After his decision to go for it on fourth down paid off, coach Lane Kiffin smiled and did a quick Sign of the Cross.
The first-year LSU coach looked relieved. Sam Leavitt’s errant first-down throw hadn’t been intercepted after all, and the trick play that offensive coordinator Charlie Weis Jr. dialed up on fourth down had fooled the Auburn defense, which allowed the visiting Tigers to stay on the field and score a pivotal touchdown on Saturday in their 38-17 win.
The early second-quarter drive had to rise from the dead before it entered the end zone.
Had Auburn safety Eric Winters secured Leavitt’s errant throw and not let the ball hit the ground on the second play of the eventual 14-play, 95-yard drive, he would have given the Auburn offense a short field and a chance to tie the game 10-10.
Instead, LSU ran two more plays, dialed up some deception on fourth-and-2 from its own 31-yard line and marched 58 more yards for a touchdown that gave it a 17-3 lead. Leavitt found tight end Trey’Dez Green for both the fourth-down conversion and the score.
“If it didn’t work,” Kiffin said, “everybody would be saying, ‘The defense is playing really well. Why did you do that?’ That was actually against the book.”
Kiffin said that punting would’ve been the analytically sound decision to make at that moment. His numbers told him he should leave his offense on the field in that situation only if it needed to pick up 1 yard — not 2.
“I don’t know,” Kiffin said, “I just really felt good about our matchups in this game, how our offense was coming into the game and just felt like there were gonna be some situations where I told myself we’re gonna err on the side of being aggressive and put it on our players.”
One of those players, Leavitt, nearly threw away the drive, but that pass was his only mistake of the day. The redshirt junior carved up Auburn, completing a career-high 32 passes for a career-high 387 yards and three touchdowns. For the second straight week, Leavitt did not turn the ball over … after replay reversed the initial ruling on his errant throw.
On the crucial fourth down, running back Dilin Jones took a direct snap in the shotgun and handed the ball off to Leavitt, who faked a toss to receiver Winston Watkins and floated a pass to Green in the flat for an 11-yard gain.
Earlier in the season in LSU’s loss to Kentucky, Kiffin controversially passed on a chance to convert a fourth-and-1 near midfield with a chance to secure the win. And earlier against Auburn, he had punted on fourth-and-2 from the LSU 36.
The one Kiffin actually tried to pick up was 5 yards closer to his own end zone, and the numbers told him not to do it.
That is likely part of the reason why the LSU coach acknowledged a higher power after his offense picked up the first down.
