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LSU football's wild rally could transform Brian Kelly's tenure

Posted on by Vanessa
LSU football's wild rally could transform Brian Kelly's tenure

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  • LSU kept its College Football Playoff hopes alive with a dramatic win over Ole Miss. What does this mean for Brian Kelly? That's hard to say.
  • LSU overtakes Ole Miss in the playoff pecking order.
  • The LSU defense gains momentum, Garrett Nussmeier comes into play and Lane Kiffin's Rebels falter again.

BATON ROUGE, La. – Remember Saturday evening.

As LSU scratches and claws and gets dirty and escapes and fights its way into the College Football Playoff, remember the night the No. 10 Tigers won a game they never won until the final game led.

If this 29-26 overtime win over No. 8 Ole Miss boosts Brian Kelly's tenure and proves he's worth the $95 million LSU made three years ago, then remember the night when his defense grew a spine and his quarterback fought through the tough times.

And when it was finished, LSU let off so many fireworks it could have been Independence Day as fans stormed the field. It doesn't matter that the Tigers were just slight underdogs.

This unlikely escape was cause for celebration.

“These moments definitely don’t come along often in life,” LSU linebacker Whit Weeks said. “It was fun.”

It was a crucial win in Kelly's crucial third season.

Or it caused LSU to get excited before hitting rock bottom in the second half of the schedule.

I'm not sure what it will be. I could believe it too.

LSU's six remaining games are against SEC competition. There is no longer a game that LSU (5-1) cannot win – or a game that it cannot lose.

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And the Tigers could be the second-best or seventh-best team in the SEC. I'm not convinced there's much of a difference.

“This league is completely open,” LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier said. “I think we took a big step tonight.”

In any case, it's wide open beyond Texas.

LSU Football passes Ole Miss in the playoff pecking order

As for LSU's heartcats, they're still a little rough around the edges, but so are most SEC teams. They're improving, they're struggling, they have a quarterback and some good receivers, and their defense has found a pulse against a top-10 opponent, and what the hell, why can't the Tigers make the playoffs? ? They have about as good a chance as many other teams sitting on defeat.

They have a better chance of making the playoffs than Ole Miss (5-2). I know that much.

“We are real,” Nussmeier said afterwards. “The Tigers are real. I think we proved that tonight. There were problems and mistakes, but we found a way to win the game.”

Kelly raved about LSU's performance – not because it was perfect, but because it wasn't, and the Tigers still stayed within striking distance until they finally broke through while Ole Miss caved. He raved about a defense that yielded six sacks. He raved about his quarterback, who had two interceptions and a slew of incompletions and threw touchdown passes on his last two throws.

“This team just keeps getting better,” Kelly said.

That's a fair assessment, and the same goes for Kelly's 2022 Tigers, who lost their season opener before beating Alabama and reaching the SEC Championship Game.

LSU beat Alabama this season with a 2-point conversion. When Kelly was given another chance to win a rivalry game with a 2-point try on Saturday, she changed course. He didn't want a single play to decide this outcome.

“I just felt like our guys worked too hard to get back in the game,” Kelly said, “that I didn’t want to go for two in an all-or-nothing situation.”

After Nussmeier brought LSU within a point with a fourth-down touchdown dart to Aaron Anderson, Kelly went for an extra point to tie the game and force overtime.

Count Weeks was among those happiest that Kelly didn't call a 2-point conversion.

“I was happy to get to play more ball,” Weeks said. “Shit, we can’t play again until next Saturday. I like to play more football.”

LSU's defense, which played well in the second half, validated Kelly's decision.

As the crowd reached decibels it hadn't reached all night, the Rebels went backwards during their overtime possession, needing a 57-yard field goal to salvage points.

Mission accomplished to defend LSU. And then…

“It’s time,” LSU wide receiver Kyren Lacy said.

Also time saving.

Nussmeier threw a ball to Lacy on LSU's first play of overtime.

Comeback complete.

Garrett Nussmeier delivers in the clutch for LSU

The more the Tigers played, the better they looked.

The game remained scoreless after the first quarter, but LSU was fortunate not to fall behind 17-0. Ole Miss' Tre Harris dropped an 81-yard touchdown pass, and that costly drop came apart from two red-zone trips in the first quarter that yielded no points.

“We dominated most of the game,” Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said. “… They’re a good team and we’re a good team, but we should have won that game.”

It is all the more annoying for Kiffin that the rebels lost.

Ole Miss spent a pretty penny – gazillions of pennies, in fact – to improve its defense with a transfer move, and while the unit undeniably improved, this marks the second time it has failed in crucial ones to deliver game-winning stops in moments.

Just two weeks ago, Kentucky used a fourth-and-7 to keep a drive alive that ended with a game-winning touchdown.

Nussmeier needed two fourth-down completions to tie that game and then a 25-yard strike to Lacy to win it.

“We are a stubborn bunch. “We’re going to keep fighting until the end,” Weeks said. “We knew the whole game, we weren’t going to lose this ball game.”

If Weeks knew Ole Miss controlled much of the game, give him credit. And give credit to the Tigers’ resilience.

This is the night Kelly's tenure began. Or not.

But it is certainly the night LSU pulled off a most improbable comeback, keeping its playoff hopes alive and putting Ole Miss's own ambitions on life support.

Blake Toppmeyer is the national college football columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @btoppmeyer.

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