All Parts of the Fight: Purple Stacks Days With a Thinned Roster and Death Valley Waiting

BATON ROUGE — Oxford still sits in the film room like a bad tooth. No. 10 LSU (2–1, 0–1 SEC) erased a 24–7 hole against No. 8 Ole Miss, tied it at 24, then watched Trinidad Chambliss finish a 32–24 Magnolia Bowl that Lane Kiffin told the local media Monday was “right there to be won.” Two open guys in the end zone. A field goal from the three. An interception with under a minute. “Tell the Truth Monday” under Kiffin — the old Orgeron staple — did not soft-pedal any of it.

Then the roster news landed harder than the scoreboard.

Dashawn Spears, the junior star from Denham Springs who had started all three games, is done for the year with a torn ACL in his left knee. Kiffin called him “a really unique player” and “a special player” and admitted it is “going to be a really tough loss.” Trey’Dez Green, the Zachary tight end who leads LSU with 222 receiving yards on 14 catches, is expected to miss Saturday against Texas A&M and possibly a game or two after that — no torn ligaments, per Tiger Rag sourcing, which is the best version of bad news you get in September. Phillip Wright III is already season-ending. Reliford and Anding never made it out of the preseason. Kiffin’s count Monday: fifth and sixth guys lost for the year since he got here. “That’s a crazy number. It’s unfortunate.” Sophomore CJ Jimcoily and redshirt freshman Jhase Thomas are the names at star. Matt Grace and Malachi Thomas are the TE depth Kiffin said you sign for nights like this.

That is the board. Wednesday is not about pretending otherwise.

It is about what the locker room said when the mics came back on.

Wideout Winnie Watkins Jr. and safety Ty Benefield faced the media Tuesday (Reveille, Sept. 23) with the only posture that works after an SEC opener that got away. “We put that in the past,” Benefield said. “The locker room is ready to go for A&M.” Watkins: “We definitely gotta come together and just understand that if we went 0-1 we gotta find a way to get back to our self. We got a long season, we gotta keep stacking days.” On Green: “I’m telling everybody keep praying for him, keep Trey’Dez in your prayers. It’s a very unfortunate thing that happened.” Benefield again, when the conversation turned to whoever lines up across from him Saturday: “I want to go against the best competition. I don’t care who’s in front of me.” And the line that belongs on a locker-room wall: he wants “all parts of any fight.”

Good. Because No. 23 Texas A&M (2–1, 0–1 SEC) is walking into Death Valley on Saturday at 6:30 p.m. CT on ABC looking for the same first SEC win LSU is. The Aggies fell 31–21 to Kentucky and tumbled from No. 9. Terry Bussey is out for the season. Marcel Reed remains the problem with legs — Tuesday’s Field already spent a full column on whether purple can put a cage on them — and Benefield’s “best competition” line is the defensive answer without replaying that tape. This week’s job is simpler and meaner: stack the days, fill the holes, and make Tiger Stadium do what it does on a Saturday night when both sides are 0–1 in the league and bleeding bodies.

Ed Orgeron, ill for weeks and missing practices and all three games, was heard booming from the football ops building after Kiffin’s Monday session. Tiger Rag floated that he may have a chance to be on the sideline Saturday. If Coach O’s voice is back in the valley while Jimcoily and Thomas try to wear Spears’ star and Grace/Thomas try to wear Green’s snaps, that is not nostalgia — that is the week.

Oxford haunted them on film. A&M does not care. Death Valley starts at 6:30. Stack the days. Want all parts of the fight. First SEC win is still sitting there for whoever takes it.