the next couple of weeks for Kentucky and Mississippi State and Auburn. I like the way this offense looks. No, I completely agree like that. As much as the injury aspect of Sam Leavitt, you want him to get back healthy. You want him to get right because he he's your guy moving forward. The one thing where you can kind of find a silver lining with the injury is now he has the experience of it does work if I stay in the pocket, like I can find success if I stay I mean the one to Winnie on the was it a corner right at the sideline or right after a bench pivot? Yeah, the bench pivot. Right after a terrible throw, right after a terrible throw into the roster on the sideline to Jackson Harris. He steps up in the pocket, steps up, steps up, delivers with a guy in his face. Everything you ask for from a quarterback and it's accurate. It's perfect. It was beautiful. It was very, very nice. He had a clean pocket and now he's felt that and there's confidence from it, right? That now you can point to the film like, look, Sam, when you do it, it works like that touchdown drive where he throws the ball to Jackson Harris to score that second touchdown of the game. It was Leavitt's arm that made the place. It was him hanging in the pocket and making the throws. It was very, very nice to watch from Sam Leavitt and that's where confidence can be bred. You watch that in film. You turn it on today and you go, look, you see, it does work. Use your legs, but you don't always have to. And so it'll be interesting to see, of course, with health, how they build off of this. But you kind of check the box. Coming off of last week's loss, you wanted to see Sam Leavitt stay in the pocket and perform and use his arm and show his talent as a quarterback, see these wide receivers step up and they did that. I mean, the touchdown throw to Jackson Harris, the first one, the second one, excellent play call. That's why you hire Lane Kiffin and Charlie Weiss Jr. I mean, you dial one up on a fourth and one, make them fall for a little eye candy, bite, bite, bite. Oh, and I love that Lane was candid about that as well. He's like, wait, what am I doing? Like, I almost didn't call that. Right. He had to shake himself up a little bit because I do think there's a large portion of him like was kind of still stuck in the Ole Miss thing and he got over it. Like, that's cathartic for him to be like, remember who you are. Wake up, Lane. This is your Lane ******* Kiffin. Like, go get you one right here. Like, go run down the sidelines, throw the clipboard in the air. Sam Leavitt could have had an unbelievable day on one leg. Right. He could have had another touchdown that if it doesn't get tipped, that's 70 yards and Sam Leavitt throws for 400 yards and four touchdowns. If you don't have an illegal man downfield and Jackson Harris has three touchdowns. Like, the offense was so close to cooking. Right. Yeah. No. And he had one leg. That's the thing. One leg. You are seeing this thing grow and develop. You are seeing them use that loss on the road in what was an extremely emotional place. That the emotion and the crowd and everything built one team up to play better than they are. You are seeing that be learned from. College football is awesome. It is. It's unreal. It's the best. You saw them learn from last Saturday, go through a week and build upon it and check the boxes this past weekend. You needed to go out there and handle business and prove to the world, maybe even, that you kept saying last Saturday wasn't your Super Bowl and it didn't mean that much to you and it was just another Saturday. It was an SEC ballgame on the road and you lost. You lost one. A tough one. How do you prove that that's actually what happened? You don't let it linger and you go win 35-6. That's exactly what they did. And they checked boxes in places you wanted to see them check the box. And they did it. And this is where we are now. As good as it was, you still left Pete on the bone. I agree. This could have looked like 2019 where it finished 50-7 and you're still waiting, I think, for Sam Levitt to have that game where he puts it all together. You've seen him have a game where he looks phenomenal with the legs against Clemson and maybe wasn't so great through the air but was good enough. Ole Miss, overall bad game, but he had tantalizing plays both with his arm and his legs. I do love that word. He talks the word of the month. He does. Tantalizing is it right now. And then, obviously, this past Saturday, you saw what it looks like when he's able to throw the ball downfield really, really well. Had a great game with the arm, didn't really use the legs as much. There's going to be a game at a certain point in the season, I don't know which one it is, where he's going to put it all together. He's going to have a great game through the air and on the ground. And at that point, you're going to see the reason that Lane Kiffin went out and got him. Now, who that game comes against, I don't know. But if it comes against Alabama or a Texas or a Tennessee, that's great for LSU. And if he can start to put it together consistently, that's where you see this team round into the form of a playoff contender. Yeah. No. I mean, you are seeing it with the fact that the biggest negative is health shows you the talent of the team. Shows you the talent of your coaching staff. Shows you the position that your team is in. The fact that you are sitting here and the biggest negative is that your really good players are getting bruised up, getting hurt. Shows you that you have a really, really talented roster and you've witnessed it. You went out there and look, A&M is bad. Right? They're bad. But... Can we stop this, please? Please? You can't tell the difference. The fact that you go out there... He needs it. I want him to live a long, healthy life. The fact that you go out there... I'd like to beat him every day. And an SEC team comes into your stadium and gets dominated. That's what you're supposed to do. That's the level of team you're supposed to be. And there were a lot of expectations about that Texas A&M team. I know that right now in the reality, they're not good, but all offseason and everything into the season, they were a top 10 team, they have all this talent, and you didn't see any of it Saturday night. You didn't see any of it. Because the real top 10 team, even though now they've dropped to 11, the real team with the real talent and the real coaching staff went out there and they balled out and they won. In dominating fashion. That's what it's supposed to look like. That's how it's supposed to be. And man, watching those drone camera shots of the entire Tiger Stadium with the crowd rocking and the semi-gold game, I'll call the mostly gold game, was awesome. That's what it's supposed to be. What a response it truly is to come off of the loss that you had last week and everything that transpired, all the conversations and the finger pointing and the bashing and everything all week about LSU. Putting LSU down, debating benching the quarterback, all of these things. Not only did you lose on Saturday, they tried to make you lose all week. And so many people looked at that game and were like, plus 9.5 on the Aggies, this is a great opportunity for them to get right. All week, coming off of that loss, it was almost like you no longer are the team that they said you were. And then what did you do? You shut them all up, you made a statement, and you let everybody know that last Saturday was the anomaly. Last Saturday was the outlier. Not the Clemson game. The Clemson game isn't the outlier, you didn't just beat up on a really bad ACC team that's now sitting at 3-1. And when you face real competition, you're just really not as good as you thought you were. You walk away a week later going, huh, a bad team with talented players came into your stadium and got dominated by everyone on that roster. First team, second team, third team, and every single fan in that stadium got their lick back on A&M. The first game since 2018 against Mississippi State that LSU did not allow a touchdown. And there was a drive there for it. Like that first field goal drive, to me, was a drive you've seen LSU give up a touchdown in really almost every game, besides the Clemson game. You gave up that touchdown to Ole Miss. Every time they started marching down the field, you gave that touchdown up. Not on Saturday. Because your players stepped up and made plays. Credit to Ty Benefield stepping into that star role and playing extremely well. Witt Weeks played great up until the injuries. Credit to Devon Keyes for stepping up when he goes down. Prince Oumamiel and I could watch play Ed Drusher for the rest of my life. As good as advertised, maybe even better. I think so. Yeah. How about big 99 in the middle, Deuce Geralds, two claps. Ready. I can't believe they didn't give him his second sack. Unbelievable. That's unreal. But a true freshman to go out there, play a ton of snaps, like consistently is the defensive tackle that stays on the field, and is a force to be reckoned with. They had a defensive ... Deuce Geralds was the quarterback spy at one point. Love it. And he also took the Jarvis Jones celebration. He's just burying bodies out there, and you can't do anything about it. He's not pissing on people. No, he's not. But you know who is pissing people off? Mr. Cooley. And how about Tamarcus Cooley? This was unbelievable and orchestrated. Oh, I mean, there was a plan. They knew they were getting an interception that night. And they were like, we're going to go right in front of them. All transfers. Yeah. And the interception couldn't have come up better for them. Six. Did they get their dottery? I mean, it was perfect. It was awesome. Dottery was a little late. No, I'm still in. I'm still in. He said, I'm getting this in. Still let him know. You're not letting me out. Bonnie, you're not done yet. Okay. All right. But, I mean, you see, they love playing with each other. Oh, okay. Played on the same team. Nope. That's A&M. We're going to have to go to break. And so, Tamarcus Cooley, look at this crowd. Oh. This is unbelievably amazing. I love it. And it's well-deserved because it's been a long time coming. 100%. Yeah. Like, they understood the assignment. They did. Like, you came over here, did your little bullshit. But not just that. It was also A&M and Marcel Reed, they wouldn't shut their mouth. Like, Ty Benefield, after the game on Instagram Live, was literally going, Oh, I don't lose to LSU. Shh. Like, stop talking. No. But they kept talking. And that's what happens. And I'm glad it was Cooley. You get punched in the mouth. As opposed to a transfer. Somebody who was here last year. Somebody who was here last year and had a feel for that. Somebody who understands what being in that stadium was like last year. No, the next two names I was going to bring up, three names. Tamarcus Cooley won. Balled out. Out there. And is the reason why you can play Ty Benefield at Star. Yeah. Because Tamarcus Cooley was back there playing a big-time football game. How about P.J. Woodland? They don't want to throw at D.J., so they keep throwing at P.J. And at some point, you're going to learn, you can't throw at P.J. neither. Ball it. Great tackle. Huge tackle. Maybe the biggest tackle of the game. It's got to be. Maybe the biggest tackle of the game. If they score a touchdown right there. Agreed. Flat. Maybe the biggest tackle of the game. Flat. Huge. And then even Staphylin Green got in there, got a sack. Great sack, that Staphylin Green guy. Plants his foot in the ground. Blocked it. Blocked it, getting in the mix. He's in the mix. Hey, they were playing some football out there on defense. Huge game for Blake Baker. Oh, yeah. How much do you think that one meant to him? Everything. I mean, like, every negative word said about Blake Baker circled around really one team and one game. One quarterback. Every time people talk bad about Blake Baker, what'd they bring up, L.C.? Can't stop and move a quarterback. Especially which one? Marcel Reed. And then went out there and made it a point. Made a statement. Huge. Huge bounce back victory. It sucks that you're continuing to walk away from games with injuries. But, man, me and you talked about it on Friday before the game. We were just chatting. We were talking about the game. And we kind of both ended up on the conclusion that, like, this game is kind of massive. Like, there's a point to be proven here if you're LSU. Especially if you're Lane Kiffin's LSU. Like, you've got to prove that you can bounce back from a loss. You've got to prove that you could respond. There was no going 2-2. And prove everyone wrong. Not just 2-2, but even an ugly 3-1. Like, if you battled with that bad team, that's also a bad look. Like, you went out there and you responded. You proved a point. 35-6 does not do it justice. No, that's what I'm saying. Like, the stats themselves do it justice. 5-0-6 to 1-97. Huge. Like, 21st downs versus 11. 194 on the ground versus 91. 5.1 yards per carry to 2.8. I think A&M was like 3.3 yards per play. Like, you dominated them. You just need to get in the endzone a couple more times. Should have been in the endzone a couple more times. You had some going back, but it just really was, like, that game was never in doubt. No. Even when it was 7-3. You were just in full control of that football game. That's what a good football team looks like. And that's why, like, I'm sorry for bringing the energy down a little bit. But it's just, there's so much. We said this a lot on the postgame show. It's like meat on the bone, which is a great way to put it. Because there was so much left out there. But now you're getting vultured. Like, there's a lot going on that I'd prefer just not happened. But this is, like, Jackson Harris. You talk about answering the phone. My goodness. It could have been 200. Yep. Should have been. 3 tuds. Harlan Berry, 8 yards a carry. Harlan Berry on the carry. And getting shoved and getting bullied on the field. Right? No, I mean, like, you had... Look at the Marceau-Reed stat. Like, you talk about that was personal for Blake Baker. Yeah, I mean, a negative 13 rushing yards. Nowhere to go. Like, you don't... 5-6 to 197. Like, we talked about this a ton before the season even started. Like, why do you think Blake Baker stayed? Complimentary football, cuz. Unbelievable. Like, this team is good. And get healthy. Get right. And everything is in front of you because everything's at home. No, your toughest games are at home. And they play great in Tiger Stadium. Well, cuz Tiger Stadium is Tiger Stadium. Like, if Death Valley's Death Valley again. Well, depends on the Tiger droppings they have. I'm a little disappointed. The timing. The timing of what? They keep cutting off the band. Well, they've gotta... We gotta run plays. It's too fast. The band needs to adjust. To how this new thing goes. It's a new era of LSU football. I've wet myself. Gotta adjust. Everyone's gotta adjust. To the tempo. But no, exactly like you said. You spooked me. You show what Death Valley is. The shot of that look. I know we're all not gonna wear gold. We talked about that too. I did and it was like not even really a thought either way. I just happened to have a gold shirt. But I understand that LSU fans are going to be LSU fans and they're not gonna get it right ever. Because I got my lucky shirt. And I got my lucky deal. And I got my red man in. And that's that. Like, this is how I watch ball. But I would like to see at some point. We don't need any of the doodads or trickery or any of the who's-it-what's-its. We don't need pom-poms. We don't need a cowbell. You have two hands and a voice and a whiskey. And that's what LSU football is. You don't need a colored shirt. You don't need a purple shirt. Or a gold shirt. Or anything. Just give me the uniform and the H-style goalpost and it's game on. Look, every opportunity you had Clemson at home with game day week one it needed to be an all-timer and it was. You had probably one of the best crowds for a Louisiana Tech game ever. Right? You play Texas A&M at home in an SEC opener. Packed house. Loud. And let them feel like it. Death Valley has delivered every time that you've needed them to. And it's been awesome. And I just don't know how if you're one of the money guys right? You're one of the spinners. You're one of the boosters. You don't look at where you were a year ago when A&M was in there and then you look at this year and it's the point we made on Saturday night after the game. Money well spent. I would love to have been a part of that. How much are you willing to give up? Honestly. What's your net worth? We're getting rid of Brian Kelly now. Let's do it. How much do you need? Where's my wife? I'll fly coach for you. How do you not look at the one year difference 49-25 and the other team's fan base is singing your alma mater and taking over your stadium to 35-6 where your fans are getting to walk out with a smile on their face and sing their alma mater No, you don't even sing their alma mater you make fun of their male cheerleaders You do that as well. How do you not look at that and go The fact that you got embarrassed by that program If there's nothing you can even say about them They're just an embarrassment of just ew and they took it over and then you put them right back where they belong There is no Death Valley East for you sir or madam Go back Go burn your school down Go do your whole deal Take your dog and go home That's never happening again Put them back in their place Truly, like I said on Saturday I could not be more happy I couldn't be happier at what that situation called for and I couldn't be prouder to be an LSU alumni Look, I gave my $20 Did it make a difference for you or not? But, you can't stand for that and for them to recognize it as the people that have the ability to make change I mean, what's sacred here? Like, this can't No, there are certain things that don't happen If they don't do that, it's Brian Kelly and you lose by 10 But it's not And what a beautiful day it is to wake up on a Sunday morning and think about Easy And then guess what I was watching, you know how they have those YouTubers or those streamers that react It's like the highlights from the games I was watching one of these guys and He's like laughing He's like, the quarterback's playing on one leg He's like, they gotta get this guy Are they gonna let him keep playing? And then it cuts to the next play where Landon Clarkson He goes, is that the backup quarterback? They just say, you know what? We're gonna sub out the quarterback, put the backup in and run him And guess what? He's in the end zone It was awesome, man Truly and honestly It was everything you needed it to be and there was still more meat on the bone There were opportunities that you didn't fully take advantage of And I'm hungry But I tell you what, you needed a response You needed to make a statement You needed to let everybody know that last weekend, the loss was the outlier And that you're a real program that bounces back and doesn't let the emotions linger Instead, you respond You improve And you go out there and you win Because there's some other programs that don't know how to handle their emotions just yet But you proved that you can Too hot for that hoodie You proved that you can Last season, after you lost your first game 24-19 on the road in Oxford in 2025 You went on to only win three games against three really bad teams Because you could not respond You could not bounce back You had no gut And in 2026 with Lane Kiven as the head coach Exactly what Marcel Reed said When they asked him in the post-game presser Why weren't you able to have success this year versus whatever What was his response? Does anyone know what Marcel Reed answered back? Different coach New coach on the sideline Amen. Couldn't say it any better myself So there's no more You don't lose to LSU, you don't lose to Brian Kelly A&M owns BK LSU still owns Texas A&M That's just not a fit Nice to be where we're at right now, Elsie. Isn't that true? God LSU has done a number on me They sure have That might be the biggest number But I tell you what It's nice to feel moments like Saturday night Where you're walking out And it's the Aggie fans And the other thing is They're trying to discredit You've made them You beat them so bad That their only comeback is We're just really bad, guys Their only comeback isn't this happened or that happened No, it's our quarterback sucks We're actually not good Good Except who you are and where you're at It was nice to see Lane Kiffin's LSU program Respond to the first loss Respond to the first adversity Build off of it and go out there and dominate Win 35-6 Not give up a touchdown In that game to Texas A&M