BATON ROUGE — LSU football's defense piloted the team's Herculean effort against No. 8 Ole Miss all Saturday night, so it was only fitting that it forced the Rebels to go backward during the opening overtime possession.

The Rebels' placekicker Caden Davis nailed an impressive 57-yard field goal to briefly give his team the lead in the first extra period.

But Garrett Nussmeier and Kyren Lacy called game. On LSU's first play of its overtime possession, Lacy ran a stop and go route, Nussmeier pumped then floated a back-shoulder throw to the front pylon. Lacy broke back, leapt and pulled down a season-saving and game-winning 25-yard touchdown catch as the Tigers rallied to take down the Rebs 29-26 inside Tiger Stadium.

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LSU (5-1, 2-0 SEC) trailed by 10 points earlier in the game but remained within one possession of Ole Miss for most of the entire night thanks in large part to its defense preventing Lane Kiffin's offense from finding the end zone with the amount of success it has had for most of the season.

LSU football-Ole Miss matchup riddled with missed opportunities

The story of the first half of the highly-anticipated top-10 showdown between No. 10 LSU football and No. 8 Ole Miss was one of missed opportunities from both sides.

Early in the game, the Rebels couldn't do anything with an interception from LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier that set them up inside the LSU 15-yard line. The Tigers' defense stood tall on a fourth-and-short to force a turnover on downs.

Late in the first half trailing 17-10, LSU's offense was gifted a chance to possibly tie the game with just seconds left after Ulysses Bentley fumbled the ball. But after three plays, the Tigers could only muster a field goal from the short field. Its previous drive, Zavion Thomas had a touchdown catch slip through his grasp.

Neither team could really seize momentum and that led to the tight 17-13 halftime score. Those woes carried over to the second half as LSU missed a field goal on its first drive of the third period.

LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier has inconsistent performance vs Ole Miss

There were throws that were put in danger, the most notable coming in the fourth quarter that was intercepted, but also some deeper throws down the field that were on the money, which had been a problem for Nussmeier through the first five games of the season.

Dissecting what the Tigers were able to get from their junior signal caller in the team's biggest game of the season thus far leaves plenty to be desired and plenty of times during the game put the team in bad spots.

But the LSU quarterback also led a 13-play, 75-yard drive that tied the game up with the 23-yard touchdown pass to Aaron Anderson with :27 seconds to go.

Nussmeier did bounce back from the early ill-advised throw that ended up getting picked off but he just wasn't crisp for most of the night. For the first time this season, he was below 50% completion rate.

He was behind on some throws and looked like he never got completely comfortable in the pocket.

Nussmeier turned the ball over twice and finished the game 22-of-51 passing for 337 yards with the two TDs.

LSU defense puts together great outing against Lane Kiffin, Jaxson Dart and Ole Miss' offense

While the offense struggled to find its way for most of the night, the defense carried the water in a matchup that coming into the game was not ideal for the Tigers.

Sophomore linebacker Whit Weeks led LSU's effort against the Rebels. LSU got consistent presser on Dart, proven by the six sacks, which senior defensive end Bradyn Swinson paced the defensive front's effort with two. While the Rebels did gain 453 yards, the LSU defense was able to keep Ole Miss from finishing drives more times than not.

LSU also caused a pair of turnovers, first a fumble recovered by freshman defensive tackle Dominick McKinley late in the second quarter that led to a field goal and Zy Alexander picked off Dart in the end zone to keep Ole Miss within reach with 11 minutes remaining in the game.

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Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at bdiaz@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: LSU football rallied to take down Ole Miss in overtime