LSU stock report after Week 5: Tigers give up 706 yards in brutal loss to Ole Miss

LSU managed to lose to Ole Miss despite gaining 637 yards and holding a 9-point lead midway through the fourth quarter Saturday night in Oxford.

Jayden Daniels passed for 414 yards and 4 touchdowns, 3 of which went to Brian Thomas Jr., who was 1 of 2 100-yard Tigers receivers along with Malik Nabers (102). And 100-yard rusher Logan Diggs had 2 touchdowns.

But it wasn’t enough.

The LSU defense allowed Jaxson Dart, Tre Harris, Jordan Watkins and Quinshon Judkins to negate the Tigers’ fireworks as the Rebels compiled 706 yards. Dart’s 13-yard touchdown pass to Harris with 39 seconds remaining provided the winning points.

Daniels drove LSU to the Ole Miss 15 in the final seconds, but 2 false start penalties and 2 incompletions in the end zone thwarted the threat as the Tigers fell to 3-2 and 2-1.

Player of the Week: QB Jayden Daniels

It could have been Thomas (8 catches, 124 yards, 3 touchdowns) or Nabers (8-102) or Diggs (19 rushes, 101 yards, 2 touchdowns).

But Daniels completed 27 of 36 for 414 yards with 4 touchdowns and no interceptions and rushed 15 times for 99 yards and a touchdown (though he did lose a 1st-quarter fumble at the Ole Miss 25).

Every week Daniels is the Tigers player of the week – and for the last 2 weeks the SEC Co-offensive Player of the Week – which says a lot about his remarkable production – and the short list of teammates approaching his level of play.

Freshman of the Week: No one

A few freshmen got significant playing time and showed up in the stats. Linebacker Whit Weeks was active for the 3rd consecutive game and finished with 9 tackles, 2 solo, and 1.5 tackles for loss. Defensive backs Ashton Stamps and Ryan Yaites got opportunities as the coaches kept trying waves of defensive backs, desperately searching from some combination that could do something right.

But they never found an effective group though Stamps finished with 6 tackles, including 4 solo, and Yaites batted down a 4th-down pass by Dart in the 4th quarter, which could have been a key play if the defense hadn’t wilted in the final half of the 4th quarter.

Given the defense’s overall ineffectiveness, it would be inappropriate to single out anyone from any class for a notable performance.

Biggest surprise: Defense’s utter defenselessness

Ole Miss has weapons and Lane Kiffin is a very good offensive coach. But Kiffin has lamented his offense’s inconsistency this season and the Rebels scored just 10 points a week earlier in a loss at Alabama.

So the Tigers’ defense should have been able to do something right. But they didn’t. They gave up 389 passing yards and 317 rushing yards. They had zero sacks and essentially no pressure. They allowed 9 of 16 3rd downs to be converted and 2 of 3 4th downs. Had they been able to make 4 of Ole Miss’ 12 possessions scoreless ones – instead of a mere 3 – they probably would have won the game.

But they couldn’t – and they didn’t.

Biggest concern: The defense (of course)

All of it. The line, the linebackers, the secondary, the coaching. There were missed assignments against both the run and the pass, countless bad angles taken by pursuers and countless missed tackles, especially down the stretch when the defense was clearly gassed because of spending nearly 4 hours back on its heels.

This is 2 weeks in a row that the defense performed poorly. Last week a series of Arkansas penalties and Daniels’ brilliance enabled LSU to escape Tiger Stadium with a 3-point victory. But if this keeps up, every week is going to be a struggle for the offense to keep up with the opponent, which brings us to …

Developing trend: Daniels has to be nearly perfect

Daniels has been outstanding so far this season – and he has had to be. The poor defense and the limited commitment to the running game has required Daniels to carry the team most of the time.

Saturday night was a perfect example of how miniscule his margin for error is. He directed an offense that gained 637 yards and scored 7 touchdowns. But any possession that ends with anything other than a touchdown – like the 1 that ended with Daniels’ fumble, or the 1 that ended with Damian Ramos’ 56-yard field goal falling short as the first half ended, or 2 4th-quarter ones that ended in punts or the final 1 that ended because Daniels ran out of time – can be lethal.

Key stat: 55 points

Virtually any Ole Miss offensive stat could be cited, but scoring is the bottom line and allowing 55 points will virtually always produce a defeat. All of the countless short-comings listed above contributed to the loss, but the 1 stat that gets to the core of the game is the points allowed.

First impression about Week 6 (at Missouri)

It’s going to be a shootout. No one is slowing down Daniels and the LSU offense, and the LSU defense isn’t slowing down anybody. Missouri isn’t a likely candidate to be the opponent against which the LSU defense gets back on track.

Missouri is 5-0 and had 532 yards in an easy 38-21 victory against Vanderbilt on Saturday in Nashville. Brady Cook passed for a career-high 395 yards and 4 touchdowns and established an SEC record with a streak of 347 consecutive passes without throwing an interception. It could be target practice against a defense no longer known as DBU.

Les East

Les East is a New Orleans-based football writer who covers LSU for SaturdayDownSouth.com. Follow him on Twitter @Les_East.