Vanderbilt Football Three Keys: LSU

Vanderbilt faces LSU on Saturday in Nashville. Here are your three keys to a Vanderbilt win over LSU.

Key 1 – Play clean ball

In the loss to Purdue, the Commodores were flagged for a rediculous over 150 yards. That’s on both the players and the coaches and, yes, some it was on the officials. Hopefully, the Commodore coaching staff took care of this problem during the bye week. Derek Mason’s teams normally do okay in the penalty area but there always seems to be one game that the Commodores get flagged for an enormous number of penalties. Those penalties kept Vanderbilt from having a chance to win at Purdue. Similar antics against LSU will result in a much worse beat-down.

Key 2 – Open it up early

Vanderbilt can’t waste an entire quarter trying to play Woody Hayes style ball offensively. It won’t work. Vandy should work to open up perimeter runs with the pass. Complete a few passes and then get Ke’Shawn Vaughn galloping through open space. Trying to run it up the middle against LSU will be like running into a brick wall. Also, why not throw in some trick play, fake punts or onside kicks? We saw some of this in the Georgia game. Good stuff. What do you have to lose other than the ball game? If you lose 63-3 or 10-9 it’s still a loss. Go all out for the win and make every second count.

Key 3 – Limit Joe Burrow

Tiger QB Joe Burrow is a seasoned veteran who is on a tear so far this season. Burrow has completed over 80% of his passes for 1,122 yards and 11 touchdowns. The Commodore secondary can’t make mistakes like leaping to the ball too early and allowing Burrow and LSU huge gains. The VU D-Line has to get some kind of pressure on Burrow as well or it will be a very long day.

Saturday‘s game kicks off at 11:00 AM CT (12:00 PM ET). Watch on the SEC Network.

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