3 takeaways from LSU’s disappointing home loss to Alabama

LSU entered Saturday night’s game against Alabama with an incredible record at night at home. In fact, coach Brian Kelly was 13-0 in Death Valley at night.

However, trends are meant to be broken, and that streak was broken in this Week 11 rivalry game thanks to Jalen Milroe and the Crimson Tide.

Milroe ran for more than 100 yards and scored 3 touchdowns with his legs en route to a 42-13 win for the Tide.

What went wrong for the Tigers?

Here are our 3 takeaways from the LSU side of Saturday night’s big-time SEC showdown:

1. Garrett Nussmeier is struggling

I personally thought the off week would be a big benefit for Nussmeier. He’s been sharp for most of the season. But 2 weeks ago at Texas A&M, he hurt the Tigers by throwing 3 costly interceptions. This week, he was missing open receivers and threw a pick in the red zone, which is the worst possible spot to throw a pick.

He also threw a second interception in the game, which basically ended any hopes of a win for the Tigers.

Was this the fault of having some random, non-Mike tiger on the sidelines? We’ll never know. It was a weird stunt, though.

The more important thing is that the Tigers need to figure out what’s wrong with their QB and get it fixed down the stretch if they want to salvage some positiveness from this season.

2. Blake Baker’s game plan was not great

I say this as a Mizzou graduate who is frustrated that Baker left CoMo this offseason, but… it seems that Baker’s plan to stop Milroe was not a good one. Sitting back with a spy didn’t work, yet Baker kept going back to the well over and over again.

When the opposing QB is carving you up for 100+ yards on the ground, that’s a problem. Mizzou held Milroe to 50 rush yards. South Carolina 36. Tennessee 11. Vanderbilt 10. How? By keeping him in the pocket and forcing him to step up with strong edge rushes.

LSU, for whatever reason, doesn’t seem to have had access to the past 4 game tapes for Milroe. Someone should look into that oversight.

3. That’s it for Playoff hopes

Sorry, LSU fans. That’s probably the end of the line for the Tigers’ Playoff hopes. The USC loss looks horrible. The Texas A&M loss doesn’t look as good after the Aggies lost to South Carolina in blowout fashion last week.

Now losing in a blowout way to Alabama is probably the nail in the coffin. This is a team that is now destined for a spot in a bowl game that would have been considered “solid” before the Playoff expanded to 12 teams.

Garrett Nussmeier needs to figure out his plan. Is he going to get his act together enough to be a first-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft? Or will he come back to school and try to become the No. 1 pick in the 2026 NFL Draft?

We’ll see what happens, but there’s still a lot for these offensive players to play for in the next few weeks.

Adam Spencer

Adam is a daily fantasy sports (DFS) and sports betting expert. A 2012 graduate of the University of Missouri, Adam now covers all 16 SEC football teams. He is the director of DFS, evergreen and newsletter content across all Saturday Football brands.