BATON ROUGE - No matter what the outside opinion of Lane Kiffin and LSU football is, the Tigers still had a football game to play on Saturday night, albeit quite a bit later than originally intended after a lengthy weather delay.

If Kiffin's Tigers were at all distracted by all the attention the team has received in recent weeks following the courtroom drama surrounding former NFL players returning to college to attempt to play for LSU, they did a very good job hiding it as LSU pummeled Clemson 51-10

"That was a really good job by our players with all the questions about how they would be, with what most people think would be distractions,  " said Kiffin postgame. "You think about it, you come out and screw up the first series and give (Clemson) the ball and give them three points, and then you go on a 51-nothing run after that; that's a lot of players focused. That's a lot of players doing a really good job."

The "screw-up" Kiffin referred to was the interception thrown by Sam Leavitt on the first drive of the game, which led to Clemson scoring the first points of the game on a field goal. Leavitt, who's fielded many questions about the status of his foot injury from last season since his arrival at LSU out of the transfer portal, bounced back in a big way, as did his team.

"I think, with all the noise throughout the offseason, we really have done an incredible job of just blocking it out," said Leavitt. "It's not even like we've had to hush people. We come to work, and we put our heads down, and we grind. That's all we do."

Like Leavitt, LSU linebacker Whit Weeks also missed time last season due to injury last season, and he was able to start the 2026 season fast as well.

Weeks also believes the Tigers aren't hearing the outside noise.

"This team isn't distracted at all," said Weeks. "We come to work every single day, unlike any other team I've been a part of so far in my career."