When your opponent is beating itself, get out of the way.

That was pretty much all LSU had to do in order to beat Tennessee on Saturday night.

It especially makes sense when you’re playing in heavy rain and wind as the Tigers and Volunteers were during LSU’s 30-10 victory in Neyland Stadium.

No. 20 LSU (8-3) won for the fifth time in six games, but it’s not like it performed as a surging team would. Then again, it didn’t need to.

It did what it had to do to win, which wasn’t much even though, from a Tennessee perspective, the Vols showed some signs of progress.

Danny Etling was sharp, completing 11 of 15 and not throwing an interception, but the passing game accumulated a mere 81 yards and no touchdowns.

When your passing game is as limited as the Tigers’ is under ideal conditions, and you’re playing from ahead pretty much from the get-go, it wouldn’t make sense to open things up, would it?

The defense allowed more yards than the offense gained (287-281) and Tennessee possessed the ball longer than LSU did (31:29-28:31). But the Volunteers reached the end zone just once and were never a serious threat to win the game.

The place-kicking, which featured two missed extra points and a missed short field goal against Arkansas on a beautiful autumn morning and afternoon in Tiger Stadium a week earlier, featured a missed extra point, a missed short field goal and a missed long field goal in Neyland.

As for the running game, neither Derrius Guice (97 yards) nor Darrel Williams (68) reached 100 yards, but the Tigers accumulated 200 yards, ran for four scores and averaged 4.7 yards per carry. Guice went over 1,000 yards for a second consecutive season, despite being limited by injury for much of it.

That was all it took to put away Tennessee. In fact, the run game produced more than was really needed.

Ho hum. Nothing exciting, but nothing exciting was required against this opponent.

Tennessee played like the team whose season-long performance had led to coach Butch Jones’ firing a week earlier.

When LSU coach Ed Orgeron debuted as an  interim replacement for Les Miles early last season, he was trying to lift the spirits of a talented but underachieving team that still had time to salvage a respectable season, which it ultimately did, earning Orgeron a new contract.

But Brady Hoke, the former Michigan coach who took over for Jones, faces a far more difficult task. He is trying to take a dispirited team — that was seriously outmanned against the Tigers — and get it to over-achieve after it has been beaten down for the last several weeks.

Saturday night, Hoke wasn’t able to make the Vols something they aren’t. It’s doubtful anyone else could have either.

When the Vols fumbled away two first-half punts and essentially gift-wrapped 10 points for LSU, it was clear Tennessee was going to fall to 0-7 in the SEC and see its bowl hopes cease to fog the mirror unless the Tigers made major mistakes.

They didn’t.

They ran the ball, passed it occasionally and conservatively, and played solid defense. They didn’t give the ball away, allowed minimal big plays and were penalized just once.

LSU didn’t do as much stuff against Tennessee as it had in victories against Florida, Auburn, Ole Miss and Arkansas during its current run because it didn’t have to.

But it likely will have to do more in order to defeat Texas A&M in its regular-season finale Saturday in Tiger Stadium.