BATON ROUGE — So let’s set the scene here.

LSU had returned home Saturday night burdened with a three-game losing streak. The Tigers were dressed hideously in those yellow jerseys, perhaps in case they didn’t want to be recognized should they finish the night with the school’s first four-game losing streak this millennium, 1999 to be exact.

They’d had the predictable players-only meeting, some obligatory posturing to let a disgruntled fan base know they still cared.

It was a crystal clear day for  tailgating, but the cloud of Mssrs. Doom and Gloom still wafted over the entire campus. A  downtrodden fandom desperately needed something to take their minds off the latest debacle — the talk of the day was still the decommitment from LSU of prize recruit Bryce Underwood when he opted for Michigan on Thursday

“Yeah, the ‘noise’ was there,” head coach Brian Kelly said of the last four weeks from hell. “But you’re going to get noise at LSU when you lose three games in a row.”

He also maintained it had been a great week of practice, which was nothing new from him.

And then …

At game’s start, the LSU offense announced its new resolve by muddling through an indifferent three-and-out, then it took the Tigers’ defense exactly one Vanderbilt offensive play, 10 seconds to be exact, to blow another coverage and give up a wide open 63-yard touchdown pass.

Vanderbilt 7, LSU 0.

Yes, Vanderbilt. A much-improved Vanderbilt, perhaps, but still perceived as the cure to anything that ails a floundering SEC team. The Commodores hadn’t won a game in Tiger Stadium since 1951.

Crank up social media, the Tigers are at it again.

What else could go wrong? How low can this LSU program sink?

Speaking of programs, maybe it had the answer. Or punch line.

If you checked the keepsake game program, the cover photo featuring linebacker Whit Weeks, was flip-flopped. The backwards “LSU” on the jersey gave it away.

Can these guys do anything right?

With the quick 7-0 hole, right on cue, the student section, which had added fuel to this perceived dumpster fire by mildly booing quarterback Garrett Nussmeier in pregame introductions, now cranked up a more spirited chant of “Fire Kelly!”

At least there were no cuss words in it and their pleas offered no solution to Kelly’s $60 million buy-out.

But it certainly wasn’t the start that the players-only meeting was looking for.

More like, Here we go again …

So let’s check in with the embattled Kelly down on the sidelines.

Coach?

“I felt like we were going to overcome it,” he said later of his thoughts at the time. “I felt confident in our football team, that they were prepared, and that they were going to win this football game.”

He was probably a majority of one in Tiger Stadium, except that he insisted “I felt ‘that’ on the sideline” from his troops.

Oh, well, OK.

But, wonder of wonders, he was on to something.

There was some grit left in these Tigers after all.

They blocked, they tackled, they even ran the ball effectively, they played turnover-free and they didn’t wilt in front of another mobile quarterback, Vandy’s Diego Pavia. Meanwhile, it turned out that when you protect Nussmeier he can still carve you up for 337 yards passing.

So LSU won 24-17.

“They heard the noise out there,” Kelly said proudly. “They didn’t listen to it.”

Give them credit for that.

This little ray of hope won’t get LSU into the SEC championship game. It won’t get the Tigers anywhere near the College Football Playoff. It’s highly doubtful that Underwood will reconsider now and recommit his quarterback talents to the Tigers.

Still, if any team was in desperate need of a victory, any flavor victory, it was LSU Saturday night.

Maybe it wasn’t the most dominant performance the Tigers have ever fashioned.

“We made it a little bit harder than we had to,” Kelly said.

It certainly wasn’t the most efficient use of 417 yards of total offense to end up with just 24 points.

Never mind. Nothing comes easy for this bunch.

For a team that seemingly had forgotten how to “finish” games — Kelly’s biggest complaint the last month — maybe the most impressive drive of the night produced no points.

After Vanderbilt pulled to within the final 7-point margin with 5:57 on the clock, the Tigers ran out the remainder of the game with a 66-yard drive that stalled only when Nussmeier took a knee in the victory formation.

“That’s how you do it,” Kelly said.

Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics. Email him at scooter.hobbs@americanpress.com