BATON ROUGE – The final horn announced LSU’s football victory since the second week of October.
Half of the Tigers’ bench sprinted to hoist the heaviest and ugliest rival trophy in college football.
“The Golden Boot,” a four-foot-tall, 200-pound-plus trophy, was paraded by the Tigers as if they just won the national championship by edging a winless SEC team by one point.
It didn’t matter that Arkansas was ranked dead last in the SEC in scoring defense and total defense. When the Tigers finally secured a 23-22 victory on a sun-splashed Saturday afternoon with a 55-yard drive that gobbled the last 5:08 of game clock, a month of disappointment with three losses and the shocking firing of head coach Brian Kelly temporarily disappeared.
Somewhere in the midst of the celebration, an emotional Tigers’ interim coach Frank Wilson was cognizant of the historical moment of becoming the first African-American coach ever to guide LSU to a football win.
“I acknowledge those who have knocked on the door and hope for opportunity as African-American coaches for many years,” said the 52-year-old Wilson, a New Orleans native who had served as the Tigers’ associate head and running backs coach before being named interim on Kelly’s Oct. 26 firing.
“I stand on the shoulders of those men who are giants, and so I’m very fortunate. I’m very proud. I’m very humbled to be in a position to be able to help this team.”
It was a first for Tigers’ backup quarterback Michael Van Buren, who started in place of the injured Garrett Nussmeier. After starting eight games for Mississippi State last season and failing to win against all SEC competition, the transfer portal acquisition got his first win as a starter vs. an SEC foe.
“My guys had my back the whole day,” said Van Buren, who contributed 257 error-free total offense yards and the game-winning TD pass in the fourth quarter. “It’s an unbelievable feeling getting my first win in Tiger Stadium and my first win as an SEC starter. The SEC is a hard place to get wins.”
It was so hard that the Tigers (6-4 overall, 3-4 SEC) uncharacteristically used four trick plays on their game-winning drive. Van Buren’s scrambling 12-yard scoring strike to tight end Bauer Sharp (and Ramos’ extra point kick) with 7:53 left to play proved to be the final margin of victory.
LSU finally did a little more right (a turnover-free game from its quarterback, a semblance of a running attack, a drastic reduction in dumb false start penalties) than it did wrong.
The Tigers’ major faux pas was limited to the first quarter when they spotted Arkansas (2-8, 0-7) a 14-0 lead.
LSU couldn’t have imagined a worse start. Six total offense yards in six plays on its first two possessions. A Grant Chadwick punt was blocked and scooped by the Hogs’ Caleb Wooden for a TD. A 24-yard shanked Chadwick punt led to a 54-yard Arkansas TD drive on which the Razorbacks converted a 4th and 2 as well as a 4th and 1.
Van Buren looked skittish.
“That’s football,” he said. “Sometimes, you go out there, you have a slow start and settle in.”
And so Van Buren and the offense locked in. They scored points on four of their five remaining first-half possessions, but none more important than the last of three Damian Ramos’ second-quarter field goals with three seconds left for a 16-14 halftime lead.
“The question that came from up top (in the Tigers’ press box coaching booth) was `Do we want to just kneel it?’,” Wilson said after LSU took possession at its 20-yard line with 33 seconds left before half. “No, we’re not kneeling it. We’re going for points. We’re going to empty the chamber.”
A pair of 14-yard runs by Caden Durham and Harlan Berry (followed by LSU timeouts), a defensive pass interference penalty, and Van Buren’s 12-yard pass to Zavion Thomas positioned the Tigers at Ole Miss 25. The table was set for Ramos’ 43-yard field goal.
Stealing those points was needed.
Because Arkansas dominated the third quarter, igniting on QB Taylen Green’s 55-yard run to the LSU 30. Though the Hogs were held out of the end zone by a magnificent Tigers’ goal line that stopped Arkansas twice from the 1-yard line, field position flipped for the Razorbacks.
It eventually paid off when Mike Washington scored on a 9-yard run, and Green’s two-point conversion run boosted Arkansas to a 22-16 lead with 4:02 left in the third quarter.
But LSU’s fourth quarter domination in yards (167 to 45), in plays (22 to 6), and time of possession (11:25 to 3:35) was the example of the complementary football Kelly had been preaching all season until the day he was fired.
The stunner on LSU’s game-winning 92-yard drive was the Tigers reaching into their trick bag four times. It looked like the Harlem Globetrotters’ weave offense with motion, fake reverses, and throwback passes galore.
“We added this week ways we thought we had to be creative to find a way to score,” Wilson said. “Use everything that we practice. They worked out in our favor. There are no guarantees, but it gives you a chance. All our kids needed and wanted was a chance.”
Van Buren loved the string of trick plays.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Van Buren said.
It was enough to get LSU from its 8 to Arkansas 37 where the trickery stopped and Van Buren’s individual execution took over to get LSU into the end zone.
After Arkansas’ Scott Starzyk missed a potential game-winning 48-yard field goal with 5:08 left, Van Buren’s 35-yard run to the Hogs’ 41 on second-and-16 greased LSU’s running game wheels to close out the victory.
Six straight runs – the first two by Durham and the last four by Berry – gobbled up 31 yards and produced two first downs that allowed LSU to run out the clock.
‘We didn’t make plays when we needed to,” Arkansas interim coach Bobby Petrino said. “Offense, defense, special teams all had opportunities to win games and didn’t.”
And finally, for the first time this season, LSU made those plays.
Whether it was grad student defensive tackle Jacobian Gullory stuffing Arkansas QB Taylen Green for no gain on fourth and goal at the LSU 1 (“I just knew it was about to happen and I just jumped over the whole line,” Guillory said) or cornerback Mansoor Delane’s end zone interception or Berry purposely sliding down inbounds after a 13-yard run for the game-clinching first down, the day belonged to the Tigers.
“We had what it took today,” Wilson said. “They just kept on fighting and kept on punching.”
It wasn’t a TKO. But for a team starved for a victory, a unanimous decision was just fine.
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com