Auburn vs. LSU: Postgame Grades for Both Tigers

The LSU Tigers, from start to finish, completely dominated their feline counterpart Auburn on Saturday with a 45-21 victory. 

LSU running back Leonard Fournette was the unquestioned superstar of the contest, racking up 228 yards on the ground while making Auburn's defense look like rag dolls. 

With that, let's check out the game grades for each team's positional units. 

Positional Unit	First-Half Grade	Final Grade
Rush Offense	A+	A+
Pass Offense	C+	B-
Rush Defense	B	B-
Pass Defense	A	A
Special Teams	A	A
Coaching	A+	A+

LSU

Rush Offense: The only perfect grade—perfection is tough—of any unit comes here, and it was Fournette who carried the load both literally and figuratively. It wasn't just him who racked up the yards, though. LSU totaled 411 yards on the ground, with Brandon Harris picking up 66 of them behind perhaps college football's best offensive line. 

Pass Offense: When your rushing attack is so dominant and you're way up on the scoreboard, there's little need to pass the ball. So LSU rarely did on Saturday. Nevertheless, Harris was still efficient, completing 12 of 17 passes. He also had a touchdown, although he was limited to just 74 yards through the air. 

Rush Defense: Auburn did have 160 yards on the ground, which is admirable. But that's because its quarterback, Jeremy Johnson, simply can't move the ball through the air. LSU's defense didn't allow hardly any big plays on the ground, except for Johnson's long touchdown run in the second half, and limited Auburn's offense overall. 

Pass Defense: Johnson may not be a quality signal-caller for Auburn, but LSU's secondary gave him hell all day and didn't make anything easy. LSU picked him off once and limited him to just 100 yards passing. 

Special Teams: Trent Domingue was 6-of-6 on point-after attempts and converted his only field-goal try. Jamie Keehn averaged 40 yards per punt and pinned two of them inside the 20. No complaints here. 

Coaching: Les Miles clearly had the perfect game plan drawn up for Auburn this week. While Auburn may not be as good as it was last season or the year prior, it still has athletes comparable to any SEC contender. Nevertheless, LSU made Auburn look helpless throughout the affair. 

Positional Unit	First-Half Grade	Final Grade
Rush Offense	C	C
Pass Offense	D-	D+
Rush Defense	F	F
Pass Defense	C	C+
Special Teams	A	A
Coaching	D	D

Auburn

Rush Offense: Sure, Auburn gained 160 yards on the ground. But Johnson, mainly running for his life, picked up 41 of those to lead all rushers. With the quarterback unable to get into a groove through the air, Auburn was forced to run the ball. So any impressive numbers were essentially by default. 

Pass Offense: It's official: Auburn is in the market for a new signal-caller. Johnson continued to look terrible Saturday, throwing another interception while constantly being flushed out of the pocket and put under duress. Part of that is on the offensive line, but Johnson has to become a more decisive quarterback. 

Rush Defense: As bad as Johnson was, he looked like a Heisman contender compared to the Auburn defensive front line. Giving up 411 yards on the ground is embarrassing, and plenty of those yards were the result of missed tackles. 

Pass Defense: LSU saw no real need to pass the ball, so that's why it only put up 74 yards through the air. It's hard to say Auburn's secondary was elite when it was only given 17 plays to defend, and 12 of those were completed passes. 

Special Teams: Perhaps the lone bright spot on the day was that there were no gashes on special teams. In fact, the only real jolts Auburn got all game were on some decent punt returns. Just like LSU, no news is good news here. 

Coaching: Gus Malzahn clearly doesn't have the same chemistry and talent with his squad as he did when he first got to Auburn. Death Valley isn't an easy place to play, either. But Auburn didn't even put up a fight on Saturday, and Miles outworked Malzahn from every angle of the game.