LSU walks into Oxford Saturday night as a top 10 team. The Tigers rolled past Clemson in the opener before needing the second half to pull away from Louisiana Tech.
This one carries extra weight too. Lane Kiffin left Ole Miss for LSU and now gets his first shot at his old team.
Sitting across from him is Pete Golding, a coach who knows exactly how hard it is to stop a scrambling quarterback.
Both teams have quarterbacks who can beat you with their legs. That’s no accident. Athletic playmakers are the reason Sam Leavitt and Trinidad Chambliss both have starting jobs this season.
Leavitt transferred in from Arizona State and has thrown for 574 yards through two games. He’s completing just over 62 percent of his passes with two scores and four picks.
His overall PFF grade sits at 88.7 and most of that comes from what he does after he tucks the ball and runs.
He’s already put up 169 rushing yards and five touchdowns on just 17 tries. More than half of those carries have picked up at least 10 yards.
Leavitt’s legs are real problem
Three of his five rushing touchdowns have come off the scramble, worth 98 yards on their own, with the remaining 71 yards piling up on plays that were designed runs from the jump.
Golding made it clear Monday what worries him most. “His ability to extend plays with his feet, still be able to throw out of the pocket, still working to create some of those things to move the pocket,” Golding said. “I’ve just been really impressed with his athleticism once he decides to become a runner.”
The numbers back him up. He’s averaging just under 10 yards a carry and more than 100 of those yards have piled up after he’s already been touched.
His passing has been shakier. He’s connected on only three of 10 attempts down the field and hasn’t hit a single deep ball toward the sideline all season.
Even when the pressure gets home Leavitt has struggled, completing less than half his throws for only 113 yards and giving the ball away twice.
Golding wants to make him prove it with his arm.
“I think it’s going to be really important to try to make him become a pocket passer,” Golding said. “He’s got some good weapons on the perimeter, but for me, for sure, it’s been his athleticism once he decides not to throw it and tuck it and run it. He’s a lot more explosive. He’s got better top-end speed than I knew.”
Chambliss owns this matchup so far
On the other side Chambliss gets a rematch with the same style of defense Baker builds no matter where he coaches.
Chambliss was only three starts into his career last season when he knocked off Baker’s LSU defense by a 24-19 score.
History says that’s not a coincidence. Mobile quarterbacks have given Baker trouble for years going back to his time at Miami, Missouri and both stops at LSU.
Hendon Hooker and Malik Cunningham put together similar days against Baker’s Miami defense, splitting a combined 491 yards through the air and six passing scores between the two of them.
Hooker came back for round two in 2022 wearing a Tennessee uniform against a Baker defense at Missouri.
He beat him even worse the second time, piling up more than 400 total yards and four touchdowns as the Vols ran away with a 66-24 rout.
Marcel Reed made a habit of it too. Texas A&M’s quarterback broke off three rushing scores in a 2024 upset of Baker’s LSU defense then came back a year later and piled up more than 300 total yards and four touchdowns in a 49-25 rout.
The trend keeps repeating
Jalen Milroe barely needed a dozen touches to wreck Baker’s LSU defense in 2024, finding the end zone four times on the ground while chewing up chunks of yardage almost every time he tucked and went.
John Mateer kept Oklahoma alive in a low-scoring 2025 win by throwing for well over 300 yards and a pair of scores. Vanderbilt’s Diego Pavia handled it differently that same year, doing his damage almost entirely with his legs in a road upset of the Tigers.
Line up the quarterbacks who mixed both skills and a pattern shows up fast. Mateer, Chambliss and Reed combined to throw it for close to 280 yards a game on average whenever they lined up across from a Baker defense.
A college coach who watched LSU’s first two games summed up the issue bluntly. “If he’s already got four turnovers in two games against Louisiana Tech and a defense that should be at Furman it could get weird,” the coach said.
That’s the version of Leavitt Ole Miss needs to see Saturday night.
What Ole Miss must do defensively
Keeping Leavitt inside the pocket matters as much as anything Golding’s defense does Saturday. That starts with edge rushers Suntarine Perkins and Blake Purchase staying disciplined in their lanes and finishing tackles rather than sprinting upfield chasing a sack.
Health could break Ole Miss’s way too. Two players who missed time, Antonio Kite and Sharif Denson, are in line to suit up again Saturday.
The guys up the middle matter just as much as the edges. Jam Brown, Kam Franklin, Jehiem Oatis, Michai Boireau and Will Echoles all need to collapse the pocket from inside and give Leavitt nowhere comfortable to step up.
LSU’s ground game hasn’t scared anybody without its quarterback carrying it. Running back Dilin Jones has yet to find the end zone this season and the whole team finished with well under 150 rushing yards against Louisiana Tech.
Shut down the ground game and Leavitt has to beat Ole Miss standing tall in the pocket. That’s a fight the Rebels should be happy to have with extra defenders sitting back in coverage.
Saturday’s game will likely hinge on which quarterback handles pressure better and which coordinator finds the right answer first.
Chambliss already has the head start against Baker. Now the Rebs need their defense to hand Leavitt the same kind of night that’s given other coaches trouble against athletic quarterbacks for years.
