By DOUG IRELAND, Journal Sports
BATON ROUGE – Four was the key number cited Monday by LSU football coach Lane Kiffin.
Not as in 4-2, the Tigers’ overall record after Saturday night’s 35-34 overtime loss at Kentucky.
Rather, four plays in the game that weren’t good for LSU, any one of which could have turned out differently and made the Tigers winners.
As 22nd ranked LSU (4-2, 1-2 in the SEC) prepares to host No. 16 Mississippi State (4-1, 1-1) Saturday morning at 11, not a lot of conversation during Kiffin’s weekly media session focused on the Bulldogs. The first-year Tigers coach hasn’t gone into depth about any upcoming opponent to date.
He did spend time sharing his perspective on where the Tigers sit midway through their schedule, with national title contenders Alabama and Texas ahead next month along with a ranked Tennessee team. And he shared frustration that LSU didn’t get the job done on four pivotal plays Saturday night.
The four that went Kentucky’s way were the Wildcats’ 55-yard punt return touchdown, when LSU defender Faheem Delane didn’t contain or shake off a stiff arm from Brock Coffman; UK’s tush-push 1-yard TD just before halftime, that in Kiffin’s view should have been whistled dead for no apparent forward progress; his decision to punt on fourth-and-1 at the LSU 43 with 1:46 left, when a first down would have clinched an LSU win; and the game-winning two-point conversion run by UK quarterback Kenny Minchey, when a communications mishap on the Tigers’ defensive front resulted in a player not filling the gap that Minchey found.
“We had four chances to win,” Kiffin said. “If one of those plays goes right you’re winning and everyone is saying, ‘You guys are really resilient, the hostile crowd, way to overcome.’ I don’t want to overreact either way. If we would have won – stopped them on the two-point play, or any of those four scenarios — people would have said ‘you played amazing.’”
While fans and media are focused on the improbable path LSU now appears to face to remain in the race for a College Football Playoff invitation, six games into his time with the Tigers, Kiffin is focused on guiding his team’s approach.
“Staying to your standards,” he said. “That’s why I don’t set goals with numbers and wins and those things, because your standards are what matters. The goals will dictate how you work ….
“…. It’s about your process, about how that you work, and how you come to work every day, and (if) now all of a sudden, you not do the extra stuff on Sunday you’ve been coming in for. That’s the challenge … when you lose the game, (you don’t overreact and think) now I need to change what I’m doing.
“Now (if) you lose by 30 points, you gotta look at some things,” said Kiffin.
One thing he is looking at is converting missed opportunities on both sides of the ball.
“We do really good things and we don’t finish drives,” Kiffin said. “We’re just missing plays. That sounds really general, but it’s a guy open in the end zone and you don’t see him or don’t stop the run. It’s a problem.”
Contact Doug at sbjdoug@gmail.com