Written by Ted Lewis at The Advocate.com
Maybe there’s another team in the country that can beat Alabama.
Maybe Clemson? Maybe Michigan? Maybe Washington? How about Auburn?
Maybe none of the above or anyone else.
LSU’s best efforts, at least defensively, certainly weren’t enough in Saturday’s 10-0 loss to the top-ranked Crimson Tide at Tiger Stadium.
“You come in here with the noise and the emotion and the music has you jumping around and everything,” said Bama sophomore safety Minkah Fitzpatrick, whose fourth-quarter interception of Danny Etling at the Tide 43 ended any LSU comeback effort. “I loved it. And then go out and do what we did is a tribute to our whole team. We’ve been feeling this way for the last two weeks, and we kept our focus the whole night.”
What the Tide defense did was hold LSU to 125 yards. The Tigers had but one first down in the second half, and it didn’t come until the fourth quarter.
As it did last year, Alabama made things tough on LSU running back Leonard Fournette.
Fournette had 17 carries, all but five in the first half, for 44 yards. He was dropped for losses four times, and his longest gain was for but 9 yards as the Alabama defensive front consistently beat the LSU offensive line to the punch, giving Fournette little room.
The Tide also put constant pressure on Etling, sacking him five times and forcing him into making early and/or awkward throws.
Etling did have a 41-yard completion to D.J. Chark in the first quarter. But that was followed by Fournette being dropped for a 5-yard loss and two incompletions by Etling, who finished 11 of 24.
Those 41 yards were 33 percent of the night’s output for the Tigers.
“You can’t ask much more from a defense than that,” said Tide coach Nick Saban, who has now beaten his former employer six straight times with no end — other that perhaps his retirement (Saban turned 65 on Halloween) — in sight. “The guys had a great week of practice, and then they came in here and executed it tonight.”
To be sure, the LSU defense wasn’t bad.
The Tigers kept a Saban team from scoring in the first half for the first time since 2007, his first year in Tuscaloosa. They added another zero in the third quarter before finally surrendering a touchdown and a field goal in the fourth.
But when you’re going against a defense like Alabama’s, even that’s not enough.
The Tigers were shut out at home for the first time since 2002 — when Saban was the Tigers’ coach and Alabama did the blanking 31-0.
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