LSU vs. Clemson Recap

Zach Smith · 2026-09-06T18:29:38+00:00

Clemson Had One First Down in a Half LSU 51, Clemson 10. Thirty-eight first downs to eight, 644 yards to 145, and 1-for-13 on third down. Lane Kiffin's debut in Death Valley was a statement and Sam Leavitt led the game in rushing. By Zach Smith Ninety-minute rain delay. Wet Bermuda. Lane Kiffin's first night in Tiger Stadium, Sam Leavitt's first game as an SEC starter, and Christopher Vizzina's first career road start. Then LSU put up 51 and Clemson finished with one first down at halftime. One. A program with two national titles picked up a single first down in thirty minutes of football. Twenty-one to one Three numbers and you can stop reading if you want. Thirty-eight first downs to eight. At the break it was 21 to 1. Six hundred forty-four yards to 145. And Clemson went 1-for-13 on third down, which includes 0-for-8 in the first half. LSU ran the football 58 times and held it for 36:09. That's not a bad night. That's a team that never found out what it was allowed to do. Leavitt led the game in rushing Sam Leavitt went 16-of-28 for 230 with a touchdown and a pick. He also carried it 12 times for 113 yards and two scores. He led every player on that field in rushing. Write the evaluation right there and you're most of the way home. It started badly. First drive, he missed a slant behind the receiver and Clemson picked it at the LSU 33. Wet field, so the plant foot is a real variable and I'm not resolving that one from my couch. Then look at the order of what came next. Scramble for nine on first down the very next series. A keeper on a read where he refused to slide and went looking for the contact. An escape from an all-out blitz that had actually gotten home, scrambled all the way to first-and-goal. A naked boot from the goal line where he beat the rush, made a defender miss, and walked in. A quarterback draw on second-and-10 for eleven and a first down. Another scramble for a second rushing touchdown. He is balling with his legs, not his arm, and I want to be precise about that because his completion percentage sat in the 40s most of the night before it finished at 57. The one throw that mattered Eight twenty-one left in the third, all-out blitz coming, and Leavitt backpedals and delivers a strike for a touchdown. That is the throw that requires the fastest processing on a football field. Somebody is unblocked, you have one look, and the ball has to be gone. He saw it and he threw it. If you've read this series you know the comparison I'm about to make. Julian Sayin had eleven scrambles all of last season and I built an entire article around that number. Gunner Stockton had 53 and I built one around that. Sam Leavitt had two rushing touchdowns before halftime in his first SEC start. Whatever else is unresolved about him, that trait is not. Nobody made him throw The caveat belongs in the same breath. LSU led by four scores from the second quarter on. Clemson never forced Leavitt into a situation where the arm had to win. He threw 28 times in a game his team controlled from the middle of the first half. So the legs are confirmed and the arm is still an open file. Ole Miss on the 19th is when we find out, and I'd note that game is against the program that just watched Kiffin walk out the door. This wasn't the Ole Miss offense I wrote in the offseason that Lane Kiffin's Ole Miss attack was RPOs, screens, dinks and dunks, and one gorgeous fake-look-back snap. I told LSU fans that was their preview. I was wrong about which version they'd get. This was tempo and a run game. Fifty-eight carries for 309 yards at 5.3 a pop, Dilin Jones going 23-113 with two scores, and tempo used hard enough that Clemson couldn't substitute. Built for the weather and built for the roster he inherited. The only real Ole Miss carryover was the screen game, which produced a chunk play in the second quarter. Everything else was a coach looking at a wet field and a Death Valley crowd and deciding to run it down their throat. That's a good sign, by the way. A coordinator who only has one offense is a coordinator you eventually solve. Winston Watkins Jr. went 7-110 with a score, Phillip Wright III 3-70 with a score, Trey'Dez Green 4-58. And there's a basketball hoop on the LSU sideline now. Take a takeaway, go dunk. Same family as the belt and the chains at Ole Miss, and it tells you something real about the culture change from Brian Kelly's buttoned-up teams that kept losing openers. Weeks, Umanmielen, Ross This LSU defense has names and you should learn them. Whit Weeks finished with six tackles and 1.5 for loss and was the most consistent player on that field. Watch the third-and-2 that ended Clemson's first real drive. Zone play, no puller, and Weeks shoots the gap. He beat the alignment, not a blocker. That's recognition and it's the hardest thing to coach. He also stuffed a draw on third-and-9. Princewill Umanmielen had six tackles, 1.5 sacks and two tackles for loss, and led the team in pressure. He followed Kiffin from Oxford. Jordan Ross had four tackles, a sack, two tackles for loss and the pick six, and he's the one who dominated the puller on Clemson's quarterback counter. And the front did it with five-man pressure, not exotic stuff. Four guys winning and a fifth closing. That's the version that travels in November. The pick six is a coaching failure Go back and watch it before you charge it to the quarterback. LSU zone blitzed. The defensive end dropped into the exact window Vizzina was throwing to. He read rush, assumed that space was vacated, and threw to a spot. I wrote almost this identical paragraph about CJ Carr in the offseason. Narduzzi's six-man look reads the quarterback's eyes and breaks on his front hand, Notre Dame threw into it three separate times, and I put that on Mike Denbrock because nobody gave the kid an answer. Give him an answer for the zone blitz. If your quarterback doesn't have a rule for a dropping end, the interception is on the guy who didn't teach it. Negative four rushing yards at halftime Clemson ran it 26 times for 40 yards. One and a half a carry. At the half they had minus four yards on twelve attempts. Their leading rusher finished with 21. Vizzina went 10-of-16 for 83 with the pick and got benched in the first half. Dabo Swinney named him the starter on Tuesday and pulled him in the opener. Tait Reynolds came in and went 4-of-6 for 22. The ledger on Vizzina's night: the pick six, a should-have-been second interception off pressure, a sack on five-man pressure, back-to-back pressures after that, and a wide-open touchdown missed on a running back rail route against a blitz on third-and-7. Throw the rail route. That's the answer to that look, it's why the route exists, and he panicked instead. Now be fair to him. I've got two clean pockets in the entire ledger, both on the opening drive when it was still 3-3, and both produced completions to Bryant Wesco. You cannot evaluate what that kid is because nobody let him find out. The line gave him zero rushing yards through eight carries, negative four at the half, a puller who got dominated on a quarterback counter, and four penalties. Hands to the face, a facemask, a false start on crowd noise, and a hold on a screen that got declined. Chad Morris called that game A quarterback counter with a first-time road starter down fourteen. A draw on third-and-9. Repeated screens with an offensive line that could not get to the second level. Those Arkansas teams were historically bad on third down too, and that was eight years ago. Clemson went 1-for-13 tonight. Somebody has to answer for a play sheet that put a freshman quarterback in the worst possible spots in the loudest possible building. What I'm holding loosely It's one game and I've been doing this long enough to know what September does to people. Kiffin's first September at Ole Miss looked good too. The real tests are Ole Miss on the 19th and Alabama in November. The rain matters. Wet grass favors the team that knows the snap count, and LSU ran it 58 times. Some of Clemson's disaster is conditions. The environment matters. Death Valley at night against a first-time road starter is about the worst spot in America for a quarterback. The false start on noise and the panic on the rail route both belong partly to the venue. But 51-10 with a 644-to-145 yardage gap is not a weather story. Kiffin's debut was a statement, and Dabo Swinney's football team picked up one first down in a half. Appreciate you, Menace Army.