10/22 at 11:23 PM

BATON ROUGE, La. — Top-ranked LSU was kind enough to let No. 20 Auburn hang around for the first 20 minutes of Saturday’s game at Tiger Stadium.

After that — as most national title contenders do — the home team set about punishing the visiting Tigers for every mistake they made, ripping off 35 points in 12:33 and coasting to a 45-10 win.

LSU (8-0, 5-0 SEC) handed Auburn (5-3, 3-2) its most lopsided loss since the 36-0 defeat in the 2008 Iron Bowl.

The home Tigers held the visiting Tigers to their lowest point output since LSU’s 31-10 win over Auburn in 2009.

“Obviously, that was very disappointing,” Auburn head coach Gene Chizik said. “That’s not our standard of the way we need to play.

“All the way around, we got whupped.”

Up 7-3 in the second quarter, LSU’s Jordan Jefferson hit Rueben Randle — who had burst past Robenson Therezie and Demetruce McNeal — in stride for a 42-yard score to put the Tigers up 14-3 with 5:00 left in the half.

Randle again blew by a pair of Auburn defensive backs — this time Chris Davis and Neiko Thorpe — on LSU’s next series, hauling in a 46-yard pass from Jarrett Lee to send LSU into the break up 21-3.

The LSU junior finished with five catches for 106 yards and two scores, all in the first half.

“On the one, he beat us. Ran by us. OK,” defensive coordinator Ted Roof said. “On the other one, he ran by us as well.”

After an Auburn punt to start the third quarter, LSU cleaved the Tigers defense for 74 yards in six plays, the final 10 coming on a pass from Lee to Russell Shepard in the flat that the wideout took to the pylon to put LSU up 28-3.

On the ensuing kickoff, Tre Mason coughed the ball up — Auburn’s first lost fumble of the year — to Tahj Jones at the Auburn 22, leading to a 1-yard score by Kenny Hilliard that put LSU up 35-3.

On Auburn’s next series, Clint Moseley — making his first collegiate start — telegraphed a pass to DeAngelo Benton that Ron Brooks intercepted and took 28 yards to the house to give LSU a 42-3 lead with 7:27 to go in the third.

That escalated quickly.

“That was tough for everyone, seeing the score just keep going and going,” said senior linebacker Eltoro Freeman, who finished with eight tackles and two tackles for loss.

Moseley was under near-constant fire in his first foray as QB1, getting sacked six times for a loss of 56 yards total.

LSU held the Tigers to 87 yards on 34 carries, making Mike Dyer, Onterio McCalebb and Kiehl Frazier largely non-factors.

“They’re one of the best defenses in America,” offensive coordinator Gus Malzahn said. “They made us look very bad at times.”

And this was an LSU defense missing one-man wrecking crew Tyrann Mathieu and utility man Tharold Simon in the secondary due to a suspension.

“They blitz a lot,” Frazier said. “We didn’t even know where they were coming from.”

When Moseley could avoid the pressure, he completed 12-of-20 passes for 145 yards.

But he couldn’t shake his pick-6.

“I will never blame it on the pressure,” Moseley said. “That’s just something that you have to handle playing quarterback. At the same time, the hits, they do add up. But there’s no one to blame but myself on that one.”

The Auburn defense, which held Florida to 194 yards last week, surrendered 393 to LSU.

The homestanding Tigers spread around 174 rushing yards to go with a 14-for-20 performance by Lee, resulting in 165 yards and two scores.

And this was an LSU offense missing leading rusher Spencer Ware, who also sat out the game due to suspension.

LSU’s got a date with destiny and No. 2 Alabama on Nov. 5 in Tuscaloosa.

And Auburn certainly wasn’t going to stand in its way.

“We’re going straight to work and we’re going to work hard,” Freeman said. “This don’t sit right with none of us.”