BATON ROUGE, La. – The RV/RV Vanderbilt football team dropped a 24-17 contest to RV/RV LSU in Death Valley Saturday night.
Vandy moves to 6-5 on the season and 3-5 in SEC play. The Tigers collected their fourth conference win of the fall and improved to 7-4 overall.
Quarterback Diego Pavia collected multiple touchdowns for the ninth game this season as he posted a passing and a rushing score against the Tigers. The graduate student amassed 229 total yards of offense as he threw for 186 yards and added a team-high 43 yards on the ground.
Wide receiver Quincy Skinner Jr. was one of three Dores to haul in three catches, leading the team with a season-high 72 receiving yards and a touchdown.
Linebacker Langston Patterson and STAR Randon Fontenette each recorded double-digit tackles for the Commodores in Death Valley. Patterson registered a game-high 13 stops, while Fontenette added 10 tackles, each with a pass break up.
After forcing the Tigers to punt on an opening drive three-and-out, the Commodores struck first on a 63-yard touchdown pass from Pavia to Skinner on their first offensive play of the night.
LSU responded on the following drive with a 20-yard rushing touchdown by Josh Williams to tie the game at 7-7 midway through the opening quarter. The Tigers were marching down the field looking to take the lead, but the Vandy defense got a stop on 4th-and-goal to keep the game tied at seven-all at the end of the first stanza.
Midway through the second quarter, the Tigers took a 7-point lead on a 21-yard rushing touchdown by Williams.
With 14 seconds left in the half, Jesse Mirco pinned LSU within its 10-yard line with a 57-yard punt. It’s his fifth straight contest with a 50-plus yard punt and the eighth game this season that Vandy has downed a punt inside the opponent’s 10-yard line.
Brock Taylor drilled a 47-yard field goal to pull the Dores to within a score at 14-10 with 8:26 remaining in the third. He has made each of his last 10 field goal attempts over the past seven games.
LSU extended its lead to 24-10 with a touchdown reception by Kyren Lacy on a 12-yard pass from Garrett Nussmeier and a 28-yard field goal by Damian Ramos.
With Vanderbilt facing a 4th-and-9 from its 26-yard line, Mirco faked the punt and rushed for a first down. After moving the chains, the Dores were able to move the ball down the field and score on a 1-yard rush by Pavia. It marked his sixth rushing score this season, tied for second-most among SEC quarterbacks.
The Tigers ran out the clock on the Commodores after the Pavia touchdown to seal the game.
Vanderbilt returns home Saturday for its final regular-season game against in-state rival Tennessee, with kickoff slated for 11 a.m. on ABC.
