Scooter Hobbs

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Ed Orgeron doesn’t really subscribe to the theory that anyone deserves a break, let alone his struggling LSU football team.

“I just knew we needed a break,” he said after an up-and-down and often frustrating day at Razorback Stadium.

No need to beg.

At least he can say the Tigers made their own good fortune in rallying late and then holding on to beat Arkansas 27-24 Saturday for their first win in almost a month.

“Grit,” Orgeron said of a day when not everything went right. “Will to win. (They’re like,) ‘Coach, we got this.’ Everybody stayed together.”

So there Orgeron was on the sideline watching Arkansas line up for a potential tying field goal in the final 1:30, thinking “We need this win.”

Block it, just block it, he thought. Or miss it.

And that’s when an unlikely goatto-hero Jay Ward stepped forward to put away the Hogs (3-5).

“He made a big play at the end, even though earlier in the game he had a couple of struggles,” Orgeron said.

Two of them, actually.

The backup cornerback made amends for several torchings when he batted away Razorbacks quarterback Felipe Franks’ third-down pass to force the field goal attempt.

But he was in his element for the kick, knifing in from the left side to graze just enough of A.J. Reed’s 44-yard attempt to send it fluttering harmlessly into the end zone.

LSU’s bench exploded and spilled onto the field.

“He hung in there, man,” Orgeron said. “Jay’s a tough young man. On our kick-block team, he’s always flying around the corner.

“We needed that win.”

With the block, TJ Finley’s 13-yard touchdown pass to Jaray Jenkins with 3:59 to play held up as the winner — itself a testament to preserverance.

The play was set up by a targeting penalty against Arkansas freshman safety Jalen Catalon.

LSU (3-3), which ran 91 plays, dominated time of possession but had a pair of promising second-half drives sabotaged by holding calls and another by a fumble.

Just moments before Finley scrambled around to find Jenkins, he thought he’d connected with Tyrion Davis-Price for a score but it was ruled incomplete and upheld after review.

“I thought it was a touchdown,” said Davis-Price, who ran for 104 yards and scored on a 1-yard run. “But we came out with the ‘W,’ that’s all that really matters.

“We just kept fighting.”

LSU controlled the ball on the ground against a Arkansas defensive front depleted by a COVID spike. Finley was 27 of 42 for 271 yards and also threw a 30-yard touchdown pass to Racey McMath in the first half.

“He’s got ice in his veins,” Orgeron said of Finley. “That’s the way he practices. Overall, he showed that he can win a big game at the end.”

“Great feeling,” Davis-Price said. “It’s like we haven’t won a game in a while. I hate losing. We stuck with each other and came out with the win. We’re very happy.”

Of course, the defense had to preserve it — and that was looking questionable after the already-shaky secondary lost both starting cornerbacks, Eli Ricks and Derek Stingley.

Ricks was ejected in the first half for a targeting call. Stingley took a shot to his own head on a punt return that sidelined him for most of the second half.

After an encouraging start the LSU defense reverted to form and gave up five passes of 50 yards or longer from Franks, plus a 29-yard run.

“Obviously we’ve got to play better one-on-one coverage,” Orgeron said of a seasonlong snafu. “But we made a play at the end.

“We had less mental errors than we have all season,” Orgeron said. “Really happy with us setting the edge. For the most part we kept the ball inside. We didn’t get outrun to the corner like we had been.

“It took all three — offense, defense and special teams.”

LSU carted off and took back home the mounstrous “Boot,” the game’s trophy, after beating the Razorbacks for a fifth consecutive time.

More importantly, was a much-needed victory after a trying month, mostly recently a 48-11 loss at Auburn.

“We had a bad taste in our mouth since our last game, and it’s been three weeks,” said linebacker Jabril Cox, whose interception return to the 1-yard line set up the Tigers’ first touchdown. “We wanted this one bad.

“We had a great week of practice. It was time for us to get the fun out of it.”LSU receiver Racey McMath celebrates after a 30-yard touchdown catch in front of Arkansas’ Hudson Clark during the second quarter Saturday in Fayetteville, Ark.

Associated Press