Five stats that defined LSU’s win over Florida

LSU’s offense continued its historic year with a 52-point performance against Florida on Saturday night.

It was a bounceback performance for a unit that didn’t disappoint against Alabama, but didn’t play to its own standard either.

Factoring in the opponent, this was the offense’s best game of the year. It was the third time LSU surpassed 50 points this fall, but the first time against a Power Five opponent.

Mike Denbrock’s unit recorded some numbers that’ll make you look twice, a few of which we’ll dissect here today.

Here are five stats that defined LSU’s 52-35 win over Florida.

Jayden Daniels 606 total yards

Jayden Daniels was the story on Saturday night. He racked up 606 total yards, a program record.

He was the first player in FBS history to put up 350+ passing yards and 200+ rushing yards in one game.

It was a record-setting night across the board for LSU’s veteran QB. For part of the week, we didn’t even know if Daniels would play after exiting the Alabama game with a concussion.

Daniels responded with his best game of the year. recapturing the national spotlight after the Alabama loss. Despite LSU’s three losses, Daniels’ performance places him firmly back in the Heisman discussion.

Bradyn Swinson's four pressures

It was another rough night for the LSU defense with the Gators’ offense finding success on over half of its plays.

But LSU created enough havoc to come up with some important stops, including a sack and forced fumble at the hands of Bradyn Swinson.

Swinson’s emerged as LSU’s best pass rusher in recent weeks and the Oregon transfer now ranks fifth among SEC edge defenders in PFF pass rush grade.

We know this unit isn’t good on a down-to-down basis, so forcing turnovers in a shootout is critical. That starts with a pass rush and Swinson continues to provide that.

LSU's 11.5 yards per play

LSU’s offense posted its best yards per play total of the year on Saturday night with 11.5 per snap.

It’s a whole two yards better than LSU’s next-best total of 9.5 posted against Army. And nearly three yards better than LSU’s next-best total against a Power 5 opponent, which was 8.8 yards against Arkansas.

LSU’s explosive play rate was 18% — in the 99th percentile. The Tigers averaged over 10 yards per play through the air and on the ground, thanks to a few explosive runs from Daniels.

The LSU offense has set a high bar for itself this year but found a way to surpass it on Saturday night.

LSU leads the country with 8.4 yards per play on the year.

Malik Nabers' 92 yards after the catch

Malik Nabers added to his FBS-leading total with 132 yards on the night.

The most impressive aspect of his performance involved 92 of those yards coming after the catch. That was a single-game high in the SEC on Saturday and the next highest total was 50.

It was a season-high in YAC for Nabers and it started early, with Daniels finding Nabers for a catch and run on 3rd and nine.

Nabers’ 473 yards after catch on the year are second in the conference only to Missouri’s Luther Burden and Nabers leads all of FBS with 1,284 yards.

Six third down plays

LSU ran 61 offensive plays on the night and only six were third downs. That puts LSU’s third down rate below 10%. An incredibly low percentage.

The Tigers converted just two of those third downs, the only late down conversions on the night. But it didn’t matter because LSU was so good, that it rarely ever got to third down.

LSU’s EPA/play on early downs was 0.73. more than double the 0.30 EPA/play Florida put up.

Florida wasn’t bad on early downs, creating 18 first downs in those spots compared to LSU’s 19. LSU was just that much more explosive.

Story originally appeared on LSU Tigers Wire