BATON ROUGE, La. — For most of Saturday afternoon, the box score belonged to LSU. The Tigers gained 457 yards to Alabama’s 285, ran 81 plays to the Tide’s 53 and held the ball for 32 minutes and 45 seconds in front of 102,321 at Tiger Stadium. The scoreboard belonged to Alabama, 31–13, because the Crimson Tide owned the downs that decided everything: LSU went 0-for-4 on fourth down, committed the game’s only two turnovers, and watched Keelon Russell throw three touchdown passes after the Tigers took their only lead of the day.
The first half was a kicking duel with one flash of invention. Conor Talty’s 43-yard field goal and Scott Starzyk’s 23-yarder had it 3–3 before Ryan Coleman-Williams scored on a 1-yard misdirection run around right end in the second quarter for a 10–3 Alabama lead. Starzyk added a 41-yarder early in the third, and then LSU finally drove like the team the yardage said it was.
The tent, then the takeover
LSU’s touchdown drive went 11 plays and 90 yards, kept alive by a pass interference call against Alabama’s Carmelo O’Neal on a fourth-and-5 from the Tide 37, and Dilin Jones finished it from 5 yards out: 13–10 LSU, 2:44 left in the third quarter, the Tigers’ first lead. While it happened, Russell was in the medical tent getting his left ankle checked, and backup Austin Mack had warmed up on the Alabama sideline.
Russell came back with the ankle heavily taped and answered in two minutes and eight seconds. On the first play of the drive he found Rico Scott for a 57-yard catch-and-run down to the LSU 18, and with 36 seconds left in the quarter he hit Josh Ford for a 7-yard touchdown and a 17–13 lead Alabama never gave back. His explanation afterward was simple: “When I came out of the tent, I just said, I can’t let an ankle injury be the reason why we do something bad… Just went out there on the field and gave it my all.” His coach was blunter. “The kid is tough, he’s a stud,” Kalen DeBoer said.
Fourth down was a wall
The fourth quarter was a procession of LSU gambles dying at the same wall. Coleman-Williams — playing his first game back from a knee injury that cost him two games — returned a punt 32 yards, and on the very next play Russell found Cederian Morgan for a 25-yard touchdown: 24–13. LSU answered by reaching the Alabama 36, where Caleb Woodson broke up the fourth-down pass. Down 11 with eight minutes left, Lane Kiffin kept his offense on the field for fourth-and-10 from his own 25; Leavitt was sacked, Alabama took over, and three plays later Russell’s 4-yard touchdown pass to Kaleb Edwards made it 31–13. LSU’s last drive reached the Alabama 7 and died on a fourth-and-2 stop short of the line.
It had been that way all afternoon. Chuck McDonald III batted down a fourth-and-4 pass at the Alabama 10 in the first half and later ran Leavitt down from behind at the 9. Luke Metz intercepted Leavitt at the Alabama 24 with 28 seconds left in the first half and finished with 11 tackles. Alabama’s defense recorded four sacks and five tackles for loss, and when LSU muffed a late punt, Noah Rogers recovered it at the LSU 32. Four fourth-down tries, four stops, two turnovers to Alabama’s none — that was the game, whatever the total yardage said.
380 yards, one touchdown
Sam Leavitt’s afternoon reads like a win until the last column: 35 of 47 for 380 yards — the most passing yards any quarterback has put on Alabama’s defense this season — with Jackson Harris catching 11 balls for 166 and Trey’Dez Green 10 for 85. But LSU reached the end zone once. The Tigers went 5-for-14 on third down, scored on only two of four red-zone trips, and gave the ball away six times counting the fourth-down stops. Starzyk’s missed 56-yard field goal in the second quarter was another three points left on the field. “We didn’t convert in the red zone,” Leavitt said. “You can’t put points up when you don’t do that.”
The underdog in the room
Alabama arrived in Baton Rouge as an underdog — as much as a 6.5-point underdog — for a daytime kickoff, the first in Baton Rouge since 2010. 247Sports reported the result as the program’s largest upset win as an underdog since the 2008 SEC championship game, when Florida was favored by 9.5. DeBoer is now 3-0 against LSU, Alabama has won seven of its last eight at Tiger Stadium, and Kiffin dropped to 0-6 against the Crimson Tide in his coaching career, across Tennessee, Ole Miss and now LSU.
Alabama is 7–2 and 5–2 in the SEC, and it left Baton Rouge with the No. 5 College Football Playoff ranking it arrived with looking earned. LSU is 6–3, and its playoff hopes are, in the Associated Press’s words, long-shot at best. The two programs do not play next season — the first gap in the series since 1963 under the SEC’s new scheduling format, with the next meeting set for 2028. Alabama travels to Vanderbilt next Saturday; LSU stays home for No. 10 Texas.
Full linescore and play-by-play: Game Center — Alabama at LSU. More: College Football hub · Stats Hub
Sources · 6 sources
- ESPN — game summary and box score, Alabama at LSU (event 401856740): final score 31–13, the full scoring summary, Russell’s 17-of-24 for 206 yards and 3 touchdowns, Leavitt’s 35-of-47 for 380 yards, team totals of 457–285 and LSU’s 0-for-4 on fourth down
- Associated Press — game recap, “Russell passes for three TDs to propel No. 9 Alabama past No. 15 LSU” (Nov 7, 2026): the 2:08 answer drive and Scott’s 57-yard catch, the fourth-down stops, Metz’s interception, Alabama’s record at Tiger Stadium and LSU’s playoff outlook
- Sports Illustrated (BamaCentral) — game recap (Nov 7, 2026): Russell’s medical-tent absence and taped ankle, his postgame quote, and Leavitt’s 380 yards as the most thrown on Alabama’s defense this season
- Tiger Rag — game recap (Nov 7, 2026): attendance of 102,321, the fourth-down catalogue, the series record and the 2027 scheduling gap
- 247Sports — “Alabama gets program’s largest upset as underdog since 2008” (Nov 7, 2026): the 6.5-point underdog line and the 2008 comparison
- Roll Tide Wire — live game record (Nov 7, 2026): scoring timeline, the fourth-and-10 sack and the late muffed-punt recovery
