ORLANDO — It was easy to get LSU and Florida State confused this offseason.

In 2022, both teams overcame rough starts by earning win No. 10 in a bowl game in Orlando. If you looked at them on paper, you saw why they were in the same breath in preseason conversations.

Proven multi-year returning starting quarterback taking advantage of an extra COVID year? Yep.

All-American pass-rusher? Yep.

Loaded group of receivers? Yep.

Playoff contender? Yep.

A national championship in the last decade to make that dream not seem so crazy? Yep.

It was only fitting that both teams began the 2023 season in Orlando. There was hope that after a wild 2022 season opener, the 2023 rematch with preseason top-10 squads would feel more like a heavyweight fight and not so much like a backyard brawl.

But by night’s end, nobody would’ve mixed up Florida State and LSU. FSU looked every bit like all of those aforementioned things. LSU? Eh, not so much.

“We’re certainly not the football team that I thought we were,” LSU coach Brian Kelly said.

Overconfidence? You bet. Kelly said on his radio show days before the matchup that LSU was going to “beat the heck out of Florida State.” LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels went so far as to say afterwards that LSU players thought that Sunday night’s matchup would “be easy.” Mind you, that’s the same Daniels who gifted his teammates Beats By Dre headphones with a message that read “They all doubt us. It’s us against the world. Let’s lock in and finish what we started. 1-0 mentality.”

Maybe the “world” was on to something. Then again, the AP voters still had LSU at No. 5 to start off the season, despite the fact that the Tigers lost 4 games in 2022. Instead of living up to that preseason No. 5 ranking, LSU allowed more points in a season opener than any preseason AP Top 5 team since 1968 Oklahoma (via ESPN Stats and Info).

Consider that a painful reminder of why 8 months of storylines can go out the window in 60 minutes. LSU is used to that. It’s the 4th consecutive year in which it lost a season opener. This year, however, felt a bit different.

A preseason top-5 ranking went out the window, one second-half FSU touchdown at a time. Much like last year in that Playoff-dashing loss to a 5-7 Texas A&M team, LSU couldn’t stop the counter runs. Championship teams have ways to stop the bleeding. That’s what FSU did to overcome a 17-14 halftime deficit to flip the script into a 45-24 beatdown.

“For some reason,” Kelly said, “we thought were something else. We thought we were the 2-time defending national champion Georgia Bulldogs. We were mistaken.”

Clearly.

Sure, LSU hurt itself, especially in the passing game. A couple of dropped Kyren Lacy balls hurt, as did a Brian Thomas drop on the sideline. But the real dagger was when preseason All-SEC receiver Malik Nabers slipped on the first play of the 4th quarter. Florida State intercepted Daniels’ pass and the rest, well, you saw how that played out.

It wasn’t that FSU played a perfect game. Quarterback Jordan Travis had an ugly interception. Through 3 quarters, FSU only had 66 rushing yards. Johnny Wilson and Jaheim Bell both had costly drops. The Seminoles had missed assignments in the secondary. Shoot, LSU had Tre Bradford (of all people) haul in a 55-yard pass on the first play from scrimmage.

But what happened after that first-round punch was a representation of the night that was. LSU had 6 opportunities to score from inside the 5-yard-line, and it proceeded to get 0 points. Championship teams get goalline stands.

Time will tell if FSU is a championship team. It certainly looked it. All we know is that LSU isn’t.

And if you don’t realize what that climb looks like, just know that it’s a steep one.

In the 9-year history of the College Football Playoff, here are the numbers:

  • 0 of 36 CFP teams lost in Week 1
  • 0 of 36 CFP teams made the field with 2 losses
  • 1 of 36 CFP teams lost in nonconference play (2014 Ohio State)
  • 2 of 36 CFP teams lost in September (2014 Ohio State, 2015 Alabama)

Not great. But for now, let’s forget about the Playoff conversation. That’s not priority No. 1. LSU has far too many issues to think that big.

Let’s start with why LSU is still incapable of establishing the non-Daniels running game. It wasn’t just the goal-line stand early. Outside of Daniels, LSU’s running backs had 12 carries for 49 yards, though 35 of those came on 1 Josh Williams run. It didn’t help matters that Notre Dame transfer Logan Diggs was a “coach’s decision” not to play.

LSU lacked identity on both sides of the ball.

On defense, LSU surrendered 494 yards and the 6 touchdown drives. Much was made about Harold Perkins’ well-documented transition to a more traditional linebacker instead of chasing the football like he did as a freshman All-American. On Sunday night, Perkins didn’t have a splash play outside of a nice stop of Jordan Travis on 3rd and 3. He finished the night with a quiet 5 tackles.

“You’re catching a young player early in his career and he’s going through some growing pains,” Kelly said of Perkins.

LSU will get reinforcements in the form of Maason Smith, who was suspended for the season opener for a pre-NIL NCAA violation. The game-wrecking defensive tackle could be just what the doctor ordered to help some of those issues up front.

But we still saw LSU’s defensive backs struggle to contain bigger, more physical FSU receivers. Michigan State transfer Keon Coleman had 9 catches for 122 yards and 3 touchdowns in his FSU debut while 6-7 Johnny Wilson also surpassed the century mark. He would’ve had an even bigger day if not for his 2 drops.

The Seminoles could’ve had an even bigger day if not for its mistakes early on. FSU coach Mike Norvell said that he didn’t think his team played its best game. He’s not wrong.

What was wrong was assuming that this LSU team was vaulting into Tier 1. There are weaknesses that need to be worked through, which Kelly took full responsibility for.

“This is a total failure on a coaching standpoint and a player standpoint,” he said. “I know adversity is always gonna strike in this game. This is the first real piece of adversity we’ve had to respond to.”

LSU might not have teams of Florida State’s caliber on a weekly basis, but that was the first of 4 Power 5 foes with winning records in the month of September alone, 3 of which are away from the friendly confines of Baton Rouge. There’s work to be done in every facet.

If Georgia was the standard that LSU was hoping to live up to, it certainly fell well short of that, just like it did 9 months ago in the SEC Championship. Sunday night’s finish was as humbling as it gets for Kelly and Co. A long road awaits.

It took getting the heck beat outta them to find that out.