LSU plays well enough

Published 5:56 pm Sunday, September 24, 2017

Overcomes mistakes to beat Orange

BATON ROUGE — As postgame celebrations go, LSU’s wasn’t very inspiring Saturday night.

Of course, neither was the Tigers’ play.

“We did win the game,” LSU coach Ed Orgeron kept reminding himself.

It was easy enough to forget that the three-touchdown favorite Tigers did bounce back —if that’s the word — from a spanking a week ago to beat Syracuse 35-26 and …

What?

“I know it wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t exciting,” Orgeron said. “But I’m glad we won and we’re going to celebrate.”

His heart didn’t seem to be in the party mood, however.

“I don’t know how good this team is,” he added after watching his offense struggle to block Syracuse all night while keeping just enough of a handle on the wild Orange offense and magician quarterback Eric Dungey to make the visitors work for every point.

“I think we played an OK game,” he added.

The Tigers twice led by 18 — 21-3 and 28-10 -— before finally salting away a game late that they never really seemed to have control of.

“We played very average tonight,” Orgeron summed up. “But we won.”

And, to sum up: “I’m awfully glad that we won that game.”

That alternative wasn’t out of the question.

Still, if nothing else, Orgeron insisted the Tigers don’t have a quarterback controversy.

“Danny (Etling) is still our starting quarterback,” Orgeron said. “He’s fine.”

Etling, who threw two long touchdown passes when he wasn’t desperately avoiding the Syracuse rush, seemed to be the least of LSU’s offensive problems. But he was replaced by true freshman Myles Brennan anyway midway through the third quarter with the Tigers leading 21-10.

“We hit the deep ball,” Orgeron said of Etling’s scoring passes of 43 yards to Stephen Sullivan and 87 yards to Drake Davis. “I think the long balls saved us tonight when we couldn’t get the running game going.

“There was too much penetration,” Orgeron said. “ The safety had penetration all night. Danny was under duress all night. I’d say Syracuse’s defensive front won. They did a good job.”

But Etling’s 10 of 17 for night for 188 yards and the two long scores couldn’t keep him in the game.

“We wanted to see what Myles Brennan could do,” Orgeron said of his true freshman.

“I thought Danny did a good job. He’s going to be a fine We wanted to get (Brennan) some work,” Orgeron said. “But Danny is still our quarterback.”

At first it looked like a good move.

Brennan quickly led the Tigers on a long touchdown march, but the following two drives LSU, after getting backed up to the 1-yard line, was tackled for a safety to narrow the gap to 28-12 — and it got to be 28-19 with another scoring drive following the free kick from the safety.

Brennan then threw an interception on the next that stalled another promising drive and set up the Syracuse drive that, aided by a roughing the passer penalty, pulled the Orange to within 28-26 with still 5:40 to play.

That got Etling back into the game and he directed a 56-yard drive capped by DJ Chark’s 30-yard touchdown on a jet sweep that finally allowed an annoyed Tiger Stadium to breathe a sigh of relief with the final 35-26 lead.

There were enough curious coaching decisions to go around both sides of the field.

Syracuse scored in the final seconds of the third quarter to turn what had been an 18-point deficit into a 28-18 LSU lead, but head coach Dino Babers chose to kick an extra point rather than trying to turn it into a one-possession game.

With still 5:40 left to play and all the momentum on its side after pulling to within 28-26 following the Brennan interception, the Orange attempted a failed onside kick and LSU used to good field position to march downfield. 

It couldn’t have started much better for the Tigers as Greedy Williams intercepted a pass on the game’s first play, returned it to the Orange 1-yard line and Derrius Guice scored on the next play for a 7-0 lead 9 second into the game.

That might have been the LSU highlight.

It looked like a serious rout in the making when, on the Tigers’ next possession, LSU’s David Ducre was wide open on a crossing pattern, but Etling was sacked in his tracks before he could get the ball to him.

That was more the tone-setter as the Tigers’ offense mostly struggled to block the Syracuse front.

LSU had virtually no other scoring threat until Etling found Stephen Sullivan for an out-of-nowhere 43-yard touchdown pass late in the second quarter.

Somehow they managed to get to the halftime locker room leading 14-3 and opened the second half with Etling’s 87-yard bomb to Davis Drake and a 21-3 lead.

(Associated Press)