BATON ROUGE -- Maybe LSU missed Leonard Fournette more than the Tigers knew.
Or maybe the R&R did him some good.
Three weeks and two games off certainly didn’t seem to hurt him.
All he did Saturday night against Ole Miss was rush for more yards than any Tiger in history, including three long-range touchdowns that keyed the No 25 Tigers to a 38-21 victory over No. 23 Ole Miss.
It was LSU’s third consecutive victory under interim head coach Ed Orgeron, and had to be satisfying since he was fired as head coach by the Rebels in 2006.
But it was the first game in his dream job that Orgeron had Fournette.
He didn’t miss a beat, running around, over and often through the Rebels.
The Tigers’ star ran for 284 yards, including touchdown runs of 59 and 76 yards in the first half and a 78-yarder that put LSU up for good and set the tone for a dominant second half.
LSU (5-2, 3-1 Southeastern Conference) has a week off before hosting arch-nemesis and No. 1-ranked Alabama on Nov. 5.
The Tigers cruised in the second half while ringing up 515 total yards another impressive offense since Orgeron opened things up. LSU had 311 yards rushing while Danny Etling overcame two turnovers by completing 19 of 28 passes for 204 yards.
But a lot of it was old style, Fournette left, right and up the middle.
It was also Orgeron’s third straight game with 30 or more points.
Meanwhile, the Tigers’ defense suffocated the high-powered Rebels up-tempo offense in the second half while LSU pounded away.
The Rebels were held to fewer than 30 points for the first time with a season-low 325 yards total offense — the same team that had 521 yards in a loss to Alabama.
LSU’s defense thought it scored a pair of touchdowns late in the third and to start the fourth quarter.
But both Ole Miss fumbles that the Tigers ended up in the end zone with were ruled down before the ball came loose and confirmed after further review on replay.
Either might have put the game away, but it only put off the inevitable as the Tigers had their way in the second half.
Fournette broke the LSU single-game record of 250 yards on his 10th carry. It had stood since 2004 when Alley Broussard did against the same Rebels.
LSU spotted the Rebels a 10-0 lead before a back-and-forth first half ended tied at 21.
The high-powered Rebels made it look easy with the game’s first possession while marching 77 yards and added a field goal before the Tigers got a first down.
Then Fournette, who didn’t touch the ball on LSU’s opening possession and lost a yard on his first carry during the second, took over the game.
He sprinted for his 59-yard touchdown for the Tigers’ first touchdown, breaking the line untouched and pulling away from the Rebels’ secondary down the sideline.
LSU had done little offensively at that point, but the run seemed to bring the Tigers — and the festive crowd — to life.
Moments later Etling connected with a wide open D.J. Chark for a 40-yard scoring pass and the Tigers’ first lead 14-3.
Ole Miss answered with a field goal, but Fournette was soon off to the races again, dashing 76 yards for his second score of the night.
The Tigers’ defense probably wasn’t to blame for the halftime tie score.
The Rebels got to the break knotted at 21 by scoring 11 points off Tiger turnovers.
It was the downside of getting aggressively cute.
Ole Miss blew up an attempted end-around run to force a Chark fumble, setting up a field goal by Gary Wunderlich.
LSU’s defense held just before the half, but the Tigers maybe got greedy deep in their own territory with just over a minute remaining.
But Ole Miss’ offense, which led the SEC in passing coming in, never seriously threatened in the second half.
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