CLEMSON, S.C. — It had come to this: To avoid a spectacular triple flop, the Southeastern Conference needed a team that hadn’t won its season opener since 2019 to step up on the road, against a top five opponent, and after trailing by a touchdown at halftime.
LSU came through.
For the first time under Brian Kelly, the Tigers are 1–0. They dominated Clemson in the second half of a 17–10 slugfest, showcasing a defense that is vastly improved from the porous units of the past two seasons. The nation’s No. 9 team ran the ball well enough to control the clock, finishing with 14 minutes and 20 seconds more possession time. They were more than big enough to meet the moment.
“We’re the LSU Fightin’ Tigers,” said linebacker Whit Weeks. “We’re going to play with some swagger.”
LSU’s swagger helped make up for the downright meek performances earlier in the day by two other Top 10 SEC teams, Texas and Alabama. The No. 1 Longhorns were utterly futile offensively against Ohio State in a 14–7 slog in the Horseshoe. And then the No. 8 Crimson Tide turned in another in a series of embarrassing performances under second-year coach Kalen DeBoer, losing by two touchdowns to rebuilding underdog Florida State.
Give the SEC credit for doing what the Big Ten did not—going on the road in Week 1 to play power-conference competition. But for a league that is extremely secure in its superiority complex, the first two big tests Saturday were dismal failures.
Texas never led against Ohio State, and didn’t score for the first 56.5 minutes as new starting quarterback Arch Manning performed well beneath expectations. (Manning was done no favors by his head coach and play-caller, Steve Sarkisian, who called a timid and arrhythmic game.)
Alabama led for a total of 3:06 in Tallahassee before falling behind by double digits at halftime and 17 points in the third quarter. The Tide are now 1–3 in their last four games and 5–5 in their last 10, which is unfathomable. And perhaps untenable.
For much of the night here at Death Valley East, LSU appeared ready to complete the SEC trifecta of terrible. The Bayou Tigers didn’t lead until the fourth quarter, conjuring up memories of opening losses to USC (last year), Florida State (2022 and ’23), UCLA (’21) and Mississippi State (’20).
Down 10–3 heading into the locker room at intermission, Kelly said he saw a stat on the scoreboard that said Dabo Swinney was 155–11 when leading at halftime. His thought at the time: “Well, it’s going to be 12. But we’ve got to do something about it.”
LSU did something about it by showing poise, resilience and a renewed toughness in the trenches to take over. It held Clemson to 31 rushing yards, its fewest since the middle of the 2023 season, forcing the Tigers to abandon the running game.
Kelly’s offseason points of emphasis all showed major improvement Saturday night. His team was ready for opening night.
“Look, people build up the first game to a level of craziness,” said Kelly, who nevertheless put more emphasis on this opener than he had in recent seasons. “I mean, look at the quarterbacks that are under incredible scrutiny. So I just think that in this business you really have to stay focused on what your job is. And my job is to bring a football team on the road, play with great confidence and composure and compete their tails off for four quarters. That’s my job. Not to worry about what other people say or do. I get it, it’s out there, but they didn’t put me in this position to worry about those things.”
One of the things Kelly worried about in the offseason was getting better via the transfer portal. That showed up on the offensive line and in the secondary.
After having four linemen drafted, LSU grabbed center Braelin Moore from Virginia Tech and Josh Thompson from Northwestern to solidify that group. They did a capable job against a highly touted Clemson defensive front, both blocking for the running game and giving Garrett Nussmeier time to throw.
Defensively, cornerback Mansoor Delane, another transfer from Virginia Tech who is part of a refurbished secondary, had an interception and a pass breakup in his first LSU game. He was awarded a game ball.
“We have the depth, the competitive depth, that allows us to compete at a high level and to plug some pretty big holes in the units, both sides,” Kelly said.
And the return of linebacker Harold Perkins Jr., was a factor Saturday. Perkins, who had a season-ending knee injury four games into the 2024 campaign, was a major presence in the Clemson backfield. He had a sack and applied the pressure on quarterback Cade Klubnik to force an errant throw that ended the game.
“Harold is coming on,” Kelly said. “I mean, he’s healthy. He’s at a position that has been one where he’s had success and [defensive coordinator] Blake [Baker] can utilize him now as the player that he is.”
The SEC thumped its chest all offseason about strength of schedule, helping push the College Football Playoff selection committee into tweaking its evaluation criteria. That’s all well and good, but you still have to win some of those games against quality opponents. The SEC put one skin on the wall Friday night when Auburn won at Baylor, but then Texas and Alabama did their part to negate that from the league’s cumulative résumé.
An LSU loss at Clemson, while hardly a disqualifier in terms of the playoff, would have been another blow to SEC pride and power rankings. Instead, the Tigers rallied to win a game that should help their playoff hopes significantly.
Kelly was hired away from Notre Dame to get LSU back to national title contention after Ed Orgeron couldn’t sustain the magic of 2019. To date, Kelly had been good but not great—a lot of schools would take a 29–11 mark over three years. But the Tigers want to be a consistent playoff program, and after missing the first 12-team field, the urgency is there for this year.
For one week, at least, LSU is the SEC’s top playoff contender. That’s both a compliment to them and a condemnation of a couple other teams from that league that flopped Saturday.
