Where Does LSU Football Go After 48-11 Loss to Auburn

LSU players, Orgeron react to sting of blowout loss, what needs to happen for dramatic improvement

Perhaps center Liam Shanahan put Saturday’s performance best when he said “we just got punched in the mouth.” It was a game that, for one quarter at least, seemed on track to follow the script of past LSU-Auburn matchup, a low scoring, defensive back and forth.

But that quickly went out the window as Auburn jumped out to a 21-3 lead built all in the second quarter and never looked back.

"When it rains it pours and it just seemed like in the second half it really got out of hand really quick," Shanahan said. 

The sting of losing the way that LSU did is tough on Shanahan and everyone in the LSU locker room. But the goal is to not let it trickle down into the preparation over the next two weeks in advance of the Tigers' most daunting opponent of the season. 

"We just got embarrassed on a national stage,” Shanahan said. "But we're gonna get back on the film and correct what we need to. We'll have to really take advantage of that time and see what we can do from there."

Linebacker Jabril Cox agreed with Shanahan's assessment as the defense once again found itself surrendering over 500 yards of offense en route to the blowout loss. After showing some signs of promise in the first quarter, the defense was absolutely outplayed at the end of the quarter and the entire second half. 

"After a loss like this, it hurts but you can't dwell on this," Cox said. "We have to put this in the past and let this sit in and just know and just not let the feeling we have in this game carry on into the next two weeks.

"We have to keep making strides. We showed some promise early in the game of getting stops but we can't have just one quarter of good defense. We need to do it for four quarters."

With another bye week in front of the Tigers before facing Alabama, there is the lingering question of just what can this team fix that hasn't already been addressed. On offense, the inconsistent running game and third downs have been issues that have flared up all season.

Defensively, the lack of concentration, missed assignments and confusion seem to be issues that aren't going away. LSU coach Ed Orgeron said the team will have to get back into the film room and dissect what's really going wrong but a lack of consistency seems to be the only consistent part of this team five games in.

"We have to play with consistency and obviously get better at a lot of things," Orgeron said. "We've gotta fix things we can, we've gotta be constructive, gotta be positive and identify the problem and come up with a solution."