LSU blasts Auburn

BATON ROUGE, La. — Pick your favorite LSU-themed cliche. Any and all will likely work to describe what happened to Auburn on Saturday at Death Valley.

Bayou beatdown.

Death Valley disaster.

Tiger bait.

LSU 31, Auburn 10 was all of that.

“They have a lot of great players,” defensive end Antonio Coleman said. “We couldn’t stop them.”

Don’t be fooled by the double-digit point total — the Tiger offense was even worse than it appeared on paper.

Philip Lutzenkirchen’s 1-yard touchdown catch from Neil Caudle came with 3 seconds to play, LSU’s second- or third-team defense on the field and roughly a quarter of the 92,654 fans still inside Tigers Stadium.

“They beat us in just about every phase of the football game,” coach Gene Chizik said. “From the beginning to the end and probably everywhere in between.”

The Bengal Tigers left already-reeling Auburn a bungled mess.

Auburn has now lost three straight games after its 5-0 start and has sunk toward the bottom half of the SEC West with its 2-3 conference record.

Whatever silver linings were taken from the Tigers’ two previous losses — the second-half resilience against Arkansas, the strong overall effort from the defense in the Kentucky game — were nowhere to be found in Auburn’s most lopsided loss since the 2008 Iron Bowl.

Offensively, though, is where you’ll find the most concerns.

The Tigers gained their third consecutive season low in total yards of offense with 193 — only 42 in the first half — and notched their fourth consecutive season low in points.

Chris Todd was even worse than he’s been in his past two starts, completing just eight passes for 47 yards with an interception and a fumble. His feet were jittery from the start, and his check-downs resulted in nothing more than blank stares, as a number of his designed passes turned into tuck-and-runs.

His status as Auburn’s starting quarterback is now much more ambiguous than it was this time last week, when Chizik said “we’ve named our starting quarterback,” following the Kentucky loss.

“We’ll look at everything,” Chizik said. “I know that’s on some people’s minds, but it’s the whole offense. The whole offense right now has been unproductive …

You can’t pin that on one guy. Not the last time I checked.

“We’re going to re-evaluate everything.”

There was nary a moment Auburn was ever in Saturday’s game, a 180-degree shift from recent history, which has been highlighted by nip-and-tuck contests that have often come down to the last play of the game.

Trindon Holliday’s baseball slide on Auburn’s game-ending pooch kick was an indicative sign that this wasn’t your typical LSU-Auburn grudge match.

It was 7-0 after LSU’s first offensive series and 14-0 at the end of the first quarter, 15 minutes that will either be painstakingly analyzed for what went wrong or simply thrown in the trash and not spoken of again.

The Tigers mustered just 32 yards of offense on 15 plays and punted twice. The Tigers’ defense, meanwhile, gave up 35of the Tigers’ 59 first-quarter penalty yards on LSU’s first drive of the game, which ended in a 14-yard touchdown pass from Jordan Jefferson to Terrance Toliver.

Jefferson quickly turned around a Todd fumble near the end of the first quarter, running in 15 yards for a touchdown to bury Auburn even farther.

A Gus Malzahn-coached offense had never been held scoreless in the first half until Saturday. Amid last year’s historic offensive woes, the Tigers went into the half scoreless just twice.

“Obviously, we know the offense can be very, very productive,” Chizik said. “It has been for us in several games this year, and we need to get back on the right track.”

LSU’s touchdowns on two of its first three possessions to start the second half ended any longshot chance of a magical Auburn comeback.

Now, with Ole Miss, Georgia and No. 1 Alabama left on the schedule, the Tigers have to rekindle some of that early-season magic to avoid a second consecutive second-half collapse.

“We’ve got a lot of work to do,” Coleman said, “and a short time to do it.”

First quarter
8:21 LSU 7, Auburn 0: Terrance Toliver 14-yard pass from Jordan Jefferson. (Josh Jasper kick.) Drive: 8 plays, 83 yards, 3:30. Key play: Auburn had three penalties on the drive, including two 15-yarders. Out of the 83 yards LSU gained, 35 came on AU penalties.

1:10 LSU 14, Auburn 0: Jordan Jefferson 15-yard run. (Jasper kick.) Drive: 3 plays, 16 yards, 1:21. Key play: Auburn QB Chris Todd was sacked by LSU’s Harry Coleman and fumbled the ball, which was recovered by Danny McCray at the AU 16-yard line.

Second quarter
0:09 LSU 17, Auburn 0: Josh Jasper 32-yard field goal. Drive: 6 plays, 21 yards, 1:33. Key play: Auburn punt returner Phillip Pierre-Louis muffed a punt at his own 36-yard line to give LSU the ball back before halftime.

Third quarter
13:41 LSU 24, Auburn 0: Brandon LaFell 17-yard pass from Jordan Jefferson. (Jasper kick.) Drive: 4 plays, 45 yards, 1:15. Key play: Auburn decided to pooch kick the second-half kickoff. LSU returned it to the AU 45. Then on third-and-8 from the 43, AU gave up a 26-yard pass.

9:21 LSU 24, Auburn 3: Wes Byrum 24-yard field goal. Drive: 9 plays, 53 yards, 4:20. Key Play: Eric Smith caught a 17-yard pass to put Auburn down at the LSU 7-yard line.

1:09 LSU 31, Auburn 3: Russell Shepard 69-yard run. (Jasper kick.) Drive: 2 plays, 75 yards, 0:52. Key play: Shepard went untouched to the end zone, resulting in LSU’s longest TD run since Nov. 10, 2007.

Fourth quarter
LSU 31, Auburn 10: Philip Lutzenkirchen 1-yard pass from Neil Caudle. (Byrum kick.) Drive: 8 plays, 59 yards, 2:16. Key play: True freshman Emory Blake made his first catch of his career for 16 yards to put AU in the red zone.