Welcome everyone to another edition of #4Downs! This week, we take a look at LSU’s convincing victory over BYU.
1st Down: Defense Proves Themselves
The biggest storyline for LSU outside of the state of their offensive line was Arden Key’s offseason surgery. Being without him for the first few weeks of the season seemed like an almost insurmountable thing for this team to deal with.
Any worries about that have been silenced after Saturday’s big game from the Tiger defense. LSU held the Cougars down to 97 total yards of offense and -5 yards rushing. It further proves why Dave Aranda is the mad scientist and knows how to stop any team that stands in front of them. It may be only one game, but if this defense shows up, LSU has a chance to do something really special.
2nd Down: Wisdom Teeth Can’t Hold Back Guice
Just about a week and a half ago, Derrius Guice had his wisdom teeth removed and was eased back into practice this week. Once the Tigers took the field on offense, the offense’s “sun” took care of business and was successful with 20 carries in the first half alone and amassing 120 net yards and two touchdown on the evening.
If that’s Guice week one, perhaps it’s quite not as farfetched that he’ll be in contention for the Heisman as the season progresses.
3rd Down: Etling Solid Return
Danny Etling’s offseason surgery led to a lot of concerns as to who would be the starting quarterback if true freshman Myles Brennan showed head coach Ed Orgeron what he wanted to see during fall camp. That was answered as soon as Etling was ready to go in camp.
Another burning question for this team was how will this offensive line hold up? There’s not a lot of depth at the position with 11 scholarship players involved at offensive line, but they managed to answer that question in decisive fashion by not allowing a sack on Etling.
The former Purdue Boilermaker wound up with 173 yards on 17 attempts, including a 52-yard pass to DJ Chark to set up the second touchdown. For the first time in what feels like years, the quarterback position isn’t a question mark. Even if Etling underperforms based off of what Myles Brennan did on the final drive showed that he does have some promise and it’s not just hype from Coach O.
4th Down: The Future is Now
When you look up and down at the players that saw time in Saturday’s 27-0 victory, there were a number of players that had never played a snap for LSU. That included Brennan, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, Grant Delpit, and Tyler Taylor. It shows that the future of LSU is right now because of how many of these inexperienced players were out there and proved quite a bit against a team that looked poised to at least make it competitive.
-Clint Domingue