Betting Line & LSU Offense vs. Alabama Defense

I’m going to do another blog after this about what to expect when Alabama has the ball, but for now I’m going to talk about the line and what to expect from the LSU offense.

I remember some disappointing Alabama games (see series blog for more), but even mediocre LSU teams have come within a touchdown in recent years, especially at home.  In fact, LSU hasn’t lost by more than 10 points to Alabama at home since 2002, when a man named Nick Saban coached the Tigers to a 31-point mauling at the hands of Dennis Franchione’s Tide.  That was also the last time Alabama scored more than 21 in regulation in Baton Rouge.

I also wanted to mention that the last time a top-5 team was a 14-point underdog at home, both the favored team and the loser of that game was Alabama.  You might remember a certain Iron Bowl game in 2013.

The famous Kick Six. I forgot how close Chris Davis came to being pushed out by the kicker.  The linemen never had a chance though.

So the 14.5-point early line makes it mighty tempting to take LSU.  One recent Alabama game (on the road though) gives me a little pause: the Tide won by 21 in 2013 (the season I just mentioned), but it was a tied game with under 5 minutes left in the third quarter.  I think that was the only recent game with a similar offensive production on both sides as I’d expect here.  Other than that game and the 2011 BCS Championship, every other LSU-Alabama game since that 2002 result I mentioned was decided by fewer than 14.5 points.  In short, a closer game seems more likely than not.

LSU was able to relax for the last quarter or so of a few games; but Auburn and Florida went down to the end, and LSU only really had a few minutes of leisure against the two Bulldog teams (Miss. St. ended the game theoretically within two possessions, and LSU was only up 13 against Georgia until about 4 minutes left).  I don’t think given Alabama’s inexperience in such games that they would do what they did in 2013 though.

On LSU’s side, Georgia was favored by 8.5 in early betting, and LSU won by 20 at home.  A few weeks before, Auburn was favored by 10, and LSU won by 1 on the road.  In the first game, Miami was favored by 3.5, and LSU won by 16 in Arlington.  So this wouldn’t be the first time that the Tigers out-performed expectations this season; and if LSU wins, it will be the third time they did so by more than two touchdowns.

RB Clyde Edwards-Helaire fights for extra yards at home against Georgia.  The Tigers beat the spread by four touchdowns.

I’ll discuss it more in the next blog, but the best teams I’ve followed in the last 27 or so years of really paying attention have been tested at some point. The most consistently dominant team I remember was Nebraska in 1995 (I’ll talk more about them next blog), but even they had a game against an unranked team at home that they could only win by 14.

LSU’s results against Auburn and Georgia also help my argument that this will most likely be the toughest game for Alabama.  LSU also beat Mississippi St., who plays the Tide on November 9.  Both that game and Auburn will be home games for the Tide, and the Georgia game (if it happens) would be in Atlanta with about half the audience on Alabama’s side.

In the last blog, I mentioned that it hurt Alabama in the computer that Texas A&M lost to Mississippi St.  It also hurts the real-life argument that the Tide really has been tested.  Alabama only had one extra score on the Aggies than Mississippi St. did (they won by 22 points rather than 15 points), although Texas A&M was in the Mississippi St. game a good bit longer.  Texas A&M justifiably fell out of the coaches poll and is now 25^th in the AP poll.  Despite the Tigers’ loss to now-#13/14 Florida, playing LSU is a significant step beyond a #25-to-30 type of team.

The Alabama media, despite in many cases claiming it will be an easy game anyway, seems to agree that this will be the toughest test of the regular season.  I know they don’t think in unison; that was just a good example. 

I think Nick Saban made a good point on Monday that you can’t really apply the statistics from earlier to the Tide’s schedule going forward.  This is especially true on offense given that the A&M team I mentioned doesn’t have much of a defense. 

Saban was complimentary of Burrow as he tries to be of every upcoming opponent, but if you’ve been following LSU you could imagine that he was leaving out.  I’m going to leave out the ellipses, but I thought these were the key sentences about him: “Their quarterback play is well-formed.  They’ve got good receivers.  [Burrow] has been, I think a very very effective player.  He’s a good passer. He’s athletic enough to pull the ball and run it   They’ve got some very very good receivers.”

Saban also said LSU has the ability to be explosive in the passing game, which is true, but he didn’t even give Burrow one “very” when calling him a good passer.  The full sentence in my head ended with “but he’ll be lucky if he completes half his passes.”  Saban didn’t say anything about Burrow knowing when to step up in the pocket or throw the ball away when there is a pass rush outside of his field of vision.  Maybe I’m cynical by nature (or maybe I’ve listened to Saban point out problems with own teams often enough), but when I hear a coach talk about what can go right on the very best plays, I think of what can go wrong on the plays that aren’t so good.

Like this year, the best opponent Alabama had faced before the LSU game last year was Texas A&M.  Although A&M may be better this year than last year, I think last year was better preparation for LSU because playing A&M on the road was probably a good approximation to playing LSU at home. I don’t think you can make the same argument about the reverse this year.

In Alabama’s five SEC games before LSU last year, they gave up an average of 7.6 points, or about 2 ½ less than LSU scored. The average points given up in those games this year?  18.4. 

Last year the SEC average for the Tigers was about 22 points (1 fewer game though), and this year it was 28 points.  So whether you want to say Alabama will give up 11 more or LSU will score 6 more, I think if it were a similar game plan and similar circumstances, LSU would score between 16 and 21.

I think this year’s game being at home puts LSU’s upper limit more into the upper 20s (maybe even 30 or 31) than lower 20s though.  In Alabama’s two road games against ranked teams last year (then-#16 Mississippi St. and then-#6 Auburn), the Tide gave up 24 and 26 points, respectively.  As I think I’ve demonstrated, this Alabama defense isn’t as good as that one (though they can partly blame the offense for scoring faster).

I think LSU can only get above about 31 if something weird like the Georgia game happens (basically along with LSU playing them harder than anyone else has, the Alabama offense hurts itself a lot more than it has before and puts more pressure on the defense).  On the other hand, if the LSU offense hurts itself more than usual (basically if it looks like it did after the first drive and a half against Florida) and lets Alabama hold onto the ball most of the game, you could see LSU’s score going below the mid-teens and possibly into the single digits.

So I think the best to look at how you get there is that LSU will have to score about the top 45% of its range of points, and Alabama will have to score in the bottom 45% of its range out points for LSU to win (just to throw out a number, maybe 25 or more).  I’ll talk about the range for Alabama next time.  I might even give a guess as to the final score.

Top 25 after Week 9

Clemson moved into the computer #1  as I thought they might this week.  Louisville is really bad, so Clemson won’t gain much next week.  To give myself an educated guess as to how much Alabama could add to their score, I looked at how much Georgia moved up this week.  They moved up 6 spots and about 0.18 in points.  LSU with an extra loss right now would count for about 10% more than Florida, which roughly matches how far Alabama is behind Clemson.  It may depend on prior opponents (and opponents’ opponents, but those stats are less volatile) of both Alabama and Clemson.  It’s a virtual certainly that LSU would have enough points to be #1 with the win regardless of any combination of outcomes in other games.

Clemson struggled in some earlier games (such as at home against Syracuse), but the Tigers seemed right at home in the record-setting win in Tallahassee.

LSU actually gained slightly in points in the off week, which kept the Tigers ahead of Notre Dame.  Mississippi St.’s win over Texas A&M helped LSU, and that also hurt Alabama’s score slightly to make it more difficult for the Tide to overtake Clemson.  Anyway, just a reminder that the computer is going to dictate everything starting next week.

Texas A&M was one of 10 top-25 teams on my list to lose this week, so there are definitely some changes.  I feel slightly vindicated by some of the results, not that I had teams predicted to win, but more that I wasn’t overrating them as much as the major polls.  I didn’t have Texas A&M very high, only 21^st, and even lower the week before.  I didn’t have Oregon close to being ranked.  Appalachian St. was in my top 40 but not all that far ahead of the Georgia Southern team that beat them. South Florida was also in my top 40 but not top 25.  Most people had Texas ranked ahead of Oklahoma, but I didn’t.  I had Wisconsin a few spots lower than most.

A few of the major-poll top-25 teams who lost were in the Pac-12.  It seems like almost anyone in the Pac-12 can beat almost anyone else.  The only one-loss possibility left is Washington St., and the Cougars can’t usually keep the point production going consistently enough to maintain that.  Even if they pull it off and there is a series of upsets, it’s going to be very difficult given that Wazzu’s nonconference schedule consisted of Wyoming (well below average this year), San Jose St. (a terrible team), and Eastern Washington (a good FCS team).

It’s close to certain that the SEC champion will be in the top 4.  The ACC and Big Ten both seem likely to contribute a team.  Notre Dame is going to be in the mix as long as they’re undefeated, but I think if the Irish lose they may fall behind Oklahoma and perhaps a second SEC team.

Speaking of the SEC, there is a divisional championship game between Georgia and Kentucky next week along with the LSU-Alabama game.  Alabama would clinch at least a share of the SEC West title with a win whereas LSU would only clinch a winning SEC record and would still need to win two more games (against Arkansas and Texas A&M).

I wanted to mention that Buffalo (which was ranked for the first time last week) and Georgia Southern are the 91st and 92nd teams to appear in my rankings list since I started it over 20 years ago (although for about the first 10 years it was mostly just for myself).  Last year I had said Florida Atlantic was #89, but I’d left out a team (Appalachian St.) when counting, so they were really #90.  So there are still 38 more teams that need to find their way on there one of these years.

Rank	Team	Prev.
1	Alabama	1
2	Clemson	3
3	Notre Dame	2
4	LSU	4
5	Michigan	5
6	Georgia	12
7	Kentucky	10
8	Oklahoma	6
9	Florida	8
10	Ohio St.	13
11	Wash St.	—
12	Iowa	9
13	Penn St.	—
14	Army	23
15	Utah	16
16	Texas	7
17	Fresno St.	—
18	W. Virginia	25
19	Buffalo	18
20	NC State	15
21	Washington	11
22	Ga. Southern	—
23	Stanford	14
24	Iowa St.	—
25	C. Florida	19

Out of Top 25: (17) Duke, (20) San Diego St., (21) Texas A&M, (22) Virginia, (24) Wisconsin

Week 8 Reactions & Florida/Georgia Series

Devin White Suspension

I was already very concerned about the Alabama game before the targeting call.  I’ll comment more on Mississippi St. below;but if they had a passing game, it would have been a long night.

LSU linebacker Devin White, pictured rushing the quarterback in a game last season, was suspended for the first half of LSU’s game against Alabama scheduled for November 3 in Baton Rouge.

Anyway, if the Devin White penalty was targeting,they need to change the rule.  I don’t even think it should be a foul when the defender (1) leads with his arms and(2) doesn’t even take a step after the ball is released.  The top of the defender’s helmet bumping the quarterback’s facemask (Mississippi St. quarterback Nick Fitzgerald is a tall guy) after the defender’s arms absorb the impact doesn’t change that for me.  Maybe you disagree and think it should be a 15-yard penalty.  I can sort of understand that.  An ejection and a suspension for any of the next game is just absurd.  If that’s how it is, put a flag around the quarterback’s waist and don’t allow him to be tackled unless he starts running forward.

Former Bill Clinton campaign adviser James Carville, an LSU graduate, has blamed the suspension an SEC conspiracy (no word on whether it’s vast or right-wing or orchestrated by the Kremlin) in favor of Alabama.  I also feel like LSU got screwed by the officiating against Alabama in 2014, and Alabama has tended to get easier schedules (it’s a strict rotation now, but there were ad hoc “transitional” schedules for a few years). However, I’m not convinced there is widespread bias at the league office; and if there is bias, it’s more in favor of the team more likely to win a championship than it is in favor of Alabama per se.  Alabama just happens to have been that team the last several years.

Mississippi St.-LSU (series update) 

Anyway, I mentioned I didn’t think Fitzgerald would do much throwing the ball, but I didn’t think as many interceptions (it was actually 5 for the game if you include the play the targeting was called on) as completions until the last drive.

I’m not even a little surprised that the Bulldogs had more total yards than LSU did though. But given that, I thought we’d see more points from State obviously.  I think they had some of the same problems I described Georgia having against LSU though.  They wanted to run, it looked like they could run against the LSU defense; but after a few drives, they got too far behind to be comfortable running. 

Georgia ran for 71 yards on their second drive (not counting the loss on the fake field goal), and Mississippi St. ran for 71 yards in just the first three plays of their second drive.  One thing the maroon Bulldogs did right was actually kick the field goal, but I don’t imagine they were happy having a 1^st and goal at the 4 lead only to a field goal. 

State only really threatened to score one other time (in the last two minutes); but not surprisingly, Fitzgerald threw another interception. 

I think the Bulldogs also screwed up by punting on 4^th and 1 at midfield late in the second quarter.  Fitzgerald had run for another 34 yards on that drive.  I would have given the Bulldogs about an 80% chance of making it.  LSU was doing nothing on offense at the time and probably wouldn’t have scored anyway (the Tigers were three and out on the next possession if that means anything).

Then in the middle of the third quarter, after LSU was starting to get the offense going and having less trouble with the State running game, they went for it on 4^th and 3.  That was a much less obvious situation to go for it, especially not the play they called (In an apparent passing play Fitzgerald was pressured, had nowhere to throw, and was ultimately sacked).  Going from punting on 4^th and 1 to trying to throw in 4^th and 3 just showed they were getting desperate even though they were only down 10 at the time.

On the ensuing drive, the Tigers tacked on 3 points to go up 16-3.  I don’t want to say a two-possession game was pretty much over, but the chances of a comeback remained on a steep decline as the game continued.

Big Ten

I didn’t exactly call Purdue to beat Ohio St., but I made clear the Buckeyes were the least tested undefeated team (apart from USF and UCF).  I really wasn’t shocked by the loss, although beating Purdue by 1 and losing big to Penn St. would have been more expected going into the last month.

There has been some talk in the last few years about the Big Ten being as good as the SEC (and there was a good argument at times if you only wanted to look at the best few teams in each conference), but one of the best Big Ten teams losing to Purdue 49-20 doesn’t really help that argument.  If the Boilermakers had only lost to Big Ten teams, it would show depth; but they lost to a Missouri team that’s 0-3 in the SEC (and 4-0 outside the SEC).  Both Ohio St. and Missouri traveled to West Lafayette too.  Purdue also lost to Eastern Michigan and Northwestern at home.

A one-loss winner of the Big Ten is still a likely playoff participant in my opinion though.  Regardless of what happens between now and then, the Michigan-Ohio St. game should be a good one.  First Michigan has to play Penn St. in 8 days though.

Georgia-Florida

Georgia RB D’Andre Swift reaches the edge against Florida in the 42-7 rout last season. Swift ran for a season-high 72 yards against LSU 13 days ago.

Back to the SEC, I thought I’d talk about the game of the week since Alabama and LSU won’t be playing.

Georgia leads the series, formerly known as the world’s largest outdoor cocktail party,  51-43-2, which sounds pretty even; but that glosses over how well Florida has done starting about 30 years ago.  Georgia was 25-5-1 in the series after the 1951 game and was 44-22-2 after the 1989 game.  The Gators then won 18 of 21, but the Bulldogs have won 4 of the last 7.

Florida doesn’t count the 1904 team’s records, I guess because the university didn’t commit to a meaningful intercollegiate team until 1911. But according to record-keeper James Howell, if you play a major schedule, you’re a major team.  The Gators did that in 1904 even though they lost all five games (other opponents were Alabama, Auburn, Georgia Tech, and Florida St.) and were outscored 225-0 on the season. 

Anyway, I counted that game in the records above.  In addition to deferring to Howell’s judgment, LSU played one game in 1893 and counts that in their official records, so it seems unreasonably selective that Florida doesn’t want to count the 1904 season.    

The first game of the series played in Jacksonville is the first game Florida counts, but that wasn’t until 1915.  After that game and one game in Athens, there was another similar exchange a few years later (Tampa in 1919 and Athens in 1920).  Then after another hiatus, the rivalry became an annual event in 1926. The location still bounced around a little bit (2 games in Athens, 1 in Gainesville, 2 in Savannah, and 2 in Jacksonville) before it started to be played every year in Jacksonville in 1933.

There have only been two interruptions of sorts since then.  In 1943, in the middle of World War II, the game wasn’t played at all.  Then in 1994 and 1995, the rivalry took a break from Jacksonville and each team played a home game; but it’s been back in Jacksonville since 1996. 

It didn’t seem to matter where Florida played Georgia from 1994 to 1996 as Florida was in the top 5 in all three games and won each by 35 points or more.  The Gators won the national championship in 1996, which had been the only national championship by either program since Georgia won in 1980.  The Gators then won in 2006 and 2008.

Usually the team that is ranked higher wins, but there have been a few exceptions in the last 11 years.  In 2007, Florida was ranked 9^th and Georgia was only ranked 20^th although both had two losses.  Georgia won, 42-30.  In 2012, #12 Georgia upset #3 Florida, 17-9.  Finally, in 2014, unranked Florida, which had started the year only 3-3, upset #9 Georgia, 38-20, ending the Bulldogs’ 5-game winning streak (and 3-game winning streak in the series).  That was the first of three consecutive seasons wherein the Gators beat the Bulldogs until Georgia’s 42-7 win last season.   

There hasn’t been a one-possession game in this series since 2013, but that had been the fourth consecutive season in which it was a one-possession game.  There was another group of close games from 2002 (the year Georgia won its first SEC title since 1981) to 2006, so I guess they come in bunches.  It may be overdue for a close one.

This site gives some other details about series records and team histories that may be of interest.

Since 2013, the two teams have had a mutual bye before their game, so this makes it harder to judge the outcome by recent momentum. 

Georgia lost at LSU in the Bulldogs’ last game to end a 6-game winning streak.  The Gators struggled before ultimately beating Vanderbilt in their last game, but on the other hand it was the fifth win in a row.

Top 25 after Week 8

I decided I would post more detailed reactions to the top games later in the week since I don’t have an LSU preview blog to write this week.  It’s possible I may preview other games though.

By the way, there is a new editing system for this blog that I’m trying out.  

Purdue’s D.J. Knox ran for 128 yards and 3 touchdowns in the upset of the Buckeyes in West Lafayette, IN, on Saturday.

Here is the update to the Mississippi St. Rivalry series, and if you want to read anything about Alabama-LSU, you might want to start here.  

LSU is on top in the computer rankings for the moment, but if you divide score by playing week, the Tigers are only third (after Notre Dame and Clemson).  That’s an indication that LSU will fall in the computer after the bye next week.  In the rankings below, I’m keeping them fourth.

Although Alabama hasn’t faced anything close to the competition LSU has, the Tide doesn’t have a loss and is likely to stay that way for a while (ESPN gives them a 79% chance of beating LSU), which I project will be enough to make put them in the #1 spot in the computer after that game.  Usually the first week of November is when I completely follow my computer rankings, but I’m already doing that for numbers 5 through 25.

Why do I stick with my current computer formula if it would put LSU ahead of Alabama right now?  If at the end of the season a team has the 86^th-best schedule and is undefeated (that wouldn’t be a strange number for a team in the American Conference, for instance), I generally wouldn’t want that team ahead of a 1-loss team with the 6^th-best strength of schedule (which is often higher than the winners of even the best conferences).  Alabama’s and LSU’s respective schedules will become more similar as the season goes on though.

The basis of my computer rankings is basically an unbiased assessment of a team’s accomplishments against its schedule up until now.  LSU will lose ground in strength of schedule compared to other major teams when it plays Arkansas and Rice in consecutive weeks after the Alabama.game.  The Tide would gain more points by beating Mississippi St. than LSU will by beating Arkansas.  The following week (when LSU plays Rice and Alabama plays the Citadel), other teams will be able to gain on both.  Although a bye doesn’t affect strength of schedule, it could also allow teams to pass up LSU and/or Alabama next week.

I had said if Clemson was #1 after this week I’d move them in front, but those Tigers are only #3 right now.  They’re very close to Notre Dame and I would expect them to pass up the Irish by beating Florida St.  I still wouldn’t want to make them #1 only to potentially move them back out of #1 after the Louisville game (even if they beat Florida St.). 

Clemson WR Hunter Renfrow heads downfield after evading the North Carolina St. defender in Clemson, SC, on Saturday.

ESPN gives Clemson at least an 86% chance to win in each of its remaining games (only a 58% chance to win them all though), but I think Florida St. has a better chance than that.  Although Clemson did all you could ask for last week, they have to get over it and get ready for a road game against the improving Seminoles next week  Ohio St. didn’t really have a big high to get over (they beat Minnesota the week before) last week at Purdue, and look at what happened to them. Purdue had won 3 in a row after a bad start, and Florida St. has won 3 of 4 (with only a one-point loss to U. Miami in the mix) after a bad start.

Notre Dame has a similar schedule to Clemson over the next two weeks (wins over Navy and Northwestern would be similar to wins over Florida St. and Louisville), but I think the Irish have less chance of losing at Northwestern.  So Notre Dame is another possible #1 in the coming weeks.

LSU could be #1 by beating Alabama in two weeks, but I’m not sure if either Florida or Georgia losing would hurt the Tigers enough so that another team could go in front.

Georgia is relatively low in the rankings right now, but they could also be a competitor for #1 by beating Florida and Kentucky.  Florida would probably be less so because the Gators play Missouri the week after that. 

Something else I did out of curiosity was rank the top 25 opponents.  This is not the final top 25, but in order to make the top 25 I have to give each team a score.  The only three teams with two wins against that list are Notre Dame, Clemson, and LSU.  So I really don’t have any doubt that LSU is the best one-loss team (at least on paper) right now.  We could debate how high a one-loss team should be though.

LSU’s loss is to the seventh team on that list, so the Tigers don’t lose enough points to cancel out any win except maybe Southeastern.  Every other LSU win is against a team in the top 45 on the opponents list, so that’s why it’s close enough to put the Tigers ahead if you don’t consider the extra playing week.

LSU’s opponents getting such high marks might be surprising given some of the games Auburn and Ole Miss have played in, but both Ole Miss and Auburn have as many wins against the top 25 opponents as Alabama does (1 each), and both teams are .500 in their other games for winning records against the FBS overall.  Auburn’s loss to Tennessee is the only loss between the two of them to a team outside the top 45.  Auburn counteracts that with a better key win (Washington rates a good bit higher than Texas Tech, which is even lower as a team than as an opponent).

So, as strange as it seems, Ohio St. has lost to a worse opponent (Purdue) than any Ole Miss has lost to (Alabama, LSU, and Auburn).  Mississippi St. has also lost to LSU now of course, but instead of losing to Alabama and Auburn the Bulldogs lost to Florida and Kentucky.

Keep in mind that my projections as to future weeks are only rough guesses because I’m just looking at current record and schedule strength and adding a loss.  Any prior opponent (or opponents’ opponent) losing or winning makes a difference as well.  I think I mentioned all the realistic #1 possibilities for the next few weeks regardless.

Top 25

Rank	Team	Prev.
1	Alabama	1
2	Notre Dame	2
3	Clemson	3
4	LSU	4
5	Michigan	11
6	Oklahoma	8
7	Texas	7
8	Florida	6
9	Iowa	15
10	Kentucky	10
11	Washington	24
12	Georgia	14
13	Ohio St.	5
14	Stanford	12
15	NC State	9
16	Utah	25
17	Duke	13
18	Buffalo	—
19	C. Florida	20
20	San Diego St.	17
21	Texas A&M	—
22	Virginia	—
23	Army	19
24	Wisconsin	—
25	W. Virginia	23

Out of Top 25: (16) Cincinnati, (18) S Florida, (21) Maryland, (22) Miss. St.

Preview of Miss. St. at LSU

I wanted to say a couple more things about the Georgia game. I did think LSU would lose more likely than not, and I didn’t see them winning by more than 7 if they did win. In my defense, if you had told me ahead of time that LSU would win the turnover battle 4-0 and would only be penalized twice for 19 yards, I would have picked LSU to win by double digits. It was just hard to make that prediction after the Florida game. We could probably beat Alabama by double digits if we’re able to do that again. There is just an extremely low chance Alabama will turn the ball over that many times without forcing any though.

Kirby Smart said something that reminded me of the Florida game as well: “When you don’t stop the run well, guys, it makes it hard to do anything.”

Kirby Smart doesn’t always look worthy of the name, but he knows a thing of two about defense.

LSU has won 21 straight home games in the month of October. That’s partly because we play Alabama in November, and we had a couple of long streaks that were ended at the hands of Troy (the record regular-season non-conference winning streak) and Mississippi St., (a streak against the Bulldogs) respectively, in recent Septembers. But there is something to be said for the streak. When we haven’t started well, we usually recovered by this time. When we have started well but didn’t finish well, we still played well up until the Alabama game.

I didn’t see the Mississippi St.-Auburn game, but I wish that I had. I understand the Bulldogs added some wrinkles in the running game that they didn’t have against Florida. Most of those 349 yards were by Nick Fitzgerald, the quarterback; but lead running back Kylin Hill averaged over 5 yards per carry, so you can’t dismiss that easily either. Against Florida, Hill ran fewer times with fewer yards per carry, so it seems their running attack can wear down defenses.

I don’t know if trying to run the Mississippi St. offense against Dan Mullen was going to work very well regardless, but that doesn’t mean LSU can easily stop it even if nothing changed in the weeks since. We certainly didn’t do a very good job last year or in 2014 (when the Bulldogs broke LSU’s 14-game winning streak and 11-game home winning streak in the series) against Mississippi St. offenses with a similar philosophy.

With spread and option-oriented offenses it’s hard to be able to cover the whole field horizontally without opening up runs toward the middle of the field. Sometimes our players can also be too fast to run into the backfield, and then before you know it, the running back (or quarterback in their case) is in the defensive secondary. Against LSU last year, the Bulldogs had almost 6 yards per carry.

The good news is the Bulldogs only completed 9 passes for 69 yards against Auburn, so that’s probably one area where they won’t be able to do as well against LSU as last year (when Fitzgerald threw for 180 yards). It seems that after the Florida game, the Bulldog coaching staff made some of the same observations I had about Georgia hurting themselves by going away from the run and ending drives with incompletions.

Miss. St. QB Nick Fitzgerald runs for a touchdown in Starkville last year. Fitzgerald accounted for 268 yards and 4 touchdowns for the game.

I think State makes up for their need to rely on running more than they did initially by having a better defense than it had in some of those past years though. LSU only scored 7 points against them last year, but Auburn scored 49 against the Bulldogs last year (compared to 9 this year) and three other teams scored over 30 (which no one has done so far this year).

Another positive is our offense is running a lot better than when we played them last year. We scored some points early on last season, but it was against BYU, Chattanooga, and Syracuse teams that struggled to defend against even mediocre offenses at times.

Obviously scoring 36 against Georgia, even with the assistance of turnovers, is much better than anything we were able to do in the early games last year. Even in the relatively poor showing of 19 points against Florida, that was with multiple drives of 30 yards or more that didn’t result in any points. It’s possible we could be held to around 20 points again; but I think that’s very close to the floor, at least against anyone other than Alabama.

I also have a slight concern because where the Mississippi St. defense does allow yardage tends to be in the passing game. I can see more problems with relying on Burrow if it comes to that than relying on the running backs. Burrow also still has a problem with holding onto the ball too long to look for receivers. This resulted in multiple sacks against Georgia, a team that only records half as many sacks on average as Mississippi St.

Despite last year and some of the other areas of concern, I’m going to pick LSU to win a close one, something like 24-20. It’s another opponent with a good field-goal kicker. They haven’t needed him much, but he’s kicked two field goals of 45 yards or more.

I’m predicting a closer game than either SEC fans commentator. Part of the reason is LSU did a lot of good things as far as sustaining drives against Georgia (as they also did in earlier games), which I think helps in their statistical model; but I think the Tigers have shown they won’t necessarily do the same things as well (or as poorly) from week to week. I think the talent and general competence will be just enough to get them over the top if the Tigers do regress slightly.

I’ll just mention a few other minor things that really didn’t play a role in this prediction. There are some general problems LSU has had with offenses like this that I covered above, but you can’t get too hung up on the final score from the previous year. In 2007, for instance, we lost to Kentucky after beating them 49-0 the year before. In 2015, we beat Auburn easily (45-21 after leading 38-7 at one point) despite losing to them by 34 the year before.

I mentioned this earlier, but if someone wins the turnover battle 4-0 like in the Georgia game, that can change outcome by double digits. I didn’t think last week’s result was reason to drastically change my approach to predictions. I think we have had a tendency to lose focus and motivation in other areas when we commit a turnover. On the other hand, we generally put points on the board when the other team commits a turnover.

Ed Orgeron has only beaten Mississippi St. once as head coach, a 20-3 win in the 2004 Egg Bowl; but he the good news is he’s 1-0 at home against the Bulldogs (and 0-3 on the road, but we’ll worry about that next year).

Top 25 after Week 7

Since the top 25 will be almost purely mathematical from now on (I do have three paragraphs about the changes I made to the top 7), I plan to talk more about what happened on the field Saturday than why I like one team better than another.

LSU-Georgia and Comparisons

I wrote extensively about the 2003 game, LSU’s previous home win over Georgia, in my update to the LSU-Georgia Series Blog (since updated to add the result), so it was interesting to see the Advocate’s Scott Rabalais bring that game up here. That was one of the top games in the rivalry in my opinion because at that time they were the last two SEC champions facing off, and it was the first time either team faced opposing head coaches Nick Saban and Mark Richt, respectively. Also, LSU was one of only two teams to beat the Bulldogs that year (which they did twice). Both teams lost to Florida, who somehow lost 5 games on the season; but LSU would win the BCS national championship in the following January.

It’s funny how the start of games can be so different from the way they play out. I almost feel bad for Georgia fans, because I would have been really frustrated. I don’t have to think back very far to recall such a feeling.

After LSU took a 3-0 lead, Georgia took the field and was able to run on LSU almost at will after Florida ran for over 200 yards against the Tigers the week before. I thought it was going to be a long day. Then one running play didn’t work out for the Bulldogs setting up a 2nd and 9, and they largely gave up on the run.

Two incompletions followed, and then on 4th and 9 they ran a fake kick. They gave up on Holyfield and Swift and flipped the ball to Rodrigo Blankenship? That was one of the dumbest set of downs I’ve seen from a major program this year. The Bulldogs didn’t run the ball the next possession either, a three and out. By this time LSU led 13-0. In the next 3 runs the Bulldogs averaged 4.3 yards, but I guess the scoreboard kept them from committing to the run in any kind of consistent way. Georgia ran for 71 yards in the drive that set up the fake field goal (before the lost yardage on the fake) and ended up with only 113 rushing yards for the game, but to be fair a few good runs were canceled out by negative plays.

In LSU’s game at Florida, the Tigers were doing great on both sides of the ball early on. The Tigers had one touchdown drive to start up 7-0. The Gators got one first down on their next drive but stalled immediately afterward. Then LSU took only 5 plays to get down to the Florida 28, and Burrow fumbled it on first down. The Tigers didn’t establish that kind of rhythm again the rest of the game. Even in the only other touchdown drive, it was only four plays and 78 of the 80 yards came on two runs by Nick Brossette, so that’s not really what I’d call a rhythm.

Here is the Mississippi St. rivalry blog if you want to look ahead to that game. It’s not talked about as much as some other series, but LSU has actually played more games against Mississippi St. than any other opponent. Something else I just noticed is LSU’s next three opponents will all be coming off of bye weeks.

Georgia QB Jake Fromm (being pressured by LSU LB Devin White) completed only 47% of his passes, significantly reduced from his previous season average of 73%.

Other Games Saturday

Another thing that had made me a little nervous at the early going of the Georgia game was the way Auburn and Florida had looked against Tennessee and Vanderbilt, respectively. Auburn lost, but Vanderbilt had led Florida 21-3 before losing 37-27.

I guess we’re just at the time of the season that you can’t really take anything from one week to the next as teams get into the heart of their conference schedules. No conference punishes you the way the SEC does if you don’t get up for a given game, but we still saw teams like West Virginia and U. Miami lose road games that on paper they should have won.
I mentioned Auburn and U. Miami, who both lost, but there was another prior LSU opponent who almost lost as well. That was Ole Miss, who really seemed down and out. The Rebels missed a field goal with 13:47 left in the game while down 9.

Arkansas did a good job running the clock and setting up disadvantageous field positions for the Rebels, but the Razorbacks didn’t score again. Ole Miss took advantage with 84- and 97-yard touchdown drives in the final 7 minutes. Arkansas will attempt to end its 6-game losing streak next week against Tulsa before facing Vanderbilt, another victim of a significant comeback. The Razorbacks will have a bye week before hosting LSU on November 9.

Other than the WVU-Iowa St. and U. Miami-Virginia games I referred to earlier, I can’t tell you too much about the non-SEC games. Notre Dame didn’t look very impressive in the quarter or so I watched against Pitt; but as usual the Irish were just good enough to beat a lesser opponent. I only watched Washington-Oregon briefly. I can’t stand watching defenses who can’t tackle.

I was going to turn on Michigan-Wisconsin after the SEC games, but it was already a blowout. I don’t understand how that game was chosen over LSU. The best team Michigan beat was Maryland, the only team Wisconsin beat that wasn’t terrible was Iowa, and both teams had losses (Wisconsin’s was to BYU). At least Lee Corso looks dumb, not that it was the first time.

Top 25 Comments

I’m keeping Alabama #1 for this week, but there is a good chance I will replace the Tide next week if Clemson wins (against N.C. St.) and becomes the computer #1 over idle Notre Dame. It’s not that Bama isn’t playing well; but they haven’t played any of the top 9 teams (in my opinion including non-conference games) in the SEC, and their only game in the next two weeks is against Tennessee. The Vols just beat Auburn; but being that it was their first SEC win since 2016, they’re not one of the top 9 teams in the SEC either. The Tide also don’t have a non-conference win that does them much good: Bama’s three opponents are only a combined 5-11 in FBS play, and two of them play in the Sun Belt.

The only other change from the computer was to move Ohio St. up two spots to be ahead of Texas and Florida. Texas did lose to a Big Ten team after all. I didn’t want to move the Buckeyes higher since they really haven’t played anyone… anyone who didn’t just lose to Michigan St. anyway. Ohio St. belonged ahead of LSU going into the week even though my computer didn’t have them ahead, but with the win (and Penn St.’s loss) LSU is now 3-1 against teams in my top 40 when Ohio St. hasn’t played any of those teams. LSU has beaten 5 teams in the top 65 to Ohio St.’s 2; so however you look at it, I think LSU’s quality wins overcome the one loss at this point. It helps Ohio St. a little bit that the Buckeyes haven’t played an FCS opponent, but still for Ohio St. to be 96th in FBS strength of schedule and for LSU to be 3rd explains how LSU can afford a loss.

Florida did beat LSU and has a better loss than Texas, which is why they’re ahead of the Longhorns; but I didn’t think the Gators had the quality wins to overcome the loss to Kentucky. LSU and Mississippi St. are the only top-50 wins according to my computer rankings. One of those two will lose value next week since they play one another, and Florida will lose value since they have the week off. It just makes sense to keep Ohio St. ahead for now when most likely Florida will fall next week anyway. Texas is off next week as well.

Top 25

rank/team/prev.

1 Alabama 1
2 Notre Dame 2
3 Clemson 3
4 LSU 6
5 Ohio St. 5
6 Florida 7
7 Texas 8
8 Oklahoma 11
9 NC State 10
10 Kentucky 9
11 Michigan 12
12 Stanford 17
13 Duke 15
14 Georgia 4
15 Iowa 21
16 Cincinnati 25
17 San Diego St. 23
18 S Florida 14
19 Army —
20 C. Florida 22
21 Maryland —
22 Miss. St. —
23 W. Virginia 13
24 Washington 16
25 Utah —

Out of Top 25: (18) U. Miami, (19) S Carolina, (20) Penn St., (24) Wisconsin

Georgia-LSU Series and Preview

Before I get to anything currently going on, I updated and revised my LSU-Georgia Series blog. Usually I only do this after games and it’s primarily to update the records, but it’s like a separate new blog this time. I hope you find the discussion of the last few close games between the two teams as interesting to read as it was to write.

Best wishes to everyone dealing with the hurricane. As far as I can tell, no games for this weekend will be affected. As far as campuses of major programs, there may have been some damage to Florida St. The Seminoles happened to have a bye this weekend. Hopefully if there is any damage to the stadium, it can be remedied by the next home game. Auburn was affected by the storm system; but apparently there will be no impact on Saturday’s game. The intersection of Georgia, Alabama, and Florida is key recruiting ground for a number of programs including LSU and Georgia, so I’m sure there is a lot of interest and support in helping people get through this.

With that out of the way, LSU was once again lucky (or is it unlucky?) enough to be chosen as the game of the week The Tigers do not tend to do as well at home during day games, but that may only be because they tend to play the better teams during the day.

If you were curious, the Mississippi St. @ LSU game next week (regardless of the respective outcomes) will be the early evening game (7 eastern/4 pacific) on ESPN. The last SEC home game will be against Alabama in 3 weeks and will almost certainly be at night, so Georgia should be the only day game in Tiger Stadium this season.

I gave the SECFans vlog another chance after not being too excited about their commentary against Florida last week. I also gave some more thought to what I wrote last week. At least that commentary game me a starting point, so I may listen to them more in the future to help give me ideas for writing.

My feeling about the game is LSU has a chance to win, but it’s not the greater chance. I can see LSU winning by a touchdown or losing by a few touchdowns (or anywhere in between), so I think the two commentators picking LSU to lose by 7 and 10 respectively are decent picks.

Both commentators in the video said Georgia was a better team and that LSU has a real chance to win, so I guess they abandoned the “LSU can’t beat better teams” line.

First off, it’s hard to compare the results of the two teams since Georgia hasn’t really been tested by its opposition. South Carolina was the only team ranked (24th) at the time, and they’ve since lost to Kentucky before beating Missouri with a last-second field goal last week. LSU has played three teams better than South Carolina (U. Miami, Auburn, and Florida). Georgia has not yet played its apparent challengers for the SEC East crown Kentucky and Florida.

Georgia has given up as much as 29 points, which they did on the road against Missouri. LSU is definitely a tougher place to play than Missouri, so even if there weren’t a talent gap between LSU and Missouri, that should be enough to make it a competitive game. The Bulldogs’ offense was responsible for only 36 of those points. In addition to the fumble return for a touchdown, 3 other Georgia points resulted in part from a Missouri turnover.

LSU does not have a passing offense like Missouri, but on the other hand they’re also not going to throw 25 incompletions, so I think that’s one Georgia game worth talking about. Part of the reason is that was the only Georgia game in which the outcome was in doubt well into the fourth quarter.

Georgia DB Tyson Campbell returns a fumble for a touchdown at Missouri on September 22. The Bulldogs went on to win, 43-29.

Although Mizzou threw the ball 48 times (partly because they were playing from behind almost the whole game), they still had a fairly good rush-pass balance. There was only a 50-yard difference between their total passing yards and total rushing yards. Mizzou also committed 3 turnovers which led to 10 points. If it weren’t for that, Mizzou may have been able to have even better run-pass balance.

As I discussed in the LSU-Florida post-game, LSU is most likely undefeated if not for two key turnovers against the Gators; but in other games the Tigers won the turnover battle. So LSU might not have to be much better than a Missouri but just without the big mistakes Missouri had against Georgia or LSU had against Florida.

Maybe LSU won’t sneak up on Georgia as much, but it’s not like against Missouri the Bulldogs had a hangover from Middle Tennessee the prior week or were really worried about hosting Tennessee the next week.

As discussed in the video, Georgia only has an average performance against the rush. That gives LSU more of a chance than against a generic top-5 team. LSU did struggle somewhat against Florida’s rushing game, but the Gators had 15 more rushing attempts than passing attempts.

Georgia is not that kind of team unless they’re trying to run the clock out. It doesn’t make sense for a team that averages about twice as many yards per pass as yards per rush to run the ball all the time. It does make some sense if your quarterback is Felipe Franks to run the ball a lot in a close game. Florida had more yards per pass than yards per rush but not by much; and when you’re more likely to throw an incompletion than a completion, passing kills drives.

It’s no question that Georgia has a better quarterback than LSU, and I feel pretty sure that LSU has the better secondary, but I think the LSU and Georgia pass defenses are a lot more similar than the quarterbacks. The reason I think Georgia wins is even a well-defended Georgia will probably be able to contribute another scoring drive or two with its passing game. On the other hand, Burrow may be more comfortable if the running game is doing better and he doesn’t get sacked. Georgia does not have a very good pass rush.

Like with LSU –Florida though, if the team that should win is in scoring position and turns the ball over in one drive and there is another drive that ends in a defensive score, I think that’s enough to tip the game the other way.

I mentioned Missouri turned the ball over three times against Georgia, but Georgia had two turnovers. I think LSU is a team that is better at forcing turnovers than Missouri is, so LSU getting 3 turnovers is not out of the question. If LSU also has 3 turnovers, which they technically did against Florida (the interception at the end of the game doesn’t mean too much), I still think they lose though.

There are two good field-goal kickers in this game and I sense a lot of effective third-down defense on both sides (Georgia was only 3/12 against Missouri; LSU was only 4/17 against Florida), so I’m thinking the final score will be something like 30-23 Georgia.

Top 25 after Week 6

Eleven of last week’s computer top 25 lost, so that means a few things. (1) It makes it a lot easier for the winning teams to move up, (2) teams that lost might not fall as far as normal, and (3) you can get to a given spot with one more loss now.

I think (1) is obvious, but (2) might seem odd. The reason is if there are teams a couple spots lower who lost they probably won’t go ahead of the team in question. If you go down more than a few spots, even when you take away points from last week’s higher team and add them to the lower team, the lower team started too far back to take the lead.

The perfect example of (3) this week is Kentucky. Last week you needed to be undefeated (if you only had an average schedule) to be #8, but this week you can be #9 with a loss (and an improved schedule compared to what Kentucky had going in).

I know LSU just lost to Florida (see my reaction here), but the loss to Florida isn’t as bad as Florida’s loss to Kentucky and it certainly isn’t as bad as Texas’s loss to Maryland. I’m still moving LSU lower than the computer indicates. The multitude of highly-rated teams with losses as I explained above only resulted in a two-spot drop for the Tigers. Texas A&M, the team that beat Kentucky, doesn’t have a bad loss; but the problem is they have two of them and they don’t have any other good wins.

Arguably the most surprising result of the weekend was Texas’s win over Oklahoma in Dallas. The Longhorns broke the tie in the final seconds (above) after the Sooners rallied for 21 points in the fourth quarter.

Alabama (I’ll talk more about the Tide below) helps to depress the Texas A&M rating more than you would think. It also doesn’t help that the Aggies’ only two prior FBS wins were over Arkansas and UL-Monroe, whose combined record against the FBS is 1-9.

We will know a lot more about A&M when they go on the road to South Carolina, Mississippi St., and Auburn all in the next four weeks. If they keep winning, they’ll be rewarded. Of course it also wouldn’t hurt if Kentucky, Clemson, and Alabama kept winning and maybe if one of the others started winning.

I’m ranking Alabama #1 for now, but that is a weaker undefeated team than Notre Dame, Clemson, Georgia, and Ohio St. by the numbers at this point. In the last two weeks the Tide has played Arkansas and UL-Lafayette, who have a combined record of 1-8 against FBS opponents.

Notre Dame, Clemson, and Georgia all have bye weeks in the next two weeks, so I want to see how those teams withstand the byes before I would replace Alabama (assuming Alabama doesn’t lose). Ohio St. is unlikely to be #1 in the near future given the mutual bye with Alabama (in the last week of October) and mediocre upcoming schedule.

I could imagine detractors asking a few other questions, so I’ll pose and try to answer some.

Why did West Virginia fall? Michigan got a good win (for now) over aforementioned Maryland, and a team Maryland beat (Texas) beat Oklahoma. That doesn’t count for much compared to beating Kansas (which lost to Nicholls St. among others). It also didn’t help the Mountaineers that Kansas St. lost while Tennessee and Texas Tech were idle.

Why did Washington fall? You might remember they lost to Auburn, who now has two losses. Washington went up 8 spots last week and West Virginia shot up from unranked to 11th, so I don’t think either one is exactly aggrieved here.

Why did idle Penn St. and Army fall and not idle Duke? The two winning teams who were in striking distance of Duke (West Virginia and South Florida) both passed them up, I had actually moved Duke down a spot compared to the computer last week while I moved Penn St. up, and the Nittany Lions just had bad luck that South Carolina and U. Miami won by a combined 3 points. One of Army’s (Liberty) wins suffered a damaging loss, as did a team who beat them (Oklahoma). Also, Army’s 3-2 record is worse in a way right now, because more teams have won over 60% this week than last week.

That BYU game keeps looking worse for the Wisconsin Badgers. Not only did the Cougars lose to Utah St., but another team that beat them (Cal) lost to Arizona.

Michigan and South Carolina are back after respective one-week hiatuses followed by good conference wins. With Floyd of Rosedale in hand (Midwestern trophies are adorable), Iowa returns after last being ranked in the final rankings last year. Cincinnati is basically just ranked for being undefeated and not playing a terrible schedule (though not a good one either), and San Diego St. now has wins over Arizona St. and Boise St. with the only loss against Stanford (although the Cardinal fell 8 spots after losing to Utah). The Aztecs may fall out as a consequence of playing weaker opponents in the coming weeks though, especially if Stanford keeps losing.

So the only things I did this week compared to the computer top 25 were to make Alabama #1, move LSU down two spots, and switch Texas with Florida.

rank/team/prev.
1 Alabama 1
2 Notre Dame 2
3 Clemson 3
4 Georgia 5
5 Ohio St. 6
6 LSU 4
7 Florida 22
8 Texas 16
9 Kentucky 8
10 NC State 10
11 Oklahoma 7
12 Michigan —
13 W. Virginia 11
14 S Florida 19
15 Duke 15
16 Washington 13
17 Stanford 9
18 U. Miami 23
19 S Carolina —
20 Penn St. 14
21 Iowa —
22 C. Florida 25
23 San Diego St. —
24 Wisconsin 21
25 Cincinnati —

Out of Top 25: (12) Auburn, (17) Indiana, (18) Army, (20) Okie St., (24) Maryland

LSU/Florida 2018 Instant Reaction

It was my sad duty to update the LSU/Florida series. The Gators lead by three games in Gainesville and by four games overall. The Steve Spurrier tenure gave them a comfortable lead that LSU has only slowly narrowed of late. For the series, this was the fifth game in a row (and 10th since 2004) decided by one possession.

I said this would be a tough game, and that means we had to play better than we did. We didn’t block or tackle well enough. The passing game was all right, and we had a couple of good long runs but nothing consistent.

That said, I was furious about the officiating. On almost every play, an LSU defender got tackled by the Florida offensive line. Meanwhile LSU had to be really careful to avoid calls for holding and hands to the face. Florida was flagged for a personal foul once that I recall, but they were punching and slapping LSU players between plays all day too.

So I’m not going to claim we deserved a win here; but if I’m honest, neither did Florida. They took advantage of bad things LSU did and the rules as they were being enforced, so the Gators do deserve credit for that much.

My final score prediction was 24-20 in favor of LSU, but if you take out the first turnover we have another scoring drive. You take out the second turnover (a pick six) and my guess for Florida’s score was exactly correct. So I was really close in how much offense to expect from each team.

LSU QB Joe Burrow (pictured in an earlier game this season) needs to get better blocks and make better decisions if LSU wants to compete for championships.

Neither of those turnovers were necessary. Burrow should have known that he was in the pocket too long on the first one and secured the ball. We weren’t so dominant in the blocking that no one was ever coming from the blind side. This wasn’t Southeastern or Louisiana Tech. Gary Danielson summed it up the interaction between Burrow and the offensive line pretty well: “All day that clock should have been ticking.”

The second one was an unnecessarily hurried pass on 3rd and 4 for Burrow’s first interception at LSU. If he throws the ball away (I couldn’t tell if there was anyone else to throw it to), I think we were going to go for it. The clock was under 2 minutes, and we’d already used two timeouts. The only really successful offensive drive of the second half was all runs, so there was no reason to be confident in getting the ball back and scoring even if we’d had the timeouts.

The two late drops (on 2nd and 3rd downs on the last set on downs) were frustrating, but as I just explained, the chance of a last-second touchdown drive was pretty low anyway.

I’m not making excuses, but offensive line is a tough position, and even if you’re deep when the season starts, you might not be at this point. I don’t think there is one position where you would have called LSU deep going into the season, but that certainly wasn’t one of them. We needed better quarterback and receiver play to make up for the problems.

In short, we played like the #25 team I picked LSU to be going into the season, but that’s not enough to win at Florida.

LSU-Florida Series and Preview

Before I get into specifics, you may want to see my detailed (and annually updated) post about the LSU/Florida series.

LSU will win, but LSU can only beat lesser teams?

I saw a video previewing the LSU/Florida game on YouTube, and I should have known better, but I clicked on it.

They’re picking LSU to win, and that’s great. I think LSU has a greater than 50% to win (although the FPI says LSU only has a 40% chance), as I’ve said since the Auburn game. Their predicted margin of victory is on the high end (27-13 and 24-13, respectively). I’m expecting something closer to 24-20. The problem is they had to say derogatory things about our coaches.

Both contributors to the video independently say LSU’s coaches aren’t good enough to beat teams better than LSU. What was the win over Auburn last year? To say the better team won a given game you have to look at all the games apart from the one they played against each other.

I too seem to remember LSU’s win over Auburn last year as an upset.

LSU was 8-4 last year if you take out the Auburn game. They lost to a good Troy team, but it was Troy nonetheless and couldn’t even give Mississippi St. much of a game. The only win over a ranked team was over Florida, who obviously ended up nowhere near the rankings. The Fighting Tigers did not play Georgia.

Auburn was 10-3 taking out the LSU game with wins over two teams who were #1 at the time. They also beat Mississippi St., a team who was in the top 25 and deserved to be there (after easily beating LSU), 49-10. Their losses were to #3, #6, and #12.

I think LSU’s final record is slightly misleading because of my opinion about the Notre Dame game, but Auburn played better in their bowl game against Central Florida than LSU played in their bowl game anyway.

Regardless, both in hindsight and at the time LSU was supposed to lose. Even after the game people (including Gus Malzahn) talked about Auburn still being able to win the West despite being a game behind LSU and therefore not controlling its own destiny absent another LSU loss.

Then the makers of the video acted like they must have made a great video because both Florida and LSU fans took umbrage. Florida fans aren’t happy they just won a well-played game and here someone is telling them they’re going to lose by double digits at home.

I don’t expect them to be happy about that (even if there is a fair chance it will turn out to be true), but just because you say something to anger LSU fans as well doesn’t mean the video got both teams about right. So if they said both teams were going to finish with losing records in conference. would they have been right just because both fan bases would have been reacted to that with skepticism if not anger? How do you not think, “Let’s look at the handful of big wins Orgeron has had in just over two seasons and see if what we’re saying might not be true”?

Another thing that annoyed me was they both discounted LSU’s win over Ole Miss as if the Rebels were the Little Sisters of the Poor, but then they quoted Florida’s stats against Colorado St. and Tennessee as if they proved something. Mississippi St. isn’t a bad team, but that was the only thing close to a quality win. The Bulldogs play Auburn on Saturday. I guess we’ll see how beating them compares to beating Auburn then. Not to mention how losing to Kentucky compares to any LSU game so far.

FPI and my thoughts

The FPI, ESPN’s power index, still seems to be selling LSU short, by the way. It still predicts 4 losses. When Mississippi St. lost its second game in a row, it finally decided the Tigers had a greater than 50% chance of beating the Bulldogs, but on the other hand it gave Florida a greater chance to beat LSU. LSU is still predicted to lose to Georgia, Alabama, and Texas A&M (to whom they have not lost in 7 games going back to 2010).

Why do I think the game will be closer than the guys in the video said? Like I said about the Auburn series, even sub-par Florida teams can be tough to beat on the road?

Florida finished 4-7 last year. They say Ole Miss is terrible, but Ole Miss already has 3 wins, and they still have ULM, Arkansas, Vanderbilt, and Mississippi St. to play. I’ll be shocked if the Rebels don’t win at least two of those games, so if a terrible team nearly beat last year’s LSU team, a much-improved Florida team can beat a slightly-improved LSU team.

Why do I say slightly improved? If LSU had slightly better play-calling and field-goal kicking last year, they would have beaten Troy and Notre Dame (despite the officiating) and finished 11-2. Even though LSU is undefeated right now, 11-2 is still a lot to hope for. For me, “much improved” would mean either playing in the SEC championship game or tying Alabama at one SEC loss apiece (and losing head-to-head). It would also require a post-season win either in the SEC Championship or in a consolation CFP bowl. It’s a possibility, don’t get me wrong, but we aren’t there yet.

LSU’s then-QB Danny Etling evades the Florida defense in the 17-16 LSU win in Gainesville last year.

Recent history against Florida and LSU at 5-0

The last trip to Florida before last season wasn’t against a great team either, with the Tigers winning 30-27 in 2014. LSU and Florida finished with similar records that year, but that was the LSU team that took Alabama to overtime and should have beaten them but for a personal foul and kickoff out of bounds in the last two minutes.

Anyway, the Tigers would win after a wild fourth quarter. Florida returned a punt 53 yards with under 7 minutes left in the fourth quarter, which set up a touchdown to put the Gators ahead by 4. It seemed like the game was over a few minutes later when LSU faced a 3rd and 25 from their own 33 with 3:33 left (not a typo), but Anthony Jennings (not remembered as our most effectual quarterback) had no problem with this and threw a 41-yard pass on that down followed in short order by an 11-yard touchdown pass (both to Travin Dural).

Florida seemed to be in control again when the Gators completed a 73-yard pass on the next play from scrimmage to set up a first and goal from the 2. Two running plays combined for one yard, and then an incomplete pass led to a field goal, which tied the game at 27.

LSU struggled offensively, giving the ball back to Florida with 54 seconds left after the Gators had called a timeout to give themselves a chance to win the game in regulation. For some unknown reason, Florida QB Jeff Driskel threw a risky pass even though the Gators had a first and 10 less than 20 yards from the potential winning field goal. LSU intercepted, and this set up the winning 50-yard field goal by Colby Delahoussaye with 3 second left.

Both the 2012 and 2010 games at Florida were decided by one possession apiece as well. LSU was much better in 2010, but that had a crazy ending to that I won’t get into here. This video might help jog your memory. For more about the LSU-Florida series, see here. I have every game in the series since 2004 listed there.

This is the 7th time since 2007 that LSU has started the season with 5 straight wins or more. That includes 2010 and 2012 season, but 2015 was the only other instance since 2012. So the last six times this has happened it did not lead to a national championship, although LSU was 13-0 with a conference championship before losing to Alabama in January 2012. In both 2009 and 2012, the first team to beat LSU after such a start was Florida. In 2008, Florida beat LSU immediately after the Tigers started 4-0.