LSU's offense shines, defense falters in 34-31 win over Arkansas

For the fourth straight year, the Battle for the Boot was decided by a field goal, and for the third time in four years, LSU found themselves on the winning end.

Coming off a massacre of Mississippi State, the Tigers were looking to return home and prove to everyone they deserve to be a top-ten team by covering the 18-point spread against Arkansas. The offense did their part, but the defense looked like a shell of how they looked last weekend.

Let's start with the offense. It was a slow start, but once Jayden Daniels and the Tigers got clicking, they were nearly impossible to stop. Daniels went 20-29 with 320 yards and four touchdowns while Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas eclipsed 130 receiving yards and two touchdowns each.

"[Jayden Daniels] was out of rhythm. If you watch him a little bit, his drop was a little bit off and he was rushing into his throws. We kept reminding him about picking up his rhythm and being a lot quicker, which is how he played and has played. Once he was able to speed up his drop, he was in much better rhythm and it took off from there. His third quarter drive, was one of the best, if not the best, I mean, I can't remember a better drive."

Brian Kelly

After not scoring on their first three drives of the game, LSU finished scoring on their final six drives of the game, and they desperately needed every point they could get to pull this one out.

The Tigers defense did a pretty good job containing KJ Jefferson and Arkansas' run game, allowing 3.7 yards per carry throughout the game, but when it came down to the end of the game, the defense couldn't stop a nose bleed.

It felt like the Florida State game all over again. KJ Jefferson consistently found receivers underneath, over the middle and deep down field. In the second half, the Tigers secondary allowed four plays of 25+ passing yards and one was a 59 yard touchdown on a busted coverage.

The Tigers managed to hold the Razorbacks to 13 points in the first half, but in the second half, the Razorbacks mounted scoring drives of 75, 75 and 53 yards and nearly recapture the Battle of the Boot trophy.

Luckily, the LSU crowd bailed the Tigers defense out. In the second half, the crowd noise helped cause multiple false starts on key downs and forced Arkansas to use all of their timeouts very early in the second half. By wasting all their timeouts, it allowed the Tigers offense to run the clock all the way down to five seconds and kick the game winning field goal on the final drive of the game.

LSU has to travel to Ole Miss to face off with the Rebels high powered offense next Saturday. I'm confident the Tigers offense will be on point, but the defense is going to have to figure things out this week, because if they don't, they're going to find themselves in another shootout next week.