LSU Tigers

Ole Miss Played Dirty, And The LSU Tigers Handled It Beautifully

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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The LSU Tigers picked up their third straight win last night over the Ole Miss Rebels in Baton Rouge by a final score of 38-21. The team improves to 5-2 and remains undefeated under interim head coach Ed Orgeron.

The defense looked fantastic in the second half, Leonard Fournette reminded the entire country just how good is he, and the Tiger offense continued to show its explosiveness under their new coaching staff. Despite turning the ball over three times, LSU was still able to dominate a very talented Ole Miss team, and that’s very encouraging as they go into this week’s game against Alabama.

We saw a lot of great things from the Tigers in Saturday’s win, but I want to take a minute to talk about something you likely did not notice with all of the other game action going on.

Throughout the entire game, the Rebels consistently appeared to be trying to get under the skin of LSU players. They were doing everything they could to start fights, whether it was shoving after the play or nonstop jawing, Ole Miss players would not let up in their attempt to initiate a brawl with the Tigers.

The problem came mostly from the Rebel defense, but I guess when Leonard Fournette is gashing you for 50+ yards at a time you have to revert to some pretty pathetic measures to attempt to get a stop. But for whatever their reasons were, the defense would not let up. After nearly every other play you could see an Ole Miss player shoving or walking alongside an LSU player spewing nonsense at him.

In just about any other instance, one team doing the cowardly things we saw from Ole Miss would certainly have led to an all-out, benches clearing brawl. But to their credit, LSU did not let it affect their actions whatsoever. They remained cool and collected, played the game the right way, and went about accomplishing the task at hand.

You have to give a huge hand to this team and head coach Ed Orgeron for the way it handled the situation. Coach O refused to let his team fall to their level, keeping his team focused on what they came to do. Ole Miss may not have been playing for much last night, but LSU’s season is still very much alive. The Tigers did not need a fight, they needed a win, and it’s to their credit that they did not let the Rebels draw them into a shoving match.