LSU suffers embarrassing loss to Troy

Published 6:42 pm Sunday, October 1, 2017

BATON ROUGE — We interrupt this coaching honeymoon for a startling announcement.

Troy 24, LSU 21.

The Tigers’ Ed Orgeron is going to have a hard time living this one down.

Honeymoon?

Done for. Over.

Feel-good story? Not so much, even with the Cajun roots. At least for now.

No. 25 LSU (3-2) suffered through perhaps its most embarrassing loss of this century at the hands of the upstart Trojans (4-1), who celebrated and frolicked long into the night in their corner of Tiger Stadium in front a nice contingent of their fans who by then almost outnumbered the home crowd.

It was sweet revenge for the Trojans, who in their last trip to Tiger Stadium in 2008 couldn’t hold a 31-3 lead against a fourth-quarter LSU rally.

“We knew Troy was a good football team,” Orgeron insisted of the three-touchdown underdogs. “It wasn’t about Troy tonight. This was about us. We did not play good football.”

It was LSU’s first-ever loss to a Sun Belt Conference team and the end of the Tigers’ streak of 49 consecutive nonconference home wins dating to 2000.

“Obviously a disappointing performance for us,” Orgeron said. “We were outcoached and outplayed tonight. That’s the bottom line.”

Most telling stat: LSU was 0-for-8 on third-down conversions, Troy was 10 of 18.

“That’s not Tiger football,” Orgeron said. “It’s something we’ve got to look at.

“We’ve got to keep this team together. They’re hurting. We’ve got to do some soul-searching.”

It wasn’t pretty.

The Tigers (3-2), who had one turnover in their first four games, had four against Troy, two of which set up Trojans touchdowns, another that sabotaged an LSU drive deep in Troy territory and one last interception that sealed the deal with the Tigers in desperate hurry-up mode in the waning seconds.

“It’s not about pointing fingers,” Orgeron said. “It’s about everybody looking in the mirror.

“I took the blame the first one,” he said of what was then a shocking 37-7 loss to Mississippi State two weeks ago. “I always look at myself first. We’ve got guys out there that are supposed to make plays that aren’t. We’ve got to look at leadership.

“I think it’s just a matter of we’ve got to get better. No excuses.”

He said he’d have to study the film hard, but he already had an inkling what he’ll see.

“We got beat on fundamentals tonight, blocking and tackling,” he said. “We’re not playing good as a team.”

It was pretty basic.

The Tigers’ patch-work offensive line couldn’t block the Trojans consistently and their defense got run over by a 235-pound truck named Jordan Chunn, who pounded them for 191 yards and touchdown, including the 74-yard straight-up-the-middle run that set up the touchdown that put Troy up 17-0 early in the fourth quarter.

“I saw too many holes tonight,” said Chubb. “I had a lot of options.”

As if LSU wasn’t playing badly enough, whatever could go wrong for the Tigers did.

They fumbled on the game’s first play to set up a Troy touchdown, missed on a short field goal on their best first-half drive, let the Trojans kick a bizarre field goal, gave up a 74-yard, up-the-middle run to fall behind 17-0 to open the third quarter and then lost a fumble at the Troy 7-yard line just when it looked as if they had some life in the third quarter.

Still, there was a chance. Somehow, the Tigers made a game of it, teasing an annoyed fan base.

Starting quarterback Danny Etling was knocked out of the game late in the first half and replaced by freshman Myles Brennan.

Brennan led LSU to its first touchdown in the third quarter on a 7-yard pass to Foster Moreau, but on the next series, with some momentum, he threw an interception. 

Etling came back in to throw a pair of fourth-quarter touchdown passes, 34 yards to Russell Gage and 20 yards to Moreau.

But it was too little too late.

“Danny got roughed up a little bit,” Orgeron said. “He could have started the second half, but we decided to give Brennan a chance.

“He did some good things … the interception was critical so we put Danny back in.”

The way the night went for the Tigers, somehow it seemed destined to end up being a three-point loss.

The point-difference in the game?

In a night of purple-and-gold ugliness, it turned bizarre at the end of the half when the clock had apparently run out with Troy leading 7-0.

But following the 20-yard Trojan gain to the LSU 20 with Troy out of timeouts, officials later ruled the clock should have stopped for the first down and 2 seconds were put back on the clock.

“I told them it was halftime, go in,” Orgeron said. “They said there was 2 seconds left.”

They had to summon both teams back on the field from their dressing rooms to watch Evan Legassey’s wounded duck field goal, which fluttered up before hitting the cross bar and bouncing through for three points.

Those three points came in handy for the Trojans after the Tigers woke up in the second half.

But LSU also missed a 35-yard field goal attempt by Jack Gonsulin it could have used late.

“Jack was perfect in practice on Thursday,” Orgeron said.

The tone was set early, when first-time starter at tailback Nick Brossette fumbling away on the game’s first play.

“If I could have had that call back, Darrell (Williams) would have gotten the ball,” Orgeron said.

It won’t get any easier. The Tigers take to the road next week to take on Florida.