Messay Hailemariam had seen Michael Van Buren do that before.

Scrambling, creating, improvising. These were the hallmarks of Van Buren’s play during his senior season at St. Frances Academy in Maryland: How he could make the most out of a less-than-ideal situation.

Two years later, Hailemariam — Van Buren’s coach at St. Frances — watched him make the same type of play again. The difference this time was that he was at LSU, looking to snap the Tigers’ three-game losing streak in his first game as their starting quarterback.

Van Buren scrambled to his right, flushed out of the pocket by an Arkansas defense that eliminated the initial reads in his progression, forcing him to look to the back of the end zone as he drifted toward the sideline. That’s where he spotted fifth-year senior t

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