The most satisfying LSU opener in recent memory—since it would turn into a national championship—came an unfathomable seven years ago today.

“I wanted 60 tonight,” Joe Burrow would say after the game. “We’ve definitely come out of the stone age.”

On August 31, 2019, LSU had just beaten Georgia Southern 55-3, scoring touchdowns on its first five possessions. Burrow threw five touchdowns before halftime, and fourteen Tigers caught passes during the game.

Fourteen receivers.

At LSU.

ESPN color analyst Kirk Herbstreit, one week later after the Texas game, would marvel.

“LSU blew my mind with its offensive approach and performance of Joe Burrow. It was a very, very drastic change for LSU to try to become an offensive team and an attacking team.”

It was definitely a night to remember, and we will be looking forward to Texas’ return trip, finally, to Death Valley.

Welcome, then, to Mike Check, which will typically fall on Mondays. We’ll try to keep the excitement, maybe look back at some history, and leave a little room for whatever the next Saturday for LSU football might look like.

All whilst trying to live and inspire the message that, at the end of the day, it’s just a football game.

The Openers

Certainly, Georgia Southern wasn’t Texas yet, and it certainly wasn’t Alabama. But the spread, no-huddle offense under Steve Ensminger and Joe Brady gave us something beyond the usual opening-night complaints about wasted talent. LSU was spreading the ball around like the old run-and-shoot teams, trusting its quarterback, making the passing game look dominant instead of an occasional pause pressed among a dozen toss dives or unimaginative jet sweeps.

By January, the Tigers had finished 15-0 and beaten Clemson 42-25 for the national championship. The opener had shown us something legitimate, something that proved to be the authentic mettle of this team. The rest of the season, spectacularly, had confirmed that August 31 night.

I haven’t always been willing to wait that long myself.

On September 4, 2022, before Brian Kelly’s debut against Florida State, I wrote “It’s Sunday Night In the Superdome!”, looking ahead to a return to championship relevance. My heart wanted Garrett Nussmeier at quarterback; my head favored Jayden Daniels. I compared Kelly’s demands to the competence of a Saban-run program and assured readers that the offensive line would be fine.

“Kelly is a winner, always has been,” I wrote.

Reading it now, I recognize the fan doing some of the writer’s work, taking reasons for optimism and making them sound a little too much like promises.

My head may have wanted Daniels and got him, but my fan heart was writing that article.

LSU lost that opener in abysmal fashion, capping a frustrating 24-23 loss with a blocked extra point that would have tied the game late. Yet Kelly’s first team recovered to win 10 games and the SEC West, so even the immediate disappointment of the loss to FSU would have been a poor place to pronounce judgment.

Until the rest of Kelly’s tenure played out, of course.

Last August brought the opposite temptation. LSU beat No. 4 Clemson 17-10, finally ending five consecutive season-opening losses. Trey’Dez Green, who returns as a preseason All-American this season, caught the winning touchdown, and the relief—and astronomical predictions for the rest of the season—were understandable.

After an embarrassing home loss to Texas A&M, Kelly was fired on October 26, and LSU finished 7-6.

“Ultimately, the success at the level that LSU demands simply did not materialize, and I made the decision to make a change after last night’s game,” then-AD Scott Woodward said.

Woodward, of course, was gone not long after.

The Clemson victory was and remains a good victory, no matter what happens in Tiger Stadium this coming Saturday night. It just didn’t get the program over the hump like every prognosticator thought it would.

That, as they say, is why you play the games.

Final Check

Clemson comes to Tiger Stadium this Saturday, September 5 for Lane Kiffin’s LSU debut. Take two in the home-and-home, with another coach and another summer’s worth of reasons to believe.

Kiffin has given me plenty to like, including this past Saturday’s mock gameday, a topic that might very well land as the fifth installment of the RIGHT LANE series I have running here as well. LSU stayed at the team hotel Friday night, rehearsed the walk down Victory Hill, and went through its stadium entrance with the band, cheerleaders, and pyrotechnics.

Even the scout team wore Clemson jerseys.

That is preparation down to details a fan might never think are important, and I love it. And I love it because I live the old Catholic way, where details are very important in keeping our hearts and intentions in order. Getting the players comfortable with everything surrounding kickoff strikes me as a ritual right in line with religion.

(Which is why we must be careful with idolizing this stuff).

I recognize my own eagerness to turn that detail and LSU’s potential under a shark like Kiffin into a definite forecast. My fandom fell into some of that four years ago, admiring Kelly’s discipline in the past before we had seen how it would translate here in Baton Rouge.

As a sportswriter who also dabbles in much more serious faith-based writing elsewhere, I hope we can all take a deep breath and step back before Saturday. May we all temper our expectations, for our own good, while keeping the standards for our Saturday enjoyment high. We can expect sound football and still leave these players room to struggle, learn, and improve—even though, yes, they are professional athletes now. That’s not the point. The point is us. Otherwise, we’re asking a new team to satisfy a season we’ve already played in our heads, which is a pretty miserable way for anyone, particularly fans who have no say in what happens on the field, to spend the real one.

I’ll be excited Saturday. I’ll probably even cook, have some friends over. But I’d simply like to enjoy the game without requiring it to settle every hope I have for the man coaching it and the 2026 season in front of us.

Inhale.

Exhale.

So yes, Mike, beat Clemson. But let’s give Kiffin his season to coach before deciding he owes us what Eaux and Burreaux gave us seven years ago.

Thank you for reading The Hayride!