BATON ROUGE, La. — Defense was a casualty on both sides Saturday night, but ultimately it was Florida's unit that was left breathless in this much-hyped Southeastern Conference showdown at sold-out and shaking Tiger Stadium. 

The place known as "Death Valley" — and the team that calls it home — took the life from the UF defense. 

LSU quarterback Joe Burrow was near-flawless in passing for 293 yards and three touchdowns, with the fifth-ranked Tigers scoring the last 21 points of the game en route to a 42-28 victory in front of clamoring crowd of 102,321. Tailback Clyde Edwards-Helaire rushed for 134 yards and a pair of scores, including the go-ahead tally in the third quarter. All told, the Tigers gashed the No. 7 Gators for 511 yards of total offense and needed less than three minutes to find the end zone on five of their six touchdown drives. 

Heck, LSU (6-0, 2-0) had just four third-down snaps the entire game, lost the time-of-possession statistic by nearly 18 minutes, but were in control for nearly the game's entirety by making big play after big play. 

"Great environment, great night of college football, and it's a lot of fun playing in those games, but obviously not fun with how we did," Florida coach Dan Mullen said. "We didn't play very good defense."

Florida (6-1, 3-1) came into the game leading the Southeastern Conference in interceptions, but left with no turnovers. The Gators came in leading the nation in sacks also, yet came away with none of those either, barely laying a hand on Burrow, who hit 21 of his 24 passes and fired a pair of short touchdown strikes to Ja'Marr Chase (7 catches 127 yards) and Justin Jefferson (10 catches, 123 yards) in the first half, then a 54-yard dagger to Chase with 5:43 in the game to put the game out of reach. 

The difference between this meeting and UF's 27-19 victory last October in Gainesville, when the Gators dogged Burrow and iced things with a late pick-six, was pronounced. 

"We knew that last year they got after us up front. Our offensive line took that personally," Burrow said. "I was just so proud of those guys. There was no pressure the entire night."
 
The defeat, while a downer, was neither a death knell to UF's chances in the SEC nor even its hopes for the College Football Playoff. With Georgia's upset earlier in the day at home against South Carolina and Missouri's home win against Ole Miss, the Gators fell behind Mizzou in the East standings, but have a road date next week against the Gamecocks, followed by a bye and the annual meeting with the Bulldogs in Jacksonville. A date at Missouri awaits, as well. All three games will carry huge ramifications for the division, and possibly beyond.

"There are two ways you can go," UF quarterback Kyle Trask said. "You can either lose and start pointing fingers or you can lose and come together. I think we have a great group of guys, and at the end of the day this is just going to make us better. 

Trask was mostly up to the task in his first road start. The fourth-year junior wasn't Burrow-esque, but went 23 of 39 for a career-best 311 yards and three touchdowns, but his fourth-quarter end-zone interception — on a third-and-1 from the LSU 16 and Gators trailing by just seven — was a killer. 

Four plays later, Burrow hit Chase for the two-touchdown lead and sent the crowd into hysterics.

"What a great night," LSU coach Ed Orgeron said. "What a great job by our offense and what a great job by our defense to only allow them seven points in the second half. … I do believe the winning edge was playing in Tiger Stadium."

It likely had an impact on the Florida defense which began the night allowing just 276.3 yards and 9.5 points per game. LSU had 265 yards and 21 points by halftime.

"It's unacceptable for us," UF junior cornerback Marco Wilson said.  

The Gators trailed 21-14 late in the first half, but scored on a Trask-to-Van Jefferson pass of six yards with four seconds left in the half, then a Trask-to-Jefferson tally from two yards out to cap the opening drive of the second half and go up 28-21 at the 10:54 mark of the third period. 

From there, it was big plays for the home team and missed opportunities for the visitors.

"We did a pretty good job executing all night," Mullen said. "But the margin for error in big games is really small."

The first half was a back-and-forth offensive show between one quick-striking unit (LSU) and one that chipped away a few chunks at a time. The duel ended up being a 21-21 tie at intermission, but getting there was a ping-pong-like back and forth.

Though the LSU passing game came in with the rep, it was the ground game, specifically a 57-yard run up the Gator gut by Edwards-Helaire on the first snap of the Tigers' second possession, that put the home team offense in motion. Edwards-Helaire rumbled from the LSU 34 for 57 yards to the UF 9, where Burrow hit Chase for a 9-yard touchdown on the next play. 

Two plays, 66 yards, 32 seconds. Just like that, LSU led 7-0. 

UF, though, was undeterred. Trask answered by driving the Gators 75 yards in 12 plays and capped it with a 5-yard touchdown pass to Trevon Grimes to tie the game at 7-all with 3:34 left in the first period. Along the way, Trask hit Tyrie Cleveland for 17 yards, got a 17-yard run from Lamical Perine, plus a 12-yard run from backup Emory Jones. The scoring throw came on third-and-goal and temporarily calmed the crazy crowd.

Both offenses were just getting warmed up.  
 
Burrow had a 13-yard scramble, a 36-yard completion to Justin Jefferson on a crossing rout, then hit Jefferson again for a 7-yard score and 14-7 lead barely two minutes into the second quarter. Next up, the Gators responded with a second 75-yard drive, this one taking 13 plays, with a 28-yard completion to tight end Kyle Pitts (5 catches, 108 yards) the big hitter. 

Runs by Jones of four yards on third-and-2, then 12 by Trask got UF inside the Tigers' 5-yard line. It was fourth-and-goal from the 1 when Mullen called timeout to talk it over. 

Kick a field goal and risk giving the ball back to Burrow to zip up the field again? Or go for it and either tie the game or leave the Tigers at their 1? 

Mullen sent the offense back on the field, with Jones at quarterback. Jones dropped and under pressure and nearly in the grasp lobbed a falling-down pass into the right corner of the end zone. The ball was batted into the air by LSU linebacker Patrick Queen, who was covering Perine, who caught the ball (also falling backward) to tie the game at 14 with 5:48 left in the half. 

Back came Burrow and friends. This time, it was 75 yards in four plays. First, Burrow hit Thaddeus Moss for 25 yards to the UF 39, then Edwards-Helaire bolted 39 yards untouched for a 21-14 lead with 3:55 to go in the half. 

"We weren't good at stopping the run," said Wilson, part of a unit that allowed 218 yards on just 24 attempts on the ground (9.1 per carry). "They had too many big run plays that set up touchdowns."

Back came Trask and his cohorts, though. A defensive pass interference, then completions of 18 yards and 16 yards to Pitts helped advance the Gators to the LSU 6 with nine seconds left in the first half. Timeout, UF. 

On the next snap, Trask hit Jefferson just across the goal line to tie the game at 21-all with four seconds remaining. 
 
The Gators' fourth touchdown drive of 75 yards went quicker than the first three. Completions of 20, 17 and 12 yards to Jefferson helped set up a 6-yard Trask-to-Jefferson touchdown, as Florida grabbed its first lead on the first possession after halftime, taking a 28-21 edge at the 10:54 mark of the third quarter.

Florida's next four drives, however: 

* Three plays, minus-21 yards, punt.
* Three plays, three yards, punt.
* 12 plays, 76 yards, end-zone interception.
* 15 plays, 71 yards, turnover on downs.

"We did a lot of good things tonight," Trask said. "We showed a lot of of toughness to come into an environment like this. I think we communicated well and we put some good drives together." 

The other guys did it better, with Burrow unfazed after the Gators seemingly seized momentum. He had a 19-yard run, then hit completions of 15, 11 and 16 yards to set up Edwards-Helaire's 5-yard, tying touchdown run with 7:12 left in the third quarter. The drive took 3:12, which was the Tigers' most time-consuming of the night. 

With barely two minutes gone in the fourth quarter, Florida's defense forced the first LSU punt since late in the first quarter. The Gators took over at their 8 and produced a series of nice plays — Trask hitting Freddie Swain for 21 yards on third-and-10, Grimes for 15 on third-and-12 to get out of the hole — and faced a second-and-2 at the LSU 17. Trask got pressure from the left by defensive end Rashard Lawrence and tried to force a pass to Swain in the end zone. There was nothing there — except for LSU defensive back Derek Stingley Jr., who picked off the throw with 7:26 remaining to preserve LSU's seven-point lead. 

Four plays later, Chase worked standout cornerback CJ Henderson on a wheel route that left the Tigers wideout all alone up the right sideline. Burrow's pass hit Chase in stride for a 54-yard touchdown and yet another lightning-strike of a drive (four plays, 80 yards, 1:43).

The Gators tried to make it interesting with a 15-play, 71-yard march to the Tigers' 2, but defensive lineman K'Lavon Chaaisson smothered Trask on a blown-up fourth-and-goal option play from the LSU two, throwing Trask for 2-yard loss with 49 seconds to play. 

"We have to get better," Mullen said. "The big thing for us is that next week is an even bigger game. A one fun thing about being at Florida is that the games just keep getting bigger and bigger. Our next four games are against SEC East teams [at South Carolina, Georgia in Jacksonville, Vanderbilt at home, then at Missouri], so we completely control our destiny. We have to get ready."