LSU's offense on fire, but the Tigers' defense is still missing-in-action

NASHVILLE – It’s ironic in the midst of the greatest early-season offensive explosion in LSU football history that the Tigers actually need all the points they can muster to win.

The SEC’s highest scoring offense, behind quarterback Joe Burrow’s school-record six touchdown passes, detonated another scoreboard Saturday, this one at Vanderbilt in LSU’s league-opening 66-38 victory.

“We’re starting to see we can do this every game against every team,” said Burrow, who was 25-of-34 for 398 passing yards with 16 of the completions for first downs or touchdowns. “That’s who we are as an offense. We’re going to try and score every time. We’re going to throw the ball around."

A program starved for offense now has one averaging 57.8 points and 563.5 yards en route to a 4-0 record and a No. 4 national ranking heading into an open date.

The Brady Bunch offense, which went for 599 yards on Vandy, is a dream from which Tigers’ fans hope they never awaken. Watching another Burrow masterpiece is becoming commonplace.

LSU’s 28 first-quarter points came off just 15 plays on four straight possessions for a combined 4:15 time of possession.

“Fantastic plays being called, fantastic plays being made, receivers running wide open, winning one-on-ones,” LSU coach Ed Orgeron said.

There’s the group of playmaking receivers who refuse to drop passes like Ja’Marr Chase. He magically turned every Burrow throw he grabbed into a highlight reel memory with 10 catches for 229 yards, including TDs of 64, 25, 51 and 16 yards.

“We worked on a lot of timing routes on Thursday,” Chase said. “I think it translated to the game today. We practice that (the over-the-middle) routes every day.”

Burrow said the ball happened to go to Chase mostly because he was getting open quicker than the other receivers with Burrow having to throw faster under pressure.

“He was all right today, wasn’t he?” Burrow deadpanned of Chase. “That’s one of the better performances I’ve ever seen. Nobody could cover him. He got open on just about every play.”

The running game came alive with a season-high 181 yards, led by Clyde-Edwards Helaire who ran for 106 yards. He scored a TD but also fumbled a handoff that Vanderbilt fell on for a gift touchdown just before halftime.

“We knew that we could run the ball at will,” Edwards-Helaire said. “I was never worried that we couldn’t.”

Tigers’ special teams continue to be money. Kickoff kicker Avery Atkins was 11-for-11 (38-of-40 for the season) on touchbacks, placekicker Cade York didn’t miss a kick (nine extra points and a 25-yard field goal), punter Zach Von Rosenberg had three of four punts that weren’t returnable and Micah Baskerville scored a TD after he blocked a Vanderbilt punt shortly after he almost scored on Vandy’s onsides kickoff to open the second half.

“He (Baskerville) should have scored two touchdowns,” Burrow said with a laugh. “He’s always telling us what a great high school running back he was.”

But LSU’s defense, usually its strength because of a secondary filled with alleged NFL prospects, continues to be sub-par.

It allowed the SEC’s worst offense, both in scoring and yardage, to post 379 yards and the second most points ever scored by Vandy in its 31-game series against LSU.

Again, as in previous weeks, the Tigers’ pass rush was spotty and there were too many missed tackles.

Yes, there were starters sitting out healing injuries. LSU was basically playing with a second-team D-line.

But if you’re a championship-caliber defense with highly-recruited talent, the “next man up” battlecry is supposedly reality and not a bunch of talk.

“We put players on the field, we expect them to fight like Tigers,” Orgeron said. “There’s no excuse to jump out of the gap or miss tackles. We have to be more disciplined, no matter who’s out there playing for us.”

With LSU’s SEC gauntlet three Saturdays away after next Saturday’s open date and a final non-conference game against Utah State, time is becoming scarce to fix the problems.

Will the return of injured starters such K’Lavin Chaisson, Glen Logan, and Rashard Lawrence solve some of the deficiencies? The LSU defense was at full strength for the Texas game two weeks ago and the Tigers still allowed 31 second-half points against a quality offense in a 45-38 win.

The point is LSU is just a game away from facing the SEC’s better offenses. On Saturday, it gave up way too many points to an inferior offense.

At Texas where the temperatures were more than 100 degrees on the artificial turf field, fatigue was a problem for LSU. At Vanderbilt where it was warm but not unbearable, LSU’s defense didn’t have the heat exhaustion excuse.

Is the uptempo style LSU plays putting the Tigers’ defense back on the field with little rest?

Or is it the fact maybe we’re all not used to understanding that maybe a pinball offense produced pinball scores results in games where defenses look lost.

Are we to the point that this is the norm in shootouts and maybe LSU fans aren’t used to it?

Orgeron doesn’t believe any of that.

“Staying in your gap has nothing to do with being tired,” he said. “Missing tackles has nothing to do our offense playing fast. We can’t make excuses.

“There are some specific drills in practice I want to talk to (defensive coordinator) Dave (Aranda) about. We need to do more open field tackle drills.”

Orgeron is thankful for next week’s open date. It’s time for healing injuries and making adjustments, especially since Orgeron hinted that wide receiver Terrace Marshall and inside linebacker Michael Divinity Jr. had significant injuries and will be out for awhile and maybe for the season.

It’s time to tinker with the motor, because LSU has to be firing on all cylinders when Florida visits Tiger Stadium on Oct. 12.