The No. 23-ranked USC Trojans scored with 8 seconds left in the game to defeat No. 13 LSU 27-20 in a season opener Sunday night at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas.
LSU tied the game at 20 on a 31-yard Damian Rojas field goal with 1:47 left in the game.
After freshman Aeron Burrell, a former Parkway star, kicked the ball out of the end zone , the Trojans started at their 25.
Quarterback Miller Moss led the Trojans on an eight-play touchdown drive. He completed five passes, the last one a 20-yarder to Kyron Hudson to the LSU 27. A targeting penalty against Jardin Gilbert moved the ball to the 13.
Woody Marks then ran 13 yards for the go-ahead touchdown.
During his postgame press conference, an emotional LSU Head Coach Brian Kelly said penalties, including two personal fouls, and his team’s inability to put the game away when it got ahead were critical.
LSU had 10 penalties for 99 yards.
“This is the first time since I’ve been here that I’ve been pretty angry at my team,” he said at the start of the press conference. “The thing that is most concerning is the personal fouls, the penalties that are selfish. Both of them led to scores. They are undisciplined penalties. We take pride in running a disciplined program, but we have clearly not done a good enough job there because it impacted the game.”
LSU played from behind most of the game. The Tigers trailed 7-0, 10-7 and 13-10. The Tigers took their only lead at 17-13 on a 13-yard pass from Nussmeier to Aaron Anderson with 3:42 left in the third quarter.
With the defense getting stops, LSU had two possessions to extend the lead. On the first, the Tigers were forced to punt on fourth-and-3 from their 43 with 13:25 left in the game. On the second, they were again forced to punt after John Emery Jr. lost a yard on third-and-1 at the LSU 30 with 6:57 left.
It took the Trojans just three plays after that to regain the lead. Moss hit Ja’kobi Lane for 28-yard TD with 5:44 left.
“It’s clear that when we get up in a game we do not know how to handle ourselves,” Kelly said. “You’ve got to have a killer instinct in this game. You’ve got to put teams away. We had an opportunity to put this away. We get complacent. We make more mistakes. Instead of having a better focus and a steely-eyed killer instinct. And that’s disappointing.”
During his press conference, Kelly kept pointing out that in three possessions inside the 15, including their first drive of the game, the Tigers came away with just six points. On the first drive, the Tigers went 74 yards on 12 plays. But on fourth-and-goal from the 3, Nussmeier had to get rid of the ball quickly with a USC defender closing in on him and the pass fell incomplete.
LSU’s defense received much criticism last season. Kelly said they were better Saturday, but the Tigers didn’t play complementary football with the offense helping out defense and vice versa.
“We put our defense in a situation they weren’t ready to be in,” he said. “They’ve got warts and they’re not going away. They got better. They got better. But our offense needs to be better because we needed a score in those situations. And that’s just the way it needed to be. Coming up with just six points in three possessions inside the 15 is just not good enough. It’s unacceptable for us not to have found a way to win this football game. It’s crazy.”
Both Moss and Nussmeier made their first regular-season starts after being backups to Heisman Trophy winners.
Moss completed 27-of-36 passes for 378 yards and one touchdown with no interceptions. Nussmeier completed 29-of-38 for 304 yards and two touchdowns with one interception which came on the Tigers’ final offensive play.
“He did some really good things,” Kelly said. “He did enough for us to win the football game, but when we needed a couple plays, I think he would’ve liked a couple back. He’s going to be really good for us, and he’ll get better from today.”
After the Trojans took the 20-17 lead, LSU answered with a nine-play, 61-yard drive to tie it at 20 on Ramos’ field goal. The Tigers had a first down at the USC 16. Emery ran for 2 yards on first down and Nussmeier had consecutive incompletions to force the field goal.
Kyren Lacy had four receptions on the Tigers’ first drive. He finished with seven for 94 yards. Anderson had five for 64, including one of 41 yards. Tight end Mason Taylor had seven for 62.
LSU rushed for 117 yards on 26 attempts. Emery had a team-high 61 on 10. Kelly said he would’ve liked to have had more, but he thought the ground game set up other opportunities and was good enough to win.
After USC took the 7-0 lead, LSU tied it on a 19-yard pass from Nussmeier to Lacy’. He made a great catch, getting one foot down on the left side of the end zone. But Lacy got an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, forcing LSU to kick off from the 20. A 41-yard return led to a 22-yard Michael Lantz field goal and the 10-7 lead.
LSU tied it on a 45-yarder by Ramos. Lantz missed a 29-yard field goal on the final play of the first half with the score tied at 10. He kicked a 35-yarder in the third quarter to put USC on top 13-10.
LSU plays its home opener Saturday at 7:30 p.m. against Nicholls, which lost to Louisiana Tech 25-17 in its opener.