BY BRANDON HUGHES
FOR THE OBSERVER
AUBURN — One week after knocking off No. 1 Georgia between the hedges in its biggest win in a decade, Auburn (4-3, 2-3) came home to Jordan-Hare Stadium and was bullied all over their own field by No. 18 LSU (6-2, 3-2), 38-17. They weren’t undone by a bounce or two. They were whipped at the line of scrimmage, whipped in the secondary, and whipped on the scoreboard.
How bad was the game for Auburn? Its best player statistically was its punter. Hudson Kaak punted seven times for a career-best 48.6-yard average, and his 69-yarder early in the second quarter pinned LSU at its own 5. But LSU QB Sam Leavitt promptly marched the visiting Tigers 95 yards in 14 plays, converting a fourth-and-2 from his own 31 along the way and capping it with a 15-yard touchdown pass to Trey’Dez Green. Auburn’s only takeaway of the afternoon — an Eric Winters interception near midfield — came on that drive, and replay erased it. It was the first game this season in which the Tigers didn’t force a turnover.
The offense kept Kaak busy. “Offensively, seven of 11 drives were four plays or less,” Alex Golesh said. “Between the sacks and the TFLs, there was close to 20 negatives there.” The drive chart backs him up. LSU logged 12 tackles for loss, seven of them sacks, and Auburn lost 66 yards on running plays alone. The Tigers’ 67-rushing yards and 1.9 yards per carry were both season lows for a team that came in averaging 182 yards per game on the ground. This was against an LSU defense that allowed 325 rushing yards in its previous two games and a week after Auburn rushed for more yards than any SEC team had in Georgia’s Sanford Stadium since 2013. On Auburn’s three scoring drives, the offense averaged 11.6 plays and 68 yards. On its eight other possessions, the offense averaged 3.8 plays and 6.5 yards.
The second quarter is where it got away. LSU piled up 21 points and 244 yards in those 15 minutes, and the cruelest stretch came at the end. Byrum Brown’s 1-yard run with 5:42 left pulled Auburn within 17-10, and for a moment it looked like a game again. It lasted 73 seconds.
On third-and-5 from his own 30, Leavitt found Jackson Harris over the middle, and Harris did the rest on a 70-yard catch-and-run. Auburn went three-and-out, and Leavitt’s 4-yard keeper with 17 seconds left sent LSU to the locker room up 31-10, having scored on five of its six first-half possessions.
“That 14-point swing, it’s hard to come out of,” Golesh said. “You have the fight, and you showed that [at Georgia], but like I said last week, you can’t live like that. That’s a really miserable place to live.”
Leavitt finished 32-of-45 for 387 yards and three touchdowns without an interception, and added 54 rushing yards. Harris caught nine passes for 178 yards and two scores. LSU’s 552 yards of offense were the most any opponent has managed against Auburn this season and the most the Tigers have given up at home since allowing 556 yards to Ole Miss in 2015. LSU produced 17 explosive plays on offense and went 5-for-5 in the red zone, making Auburn’s opponents 20-for-21 inside the 20 this year and putting Auburn 129th nationally in red zone defense, ahead of only Alabama in the SEC Golesh didn’t spare his defense, citing the fourth downs, the scrambles allowed on second-down throws and “not having some edges,” before landing on the fundamental: “I didn’t think we tackled anywhere near where you have to have a chance to win.” Linebacker Elijah Melendez put it more simply. “Definitely not the standard to our defense,” he said. Cornerback Champ Anthony was more direct: “We look great as a team when we execute. And then of course, you look like expletive when you don’t.”
LSU tried to give Auburn an opening. On the first drive of the second half, the visitors were flagged five times for 40 yards, at one point facing third-and-35 before punting on fourth-and-30.
That drive still burned 7:31 off the clock. Auburn had the ball for all of 4:16 in the third quarter and managed only 20 yards on eight plays. LSU came into the game outscoring opponents 89-17 in the third quarter, but the Auburn defense kept LSU out of the end zone.
Backup QB Tristan Ti’a provided the only second-half points for the host Tigers, going 5-of-6 through the air and scoring his first career rushing touchdown on a 7-yard keeper with 24 seconds left. It made the scoreboard more respectable than the game itself.
“We’ve had the highs of highs so far, and that would be the low of lows,” Golesh said.
Cornerback Rayshawn Pleasant offered the more useful perspective. “We were just here about three weeks ago,” he said, a nod to the Tennessee loss that preceded the Georgia upset. They responded then, and they have to do it again. Auburn’s next opponent, Ole Miss, averages 433 yards per game, so the Tigers’ offense will need to show up. If Auburn is going to win in Oxford, it had better be a quiet afternoon for the punter.
By the Numbers
- Kaak’s 69-yard punt was the longest by an Auburn punter since Oscar Chapman’s 71-yarder against Georgia on Sept. 30, 2023.
- First SEC road win for LSU since beating Arkansas on October 19, 2024.
- Between Florida and LSU, the Auburn defense has allowed 82 points and 1,047 yards of offense in Jordan-Hare Stadium this season.
Up next
Away versus Ole Miss at 11:45 on the SEC Network.
