LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier was 4 yards shy of a career passing yards night against Texas A&M.

It was the worst game of his career.

The 405 yards he threw for were offset by a career-high three interceptions, all of which led to A&M scores during the Aggies’ second-half comeback and a 38-23 A&M win.

“I’ve got to do a better job taking care of the football,” Nussmeier said. “I’ll own that. This one’s on me.”

Nussmeier, who staked LSU to a 17-7 halftime lead, has always had the reputation of a gunslinger, never meeting a throw he doesn’t think he can’t sneak past defenders.

But LSU head coach Brian Kelly disagreed with Nussmeier owning the blame, even though the trio of picks set up A&M for scoring drives of 8, 26 and 29 yards.

Kelly said he was more concerned about a running game, or lack thereof, that didn’t give Nussmeier many tools to work with.

The Tigers rushed for 24 yards on 23 carries.

Dig deeper and it looks worse. Toss out a Nussmeier scramble and the first two sacks against him in a month and half, and 14 of the Tigers’ 21 running plays gained 1 yard or less.

“We did not get the kind of production that would keep Garrett from having to stand on his freaking head and feeling like he has to make plays,” Kelly said. “I just don’t think we gave him enough balance within the offense, and it makes him vulnerable because he has to do so much.”

Sometimes, maybe too much.

Nussmeier was 6 of 14 for 174 yards and a scoring pass in the first half.

But the more the Tigers’ rushing game ran into an A&M wall, the less attention the Aggies paid to it and …

“They just pinned their ears back,” Kelly said. “It makes it hard in protections and identifying what you’re getting for pressures. It was a bit of all of that.”

It started to come apart midway through the third quarter when Nussmeier threw into coverage, from where the Aggies’ B.J. Mayes got the first of his two interceptions and returned it to the LSU 8-yard line. The Aggies scored on the next play.

“It’s a terrible feeling right now,” Nussmeier said. “Things went their way, I made a couple of mistakes and gave them short fields. I’ll beat myself up for that for a while.

“I was trying to give my guy a chance to make a play,” Nussmeier said of the first pick. “Second one, I left it short and the other one I got fooled and threw it right to a guy.”

The wonder of it all, perhaps, is that the Aggies’ pass rush got to him twice. He was harassed and on the run for most of the game, more and more as the Aggies surged ahead and the Tigers couldn’t produce a running game.

“We’ve got to help Garrett out more,” Kelly said. “You can’t make a living with 33 yards rushing. We’ve got to give him a more balanced offense. He can’t be the guy that’s got to throw for 365 yards …

“We need to build some balance so Garrett is not out there trying to make a play every flipping down, and that’s what we’ll work on.”