The college football world was going crazy over the dramatic upset that the Notre Dame Fighting Irish took at the hands of the Northern Illinois Huskies after the Irish paid NIU $1.4 million for the game.
At halftime in Baton Rouge, it somewhat felt like LSU was in danger of joining that conversation.
The Tigers were able to shut the door on the Colonels late in the second half as Garrett Nussmeier finished the contest with six touchdowns in a 44-21 win. Nussmeier’s six touchdowns rank second in school history for a single game, tied with Joe Burrow and Jayden Daniels. Burrow holds the record with seven that he threw in the College Football Playoff Semifinal against Oklahoma in 2019.
LSU was able to jump out to a 9-0 lead in the first quarter after a bad snap on a punt led to a safety and then Nussmeier found Trey’Dez Green for the first touchdown of the night. However, with 30 seconds left in the quarter, Collin Guggenheim found the endzone from two yards out to cut the Tigers lead to 9-7.
The Colonels had touchdown drives of 84, 75, and 75 yards as just one minute into the second half, the Tigers were clinching to a 23-21 lead.
“I’d start off with saying how impressed I was with Nicholls State,” head coach Brian Kelly said postgame. “I thought they played their tails off. They were physical and you could tell how much it meant to those young men to play here in Tiger Stadium and have a chance to play LSU. They were physical, and they controlled the clock. Made it a great football game from that perspective. I’m happy we won the football game, but, certainly, there’s a lot of areas that, I’m looking at the things that we have to do better.”
Nussmeier finished the game 27-37 for 302 yards and six touchdowns, three of them connecting with former Louisiana Ragin Cajuns standout Kyren Lacy, who has stepped up as the top target in Joe Sloan’s offense. Former LCA star Ju’Juan Johnson was a big talking point in the postgame after making the switch from defensive back to running back and scoring his first collegiate touchdown.
“Ju’Juan in particular had 48 hours to pick up a number of different things, and he picked them up naturally,” Kelly said. “He’s going to continue to grow within our offensive structure, and I love coaching him. You know, he’s just wide-eyed, has a great sense of the game, and he’ll pick things up quickly.”
LSU evens the win-loss record at 1-1 with the 44-21 win and will now shift their focus to their first conference matchup in the Southeastern Conference as the Tigers will head to Columbia, South Carolina to battle with the Gamecocks. College Gameday has announced they will be in Columbia for the matchup.
Kickoff is set for 11:00 a.m. and can be heard right here on ESPN 103.7 Lafayette and 104.1 Lake Charles.