New Mexico State Came to Death Valley
By: Dustin Nothnagel
Intern, Louisiana Gridiron Football
On Saturday, September 27, the LSU Tigers took on the New Mexico State Aggies in Tiger Stadium. With a fairly large crowd in attendance for a non-conference opponent, the Tigers had the opportunity to get back to their winning ways after dropping last week’s game to Mississippi State. Against the Aggies, LSU fans looked forward to the Tigers drive the ball up and down the field and put the game up early; unfortunately, the night did not go as planned.
Last week freshman quarterback Brandon Harris came into the game against Mississippi State during garbage time where he was able to engineer a marvelous comeback that fell 5 points short of something miraculous. During the Tiger’s week of preparation leading up to the New Mexico State game, many people were calling for Anthony Jennings’s job; the pressure was on Jennings to come out, perform well, and put New Mexico State away early. The first LSU drive of the game resulted in an Anthony Jennings fumble accompanied by a roar of ‘boos’. Unfortunately for Jennings, the night did not get much better. The offense, under Jennings’s direction, turned the ball over 4 times in the first quarter getting Tiger fans more impatient and disgruntled with every possession. Brandon Harris enters the game with a little more than 9 minutes left in the 2nd quarter with a 14-0 lead over the Aggies. Harris begins doing what LSU fans hoped he would and torches the Aggie defense. Brandon Harris led a touchdown drive on his first 7 possessions of the ball game, yes 7. The offense looked like a well-oiled machine under Harris’s direction.
Traveling to Auburn will be a tough test for LSU next week. Not only is Auburn a top-5 team, but it looks as though LSU will have a new starting quarterback who has never felt the intensity of playing in an SEC game. Will the spark Harris provides to the team be enough to lift LSU over Auburn?