BATON ROUGE, La. -- No. 10 LSU put its Marcel Reed problems in the past Saturday night, crushing No. 23 Texas A&M 35-6 and shutting down the quarterback who had led the Aggies to victory over it the past two years.
In 2024, with LSU leading 17-7 in the third quarter, Reed came off the bench in relief of starting quarterback Conner Weigman and ignited A&M to a 38-23 win. Last season, the No. 3 Aggies came into Tiger Stadium and dominated the Tigers 49-25 as Reed threw for two touchdowns and ran for two more.
LSU fired coach Brian Kelly less than 24 hours later. Defensive coordinator Blake Baker, who was retained by Lane Kiffin from Kelly's staff, had overseen defenses that had been gouged by mobile quarterbacks such as Reed and Vanderbilt's Diego Pavia.
"We discussed that in January when we got here. That was kind of the book on Blake," Kiffin said. "LSU played great defense vs. passing teams and then running quarterbacks would give him some problems. So I thought Blake did a really good job."
Kiffin said Saturday night that this game had been an emphasis for the Tigers this offseason. And this time, Baker's defense put the clamps on Reed, holding him to 10-of-26 passing for 106 yards with an interception, with 10 carries for minus-13 yards and adding four sacks. Reed was replaced by backup Brady Hart in the fourth quarter, and Hart's first pass was intercepted. The Aggies finished with 197 total yards to the Tigers' 506.
"That's what good coaches do," Kiffin said. "They spend an offseason to game-plan for a specific game like this, which helps you down the road because you're going to play more of them like it, [and] you put it on tape that there's a plan to stop it."
Ty Benefield wasn't here for those last two games, but the Boise State transfer said he heard all about this game. He started in the star role as a hybrid linebacker/safety after DaShawn Spears suffered a season-ending knee injury in last week's loss to Ole Miss.
Benefield had seven tackles, and Kiffin praised his impact in limiting Reed's ability to run, saying he was a great tackler who was able to re-route perimeter plays.
"I mean, it's funny," Benefield said. "We just heard a bunch about the past and the past and the past, heard throughout the offseason, guys from their team saying the past and stuff. And it's funny because we're not in the past, we're in the present. So we showed up and showed out and did our jobs and that's really all I can say."
This was the second straight season that Texas A&M played a night game at Tiger Stadium. Last year, the No. 3 Aggies won in Baton Rouge for the first time since 1994 and handed LSU just its fifth home loss at night since 2020 as Tigers fans streamed out, leaving Aggies fans to celebrate a breakout season in LSU's stadium. This year, LSU fans emptied out because the Aggies' offense was so ineffective that there was no danger of them mounting a comeback. The Aggies finished the first half with 75 passing yards, 27 of which came on a pass from Reed to Isaiah Horton with 1:17 left in the second quarter.
"I think that was big for the few people that were here last year, especially Blake for the last two years to play that way and limit Marcel," Kiffin said. "Their fans certainly didn't take over areas today. I actually saw all their fans gone at the end, so it was good payback. Happy for our fans."
