LSU’s 2024 Schedule : Historical and Competitive Ramifications
I’ve sat down to this blog a few times, and each time some other news item comes out. The most recent event was the release of LSU’s schedule with the actual dates.
I decided to just cover that and the top 25 for now. Interesting bowl games (to me anyway) are still about two weeks away, so the rest can wait.
We’ve known all the teams on LSU’s 2024 schedule for a while but not who LSU was playing on what date. The one constant going back as long as I remember is Alabama after a bye week and between about November 3 and 12, this time on the 9th. Alabama seems to keep roughly the same order from year to year, but no one else does that I’ve noticed.
Given the addition of the second bye, I like that it was added before Ole Miss. That’s been a tough contest lately. LSU has a three-game losing streak in College Station, but I’m still less worried about that game than about Ole Miss.
Texas A&M was scheduled on the traditional late October date for Ole Miss though. LSU will play the Rebels two weeks earlier, with Arkansas sandwiched in between.
LSU WR Chris Hilton and the Tigers came up short in the final seconds in Oxford in September. LSU won four “Magnolia Bowls” in a row from 2016 to 2019, but since then the winner has always been the home team.
Florida was traditionally around the date the Ole Miss game is scheduled, but this might be the last year of what has been an annual series since 1971 anyway. It was also after Alabama this year, so it was easy to leave it where it was. At least they weren’t both road games in either year.
LSU doesn’t have a long ongoing annual tradition with anyone else on the 2024 schedule.
They had only played Texas A&M once (in a bowl) between 1995 and 2012, the year the Aggies joined the SEC. LSU had previously played the Aggies in early September, but it’s different when it’s not a conference game.
I wouldn’t be opposed to making it an early game in the future though, especially since LSU won’t play Auburn annually anymore. Mississippi St. was a typical September fixture for a while also, although on the traditional schedule they were after Alabama. I’m still annoyed LSU plays neither Auburn nor Mississippi St. next year.
Since the annual series with Tulane ended in 1994, LSU has played whatever somewhat proximate SEC is left without a good end-of-year rival. Arkansas was not particularly close to and had no longstanding recent rivalry with anyone in the SEC when it entered, so that was fine for about 20 years. Then after Missouri and Texas A&M joined (and two “transitional” years elapsed), it made sense to split that up when it became clear that the Aggies weren’t playing Texas anytime soon.
Now that the Thanksgiving/rivalry-week Longhorns-Aggies series is rekindled and Bedlam is on hiatus, it wasn’t a huge shock that LSU finishes with Oklahoma in Baton Rouge. We are used to playing a team with a reddish color from a neighboring conference to the west.
The SEC could have mixed things up in some other ways in 2024, but it was easier not to, especially since next year is just a one-off and not part of any dedicated rotation. Just as a neutral fan of college football and historical rivalries, my hope is that Oklahoma either can manage to schedule Oklahoma St. again or that they play Missouri on rivalry week. I would be OK with LSU going back to Arkansas or having some type of rotation (perhaps switching between Oklahoma and Arkansas or between Vanderbilt and Kentucky). There was some history with Kentucky. LSU played the Wildcats 51 years in a row at one point (ending with the 2002 season).
Ollie Gordon II rushes for one of two touchdowns in the 27-24 win in Stillwater, OK, on November 4. Although Bedlam has typically been a close game in recent years, Oklahoma had beaten Oklahoma St. eight of nine seasons going into 2021. The Cowboys ended on a high note though, winning two of the last three.
As far as I’m concerned, LSU could even go back to playing Tulane if the two sides could come anywhere close to a mutually agreeable deal; but since that hasn’t happened in nearly 30 years, I’m not optimistic. There was a home-and-home in 2006 and 2007, but LSU felt like they gave up revenue from a potential home game to enrich Tulane. Since then, LSU has played every other Louisiana Division I program, all of whom seem content with being paid money to travel to Tiger Stadium occasionally rather than expecting a home-and-home exchange.
Anyway, putting tradition aside, I like that there aren’t brutal back-to-back weeks. Going to Florida after hosting Alabama isn’t ideal, but there is only one instance of LSU playing 2023 bowl teams two weeks in a row, and that’s UCLA and South Alabama (both were barely eligible and both will be home games).
USC and UCLA are separated by Nicholls St. and South Carolina. The Bruins or Gamecocks could have a good year, but I doubt both will. I don’t see much risk of looking past an SEC road game or coming down from an emotional high for the first home game that is against a Power 5 opponent.
There were years when I’ve been glad LSU got an apparently tough opponent from what we used to call the SEC East, but we didn’t need one given the out-of-conference slate. Also, I’m not even sure if you need a good non-annual schedule, especially if the SEC eventually adds a ninth game, in the playoff system. I guess we will see how lines get drawn between 4 and 5, 8 and 9, and 12 and 13 in playoff selection
Top 25
Other than their effects upon the Playoff resumes as mentioned in the previous blog, I didn’t have much to say about the conference championship games because they weren’t very surprising. I don’t know why Oregon was favored by so much; but as I kept telling everyone, they didn’t deserve it. I wasn’t a big believer in Georgia since the only SEC West teams they faced were Auburn and Ole Miss and they didn’t do anything out of conference until beating an average Georgia Tech team a couple of weeks ago. Very good Alabama teams have struggled with Auburn before, so I didn’t attach much importance to that. In lieu of Georgia, I admittedly picked the “wrong” Big Ten team as #1, but it wasn’t my fault Ohio St. had a better schedule than Michigan. As expected, the Wolverines had no problem with Iowa.
I’m listing my top 25 teams below, but I think they all fairly logically proceed from the results of those games and what I had written about the Playoff teams last week.
Ratings and College Football Playoff Response/Prediction
The first four teams are all undefeated now, just in time to lose at least one undefeated team this weekend. It happens to be the same top four as the CFP top 25. I can argue until I’m blue in the face about Oregon, but I guess people like flashy offenses and uniforms (not to mention years of a hype and a nationwide ad campaign for the quarterback) more than they like a good strength of schedule. It seems like they’re setting up the possibility of Oregon going to the Playoff in the event of revenge wins over Oregon St. (for last year) and Washington (for both last year and earlier this season).
Putting aside the CFP ramifications, I think Oregon might have some motivation to win this next game.
I don’t think Washington, Georgia, or Florida St. (another undefeated not in the top four) have much chance of a loss this coming weekend, but losses by none of them (except maybe Georgia) would be much stranger than the time 4-7 Pitt beat 10-1 West Virginia in 2007 to help LSU make the championship game.
Florida and Washington St. have five wins apiece and are playing for bowl eligibility as well as in-state bragging rights, while Georgia Tech is already bowl-eligible. A late pick-six is likely the only reason Washington beat Arizona St., who is only 3-8. Despite one fewer win, Florida is a better team than Boston College, whom Florida St. only beat by 2. Georgia hasn’t really come close to a loss though.
Alabama and Florida St. both lost ground compared to higher teams as a result of playing FCS opponents. Alabama probably lost a bit less since the SEC gained strength with out-of-conference wins and because Chattanooga is an FCS playoff team.
I suspect that unless Washington and Georgia remain undefeated, removing Oregon and Alabama from the running in the process, the plan is that Florida St. will be excluded from the Playoff. I don’t know if this was the plan before their QB Jordan Travis was hurt or not.
I don’t think the CFP standings after Alabama matter too much for the national championship, but LSU fans (ironically) should cheer for Missouri and Ole Miss to lose for a better chance at a selection committee (or NY6) bowl or at the CapitalOne Bowl. It’s ironic because normally it would be a good thing if no one outside of the top 12 beat you and you had a top-10 win, but that’s not how the logic of bowl placement works.
It would be more logical for LSU fans to cheer for Alabama to beat Georgia (whom LSU did not play, if you haven’t noticed) in the SEC Championship game because that would retain the possibility of there being two SEC playoff teams. This might not be the year for that to happen though given the possibility of four undefeated teams going into championship weekend. There are also a couple of other teams (I mentioned Oregon; there is also Texas) who could be good one-loss candidates as conference champions. I think one-loss Texas will go ahead of one-loss Alabama even if they shouldn’t.
Anyway, the rest of this is just about my ratings, not the CFP rankings or what I think they will do.
The Big Ten is now much closer to the Pac-12, which is now #3, as they can look forward to taking the Pac-12’s two best teams (as well as UCLA and USC, which are more in the middle). They would still be behind the SEC, which will add the Big XII’s two best teams.
I mentioned Arizona St. earlier. Oregon’s win over the Sun Devils allowed them to get past Ole Miss, who beat an inferior UL-Monroe squad. Other relatively small differences in quality of opponents accounted for the movement in the rest of the top 20, apart from James Madison, who lost to Appalachian St. Oregon St. fell a smaller number of spots for losing to Washington, which was a close game as expected.
I had a little bit of trouble figuring out the last two. I strongly considered Oklahoma St. and Clemson, but they each had three losses that were all big negatives. Arizona had only one bad loss and one that was mediocre. Oregon St. and North Carolina St. only had one mediocre-to-bad loss apiece. Oklahoma St. had the best list of wins, but the others had comparable good wins. I didn’t hold the fourth loss (to Florida St.) against Clemson, but there weren’t really strong wins to counterbalance the other losses.
It might seem a little weird that North Carolina still has honorable mention status, but the four teams directly below them (Kansas, Utah, Tennessee, and USC) all lost also. Another interesting one is UNLV, whom I have never ranked in the top 25.
I was supposed to have time to do this on Wednesday but ended up having an unusually long (and rainy) work day instead, so I’m writing this on Thursday night (Friday morning for many of you).
Best-laid plans of mice and A&M boosters, I suppose.
Recap of LSU/Florida and Rivalry
It wasn’t because there was nothing to write about. I’m happy to make fun of Texas A&M and Florida, who lost a fifth straight to LSU. No one else has a losing streak to LSU that goes back to the national championship season (unless Vanderbilt’s streak of two counts). Although the LSU/Florida series dates back to 1937 and has been played annually since 1971, this was the first time LSU won five straight. Florida had once won nine straight from 1988 to 1996, but LSU now has its first lead in the series since then. If LSU doesn’t win another game this season, I’ll still feel some measure of success from that fact.
While it is unlikely that the LSU/Florida series will continue annually beyond that, the Tigers will at least make the return trip to Gainesville next year. I will endeavor to update the key Rivalry Series in the next week or so.
Not to be bitter about it, but the damage is done anyway. Having to play Florida every year, which included going to the Swamp every even year (apart from 2016), at least more often than not placed the Tigers at a disadvantage in the SEC West as far back as 1996. I guess it did in years before that too, but LSU was so bad it didn’t really matter. LSU had also played Auburn, which was strong for roughly the same time period, on the road in even years. The combined influence of those two games prevented LSU from winning the West in an even year until last season. The other SEC Championship appearances had been 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2011, and 2019. I acknowledge a certain crimson opponent played a role as well, but LSU’s unique struggles with them really only started in the 2012 calendar year.
LSU had to play Auburn every year by virtue of being in the West (that series will not be played next year), but had the Florida series not been made permanent, playing a different SEC East opponent could have made the difference in 1996 (when LSU would been one game better rather than losing a tie-breaker with Alabama) and 2006 (when LSU would have won a tie-breaker with Arkansas, but the additional loss made that irrelevant).
Given that the game was typically in early October though, it put the Tigers behind in 8-ball in several additional seasons. For example, LSU would have known going into the Arkansas game in 2000 that a win would have sent them to Atlanta (ironically, they went to Atlanta anyway to play in the Peach Bowl). Florida dealt LSU its first loss in 2008, and QB Jarrett Lee was never the same again. If it weren’t for his late-season penchant for throwing “pick sixes”, LSU could have easily won all but one other SEC game. LSU also nearly lost to Troy later in that season (seems like that would have taught the AD a lesson, but I digress). I doubt it affected the SEC championship games, but Florida also dealt LSU its first losses in 2012 and 2018, respectively.
Anyway, this was the largest win by either team since LSU’s 41-11 win in 2011. I’ll give the Gators credit for keeping it close for a while though. It didn’t help LSU that, as a result of a poorly-fielded kickoff, the Gators were able to score twice in just a couple of minutes to take a 28-24 lead in the third quarter. Jayden Daniels is a little bit more reliable for generating points than hoping for points off of turnovers and other miscues though, so the Tigers outscored the Gators 28-7 the rest of the way.
Jayden Daniels rushes against Florida on Saturday in Baton Rouge. He ran so well, I can’t even be certain which play this was; but I believe it was the 85-yard touchdown that was along the left side of the field. Daniels became the first person to pass for 200 yards and run for 200 yards in an SEC game at some point in the third quarter, but he finished with over 350 passing yards, which had never been done along with that many rushing yards. Johnny Manziel had thrown for 200 and rushed for 200 once; but that was in a bowl game, so we really hadn’t seen anything like this before.
The LSU defense and coordinator Matt House continue to get a lot of flak, but keeping Alabama within one possession at least until the fourth quarter (if not the entire rest of the game) and keeping Florida from getting a lead the whole game would have been something to be proud of. It’s just not helpful if you put them on the field with their backs close to the end zone seconds after the previous drive ends.
Response to College Football Playoff Top 25
I’ll start by saying there is nothing really new in terms of grievances with the College Football Playoff’s top 25. Oregon’s being ahead of Alabama and Texas continues to make no sense if you care about schedule strength.
At least Oregon St. is no longer the top 2-loss team, having been passed by Missouri. I don’t expect the Beavers will stay the one of the top 2-loss teams indefinitely anyway given games against Washington and Oregon coming up. If they win both, I’ll be happy for them to be the top 2-loss team though. More on them below.
I’d also like them to care more about the schedules of teams like Arizona and North Carolina, but those are far enough down that I’m not sure they really matter. The Arizona/Arizona St. game might actually be game though. It looked like it was going to be a pillow fight earlier in the year.
Comments about My Ratings
I had a bit of time to smooth out the rough edges this weekend and I still liked the results to add the original ratings back in as I described last week. It also makes sense for some of the teams lower in the ratings because there is a number I have to adjust to factor in the bad teams so one bad loss doesn’t swallow multiple wins. I can re-add the original ratings without that adjustment though, which I think is the fairer approach.
I was also able to do conference ratings and strength of schedule. I will wait another week to see if the strength of schedule is giving teams enough credit in the ratings. That might also be a further adjustment to the formula. The same basic numbers and computations are being used regardless, it’s just been a continuing balancing act over years between giving credit for wins and giving credit for quality of competition.
It’s amazing that LSU, Ole Miss, and Penn St. have only seven combined losses and are still in the top 7 of the strength of schedule. Duke is the only other team in the top 12 with a winning record. Others in the top 20 with winning records are Utah, Kansas St., Kansas, Notre Dame, Missouri, and USC. I did opt not to put Kansas in the top 25 below due to some of the losses they have though.
I think it’s fair that even though Michigan and Georgia still don’t have great schedules that this recognizes their schedules are now comparable enough that they should be ranked ahead of teams with losses like Texas and Alabama. I think barring any major upsets (based on rank, not necessarily based on betting line), most people would agree that the Top 4 should be Big Ten champion, SEC champion, undefeated Florida St., and undefeated Washington. If Alabama were to lose the SEC championship, the next beneficiary (for now) of a potential upset should be Texas if they win out. This recognizes that.
The conference ratings weren’t very surprising. The SEC and Big Ten are neck and neck, but I think the SEC will pull away slightly next week given the out-of-conference games. There are non-conference games the week after that, but I don’t like Kentucky’s, Florida’s, or South Carolina’s chances against ACC opponents (I’m not too worried about Georgia), so that might bring the SEC closer to the Big Ten again.
The SEC would still be ahead after adding the new programs to the Big Ten and the SEC. That’s not really proof of too much about next season anyway given that Washington, Oklahoma, etc., can’t get as many good wins without hurting someone else in their respective future conferences next season. It might mean that the Big Ten will be harder to beat in future seasons; but on the other hand, maybe Oregon and Washington fall back to the more mediocre status they occupied not too long ago.
Washington is very close to getting the top spot in the computer ratings. I definitely think the Huskies will have that spot with a win, but they might lose it the week after (Washington St. wouldn’t count for nearly as much as Michigan would) and reclaim it the week after that (Oregon would count for a lot more than Iowa would). I expect to keep Ohio St. #1 here however for the next couple of weeks absent a loss or something really concerning. I’ll be very interested in how the ratings shape up after the conference championships though.
The initial line I saw had Washington barely favored over Oregon St., and then I saw one in which the Beavers were favored. I definitely think that’s the big game this weekend. As I’ve mentioned, the Huskies have a couple of very narrow wins at home, so playing a team that’s been playing well on the road might be a challenge. They might gain more support in the polls and the CFP with the win also, but those are much more stubborn than my ratings are.
Another Heisman candidate now, Michael Penix, Jr., throws under pressure against Oregon St. in Seattle last November. The Huskies won at the last second, 24-21, so it makes sense that the Beavers are given a very good chance to win at home this time despite the Huskies’ undefeated record.
I feel bad for Oregon St. that they lost a close game in Pullman when Wazzu was playing well, but the Cougars have gone down like the Hindenburg since then.
Three of the Honorable Mentions got promoted last week, so keep an eye on those. This week, all but one is in a Power Five conference, so that’s a noticeable change. That one other team is Coastal Carolina, the only one that hasn’t been ranked at some point this season.
I’m not going to tell you who’s going to win the LSU-Alabama game or whether Alabama is likely to beat the spread. There are plenty of people to do that. However, there are some things some of those supposed experts have been getting wrong that I’d like to correct.
LSU did suffer injuries, but…
LSU is only down one member of the secondary who has played in the last month or so, Zy Alexander. Some people are saying it’s four or five players. It is that many cumulative going back to the offseason, but the Tigers struggled more when some of those players were playing than they are now. So the idea that LSU is already terrible and now they’re likely getting a lot worse due to a slew of injuries that some people who are picking Alabama keep promulgating isn’t quite accurate.
The Tigers will also miss lineman Mekhi Wingo, but that absence is the result of surgery for a nagging injury that had kept him from playing at full strength all season, and LSU’s front seven has been pretty decent (with some depth) since they settled on the 4-3 formation. Jordan Jefferson (see the next section if you’re confused) has been the standout this season, not Wingo.
Alabama is the healthier team, so if people just make that point and leave it at that, they’re not misleading you.
No College Starting QB Has Beaten Saban 2 in a Row Since…
There was report, I think circulated by ESPN, that last starting college quarterback to beat Nick Saban two years in a row was Drew Brees. Brees even shared it on Twitter. That would be a cute factoid, if it were true, especially given that Saban passed on a chance to bring Brees to Miami. It was actually Rex Grossman, who easily beat the Tigers in both 2000 and 2001 as the Florida QB. Brees might have been the last one who played the full game, but letting a backup play at some point doesn’t change who the starter was. At any rate, it’s been over 20 years, so it would still be quite an accomplishment for Jayden Daniels.
Fun fact: This is not Rex Grossman.
Some LSU fans have mentioned Jordan Jefferson, the former LSU quarterback from 10-15 years ago (and older brother of Justin Jefferson), not the current defensive lineman. Jefferson didn’t start in 2011, so he doesn’t count; although he did help win the game… to the extent anyone on the offense deserves credit when only six points are scored in regulation.
Homefield Advantage?
There are a couple of interesting notes about the 2019 LSU team. No SEC team has won in Tuscaloosa since then. Obviously, I had to add the *SEC* qualifier because Texas won there this season. I also wanted to mention that Alabama was favored by more points in that game than there are in this game. I believe this is the fifteenth straight game in which Alabama has been favored against LSU, and this might be the smallest point spread over that time. Also, the 2021 LSU team (our last trip there) was a relatively rare team who made it close in Tuscaloosa despite it being the first LSU team with a losing final record since 1999.
I haven’t done anything with updating my rivalry blogs this year, but it has been a weird pattern over the years that LSU has typically done better at Alabama than they do against the Tide at home. Neither record is great of course. However, before 2019, LSU had lost three in a row in Tuscaloosa by at least 14 points in each game. So it seemed like we were even losing that silver lining.
Joe Burrow takes off for a 19-yard run in Tuscaloosa on November 9, 2019. In the last two LSU wins over Alabama, Tiger QBs accounted for 734 combined yards. The 2019 win was LSU’s first over the Tide in 8 years. The 2022 win was LSU’s first home win over the Tide in 12 years.
A third consecutive strong showing in Tuscaloosa (and a fourth strong showing in five years overall against Alabama) would be a good sign even if it’s a loss. I’m not looking for moral victories in advance (of course I was very happy about the actual victories in 2019 and 2022), but obviously you have a better chance to win games against a given team or in a given location if you have a habit of at least keeping such games close. I think there is a psychological impact when you have a series of disappointing results in a given situation. Even though there weren’t too many players in common, I think that 2019 team had something to do with the confidence with which LSU played last year (as well as 2021), and obviously I hope that continues. It’s also good to look for signs of an improving program (at least relative to Alabama, in this case) in the bigger picture.
Will the team who scored 10 points in 59 minutes against South Florida outscore the team who averages 44 points per game?
The fact that my answer is “quite possibly” means I’m not blowing off all criticisms of LSU’s defense or ignoring the quality of Alabama’s. It’s a little tongue in cheek because no one is actually asking this question, but similar silly questions are being asked to suggest LSU will lose. (By the way, the 44-point average does not count the Grambling game.)
Like I said earlier, I’m not going to tell you where to put your money if you’re into gambling, but I do want to go over some things to look for whether it’s out of financial interest or not.
To pick up where I left off about the injuries, there are certainly some question marks on the LSU defense, don’t get me wrong; but the same is true of the Alabama offense especially. I don’t understand how it’s OK to pretend all their ills are solved because their last half of football went well, but LSU’s defense is still what it was against Ole Miss (or worse), and LSU’s offense is still what it was against Florida St. LSU was not playing a terrific Army team, but you can’t do better than a shutout as far as points are concerned. They looked significantly better than they did against Grambling, and Army would probably blow out Grambling.
Anyway, in response to the Alabama predicters and supporters picking on the Florida St. and Ole Miss games, we could just as easily pretend Alabama’s offense is just as bad as it was against South Florida (who gave up more points to Florida A&M than they did to the Tide) and Alabama’s defense is just as bad as it was against Texas. Another thing I realized was before the final drive that ended in a touchdown with 33 seconds left against the Bulls, Alabama had had more possessions (11) than points (10).
I don’t think any Alabama fan would have taken you seriously if you told him that Daniels would account for 277 yards in last year’s game after he only accounted for 139 against Auburn the month before, so I don’t think this fan habit of trying to cherry-pick stats from an earlier game to tell you what to expect in the next game is very reliable. But to the extent it is, it can go both ways.
It’s true that LSU can’t rely on the defense to show up strong, especially not in the secondary. LSU doesn’t have to have a terrific secondary for there to be some stops though. Even though the Ole Miss game was historically bad defensively, LSU still got stops when there were long-yardage situations on second and third down. Alabama has had a problem throughout the season in putting themselves in bad down-and-distance situations through sacks and penalties.
The Tide has succeeded on some deep shots, but I don’t think they’ve faced an offense (other than possibly Texas) that really penalized them for low-scoring halves like I think LSU can. Bama does keep teams to relatively low scores, but LSU has been scoring in the upper 40s even in conference games. Alabama has typically been allowing scores in the low 20s.
I think LSU will likely score somewhere in the 30s, but that could mean LSU wins 38-24 or scores 31 and loses. I’m not sure what Alabama’s upper limit is; but they did get up to 40 against Mississippi St., and I’m sure they weren’t desperate to score on every drive after they led 31-10 at the half.
If Alabama finds that kind of offense again and doesn’t let up, LSU could also conceivably lose by a couple of touchdowns. I think LSU winning by a couple of touchdowns is slightly more likely, especially if they’re able to get up into the 40s and it doesn’t make strategic sense for Alabama to try to get points from their kicker. LSU has a capable but less consistent kicker; so, if it’s a closer game, that could be an advantage for the Tide.
The Steele Curtain
Some Alabama fans have brought this up, and it’s legitimate enough to address it. By far the best game plan against Joe Burrow was implemented by Kevin Steele when he was the coach of Auburn in 2019 and held LSU to 23 points, but there isn’t some magic that takes place just because the uniforms are the same. Obviously, he can’t make his defenses consistently play that well, because this year’s Tennessee, Arkansas, and Texas A&M aren’t anywhere near the 2019 LSU team and all of them also scored in the low 20s against a Kevin Steele defense. I think that’s a bit more relevant.
Kevin Steele and Ed Orgeron at their introductory press conference before the 2015 season. 2015 was one of only two seasons since 2011 that Steele coached somewhere other than Auburn or Alabama.
Steele might be a genius in stopping what Coach O called “da Joe Brady offense,” but that’s not what Mike Denbrock runs. This is much more of a ball-control offense than LSU was in 2019. Even Saban has compared it to the triple option (2/3 of which involve a back taking the ball downfield). Burrow could run when needed (see the picture above), but he didn’t run with the same ease as Daniels. Clyde Edwards-Hellaire came through in the Auburn game I mentioned, but he had only averaged 78 yards per game before that even though LSU was often trying to run out the clock on large leads. Logan Diggs has averaged 107 yards per game over the last four SEC games, so I don’t think it’s as tempting to see what LSU can do with runs and short passes.
Daniels doesn’t check down as much to the tight end Mason Taylor as last year (for obvious reasons), but he’s still there if Steele focuses on stopping long passes as he did in 2019. TE Thad Moss had 7 receptions in 2019. If Daniels throws it to Taylor that many times, he may go for 100 yards. Also, Steele obviously doesn’t control the offense. The boom-and-bust offense that Alabama runs now isn’t likely to minimize the LSU possessions as the Bo Nix Auburn offense did in 2019.
That’s all I have to say really about things to look for as far as X’s and O’s, but I did come across some other items worth addressing.
Common Opponent and Why Alabama is Favored
I’m sorry if what I’ve covered is not too illuminating about who’s going to win, but we could have made similar competing arguments last year (although the teams were more balanced), and the game went to overtime. The reason the line is closer this time is that there wasn’t a recent common opponent that made Alabama look a lot better. Last year, Alabama had lost to Tennessee by 3 on the road, and LSU had lost to Tennessee by 27 at home. Both games were within the previous month.
There is a common opponent this season that Bama fans have brought up, and that’s Ole Miss. One difference is both teams played the Rebels in September rather than October. Alabama only beat them by 14, and LSU-Ole Miss came down to the final play (similarly to how Alabama-Tennessee ended last season, even though Ole Miss won by a couple more points). It is a good point total if you add the two margins of victory together, but we aren’t talking about a close game versus a blowout. Also, rather than homefield advantage magnifying the difference between Alabama and LSU vis-à-vis the common opponent, it’s a mitigating factor this year. If they were focused on the common opponent, the gamblers this year would have Alabama favored by a lot more than 3 points, which is essentially just the home advantage (although maybe that’s only part of it in this case). They’re basically telling us that what they’ve seen from these two teams is close to dead even in the aggregate.
Another reason one might lean toward Alabama is they are the more proven team even if there weren’t one fewer loss. They’ve played three teams that were in the top 20 at the time they played them and have won the last two (2-1 overall). In between those two, they won a game in College Station (where LSU has lost three games in a row, by the way). LSU may finish with a better schedule, but the Tigers have already played their FCS opponent and have already played Auburn, which for now is not as good as Texas A&M. LSU is 0-2 against top 20 teams, although Missouri was #21 (AP; #22 Coaches) and has since improved to #12 (CFP). These things do not tell us who will win matchups on the field, but there is something to be said for being tested.
SEC West Implications
I don’t want to imply that LSU is going to win this game not to mention win out, so I’ll start with saying if you’re an Alabama fan, you can book your tickets (or at least your hotel room) to Atlanta the second the game ends if they win. Alabama likely wouldn’t technically clinch though because theoretically Ole Miss can represent the West if the Rebels win out AND Alabama loses to Kentucky and Auburn.
But I did want to mention one other factual thing a lot of people are getting wrong. LSU is still the favorite to win the West if they do win out even if Ole Miss beats Georgia. Yes, Ole Miss would win a head-to-head tiebreaker, but head-to-head means it’s just those two teams. I suspect Alabama will beat Kentucky and Auburn, so that would make it a three-way tie with all teams 1-1 against the other two.
I guess it would be fitting for the last SEC West title race to come down to games like… Missouri vs. Tennessee on November 11 in Columbia. The Volunteers won by 6 touchdowns in Knoxville last season; but their point total dropped by over 30 against Alabama from last season, so I wouldn’t look for a similar score this year against Mizzou.
I have a standalone blog ready if Ole Miss does beat Georgia (and no other relevant upsets take place) that will tell you everything you need to know, but for now just know a three-way tie (meaning LSU beats Alabama and no one else beats LSU, Alabama, or Ole Miss the rest of the season) will come down to whose SEC East opponents do best. Ole Miss has already played Vanderbilt and will play Georgia; LSU has already played Missouri and will play Florida; and Alabama has already played Tennessee and will play Kentucky. LSU’s opponents have the best combined record at the moment.
Since I’ve been on WordPress, I’ve always gotten a big boost in readers for the LSU-Alabama weekend, but the last couple of weeks have been the best non-Alabama weeks over the past two seasons. I wasn’t able to look at weekly stats from before that, but given that I wasn’t really committed to this in 2020 and 2021 and LSU was pretty irrelevant anyway (I didn’t even bother to say much about the respective Alabama games, although 2021 was close), I doubt any weeks in those years were better.
It’s quite possible 2019 had better weeks, but I’m sure that was more Joe Burrow’s doing than mine. I’ve also done a lot less to garner views than I did in prior years. I guess I’ve gotten more serious about work and health and things like that, and I also spend more time just relaxing.
At any rate, I wanted to welcome anyone who is new to my page. I’ve been a pretty avid LSU football blogger (during the season anyway) since the 2005 season, which happened to be when Les Miles came to Baton Rouge. My ranking system was developed from 2003 to 2005 and improved in a couple of ways since then, but I only have an online archive going back to my 2008 rankings. I don’t mind that because they became a little more sophisticated that year (qualifying for Massey’s comparison site) anyway. I’ve done a personal ranking since 1995, but to my knowledge I haven’t published anything I wrote before 2006.
Although I am an LSU fan, I’m very strict about not letting my personal views affect my computer ratings. In fact, at this moment, on my list LSU is as lower as or lower than they are on any other ratings list that Massey indices. This is not to be confused with top 25 rankings blogs like the one below that deviate less and less from the computer ratings as the season progresses.
Comments about CFP Rankings
I made an unexpected trip to the dentist on Tuesday, so I didn’t have the time to post this that I originally thought I would have. The delay does give me the occasion to comment on the first College Football Playoff rankings. Obviously, I agree with #1; but if you’re disregarding last year and basing the order of the top four solely based on quality of this year’s wins, there is no logical way to place Florida St. below Michigan and Georgia. If you are basing it on prior years and think Georgia is close to #1, why not keep them #1 until they lose, especially since that could be any week as the Bulldogs get into the difficult portion of their schedule (following the win over Florida with games against Missouri, Ole Miss, Tennessee, and Georgia Tech in consecutive weeks).
What if I told you there is an SEC game this weekend that will likely decide the division wherein the one-loss team is trying to avenge last season’s close loss (which took place after giving up two late touchdowns) and that I’m not talking about the SEC West?
I don’t see the argument for Michigan to be ahead of the Seminoles at all. The last time we saw them before this season they were losing to TCU in the semifinal. I don’t think that gives you the right to rest on your semifinal-loser laurels for the next 10 months. Is it purely a prediction of where they think the teams will end up? When did we ask this committee to prognosticate like that? I thought they were supposed to evaluate how good the respective teams are currently this year.
Comments about My Top 25
I was not surprised by too much that happened over the weekend, although I wouldn’t have bet on both Arizona teams winning. They had both been on the wrong side of some close games before, so it’s not like I thought either team was incapable. Perhaps Oregon St. and Washington St. just don’t have the depth and talent (and possibly not the coaching either) to keep their early-season success going. I would have laughed if USC had lost again, but one win and one loss in the last two weeks is probably the deserved outcome.
I feel somewhat vindicated that Ohio St. nearly became the computer #1 after I had to assist them the past few weeks. Ohio St. has a much better remaining schedule. Florida St. still plays Pittsburgh, who only has one FBS win, and North Alabama, a subpar FCS team. Of course, Ohio St. still plays Michigan, who is much better than anyone the Seminoles will play.
I didn’t predict Kansas to beat Oklahoma per se, but I didn’t think the Sooners would finish undefeated, and a road game against a team that I had ranked a couple of weeks ago isn’t the most surprising one for the Sooners to have lost. Oklahoma may also struggle to beat Kansas St. and/or Oklahoma St., both of whom have re-entered the top 25.
I know some people think if Texas and Oklahoma each have exactly one loss, Oklahoma should automatically be higher; but I strongly disagree. Texas has a much better strength of schedule given the game against Alabama (Rice and Wyoming aren’t terrible either), and the Longhorns also beat Kansas
Another interesting side effect of the upset is that now there are five former Big 8 teams (Oklahoma, Missouri, Kansas, Kansas St., and Oklahoma St.) in the top 25. One of the others, Colorado, was ranked earlier in the year and is still in the top 60. The other two, Nebraska and Iowa St., are both in the top 45. When Oklahoma plays Missouri next year, it will be the first SEC game between two former Big 8 teams. Colorado will rejoin the Big XII, where four other former Big 8 teams will play next season. Nebraska will remain in the Big Ten.
Kansas RB Devin Neal dives for a touchdown against old Big 8 (and Big 6 and Big 7) rivals Oklahoma on Saturday in Lawrence, Kan. The Big 8 conference broke up in 1996, and it had almost been that long since Kansas had beaten Oklahoma. Neal ran for 112 yards in the Jayhawks’ 38-33 upset win.
As I anticipated last week, I didn’t do any subjective ranking to factor in. I did move teams up to three spots. I was a little bit liberal about what that means though. For instance, Troy, Oregon St., LSU, and UCLA were all between 0.350 and 0.360, so I considered that a tie for 25th. (0.01 is a typical gap between consecutive teams after the top 10, where many gaps are even larger.) That’s how I got LSU as high as they are. I’m going to elaborate just for illustrative purposes, but if you’re not interested in a detailed breakdown, skip the next three paragraphs.
I am more lenient toward teams who play in more difficult conferences and who have more understandable losses anyway. Part of the reason is I’m less concerned about such teams getting away with anything. LSU will either lose to Alabama and likely fall out (continuing the current trajectory anyway), or they’ll beat Alabama and this will avoid the volatility of being 16th one week, unranked the next, and being back in the top 20 (or maybe even in the top 15) the week after that.
One of LSU’s losses was two months ago to a team that is still undefeated in relatively hostile territory (not a true road game but close), and the other was on the road and was just a matter of which team was able to score last in the last two minutes.
I think it was right to have the gap between Oregon St. and LSU since the two teams who beat the Beavers have seven combined losses to the one combined loss by the two teams who beat LSU. LSU’s best win Missouri and Oregon St.’s best win Utah are similar, but I give the edge to Missouri (who still only has one loss…for now).
Falling 11 spots for a loss to a team with a winning record seems harsh enough though, so I was not inclined to let Oregon St. fall out of the top 25 completely. Also, teams like Troy and Tulane (the other candidates for top 25 other than UCLA, whom the Beavers beat and who is lacking in quality wins) aren’t going to be seriously tested in the future like Oregon St. will be. Three of the four remaining opponents for the Beavers (Colorado, Washington and Oregon) are more highly rated than any team that remains on Tulane’s schedule, for instance. Only one of Troy’s upcoming opponents (Louisiana-Lafayette) is higher-rated than Colorado, and it’s not by much. (All of LSU’s remaining opponents are better than all of the remaining opponents for either Troy {who already played Georgia St.} or Tulane.)
I mentioned UCLA in the last paragraph. It was a little weird to take them out after getting their second-best win, but every previous Pac-12 opponent (Utah, Washington St., Oregon St., and Stanford) lost. Also, they were 28th, so the only way to rank them would have been to remove Oregon St., which did not make sense.
Wisconsin and Minnesota were in a virtual tie in the computer, so I included them both in the “honorable mention” list. That list is usually only five teams, but I made an exception. I believe Toledo is the first MAC team on the list this season.
I actually have two blogs of material this week since I didn’t have time to post the other one last week. I finally did get around to entering all the FBS results into the spreadsheet for my computer formula.
I thought posting the rankings blog was more important to get more back on schedule. I haven’t even promoted them like I usually do because most people aren’t really interested on Thursday and Friday.
LSU QB Jayden Daniels keeps the play alive in the first quarter in Columbia on Saturday. Daniels was responsible for 389 total yards and four touchdowns (with no turnovers). It should have been more scores, but we don’t need to get into why he didn’t get credit for more.
LSU/Missouri Recap and Reaction
I wanted to include a couple of comments about LSU’s win over Missouri even though my next blog will in part be about the game before.
It was nice to get Mizzou back for the first game after Covid, when LSU’s rising star quarterback Myles Brennan played a great game in Columbia but got hurt and was never seen in meaningful action again. I’m torn between saying LSU deserved to win that game and that LSU was lucky they competed in any games in 2020 and 2021.
Anyway, that was also the only season I know of when the LSU defense was nearly as bad as it is this year. I have barely even watched LSU play defense the last two games, by the way. Auburn’s offense isn’t as good as that of Mizzou or Ole Miss, so I’m hoping it might be more tolerable next game.
The second half of the Mizzou game was not bad though, to be fair. Six of the home Tigers’ 8 possessions did not result in points. Ideally LSU would like to force the other team to punt more, but missed field goals and interceptions result in the same number of points that “three and outs” do.
Preface of Rankings
For the rankings this week, it’s still mostly subjective; but there is an objective element now. I gave each team a score that was a combination of my subjective and objective ratings, and then I allowed myself to move teams a maximum of five spots from the order the improvised formula put them in. For most teams, it was only one or two spots though. The objective ratings aren’t as thorough as they will be (for instance, no credit was given for quality of FCS opponents), but they’re complete enough to give a strong idea of who the most accomplished teams are.
Oklahoma was the best team in my formula, but it’s partly because they beat 6 FBS opponents (none of which were very good before last week). So I felt the need to move them up considerably. I haven’t been impressed with them in “the eye test” since Caleb Williams transferred to USC, which is partly why they weren’t higher going into the week; but I couldn’t move Georgia any higher given the rules I made above. Florida St. has had two lucky wins, so I didn’t want to put them in the top 3 either.
Oklahoma’s Nic Anderson catches the winning touchdown pass from Dillon Gabriel in Dallas on Saturday. Gabriel did not complete as many passes or throw for as many yards as Texas’s Quinn Ewers, but he threw no interceptions and Ewers threw two as Oklahoma got revenge for a 49-0 loss to the Longhorns last season.
Speaking of USC, I’m not impressed with them much at all once I sat down and looked at who they’ve beaten and the records of those opponents. They just went to triple overtime against Arizona, who lost to Mississippi St., possibly the worst team in the SEC West. The Trojans are undefeated though, so I thought I would put them ahead of the best two-loss team, Notre Dame. I would not be surprised to see USC lose to the Irish or any of the ranked Pac-12 teams though.
There were a couple of other large movements in the rankings. Louisville is another undefeated team who had a big, somewhat unexpected win over the weekend. North Carolina also made a big jump, but I am still concerned by the narrow home win over Appalachian St. One of the things I do when I move to more objective rankings is to de-emphasize margin of victory though. I added a couple of Big Ten teams with understandable losses, as well as adding LSU back.
Even though I understand it can look bad to move teams too dramatically, I still think it was the right choice to take LSU out when they fell to 2-2 against FBS opponents (which included a 3-point home win over Arkansas) going into the Missouri game. I also still think I was right to put Mizzou ahead of the four teams who fell out (as I’ll explain, formerly #21 Kansas didn’t fall far), but at any rate it makes sense for LSU to be a bit higher than those other Tigers now.
I can defend most of the choices I made last week, but the idea is to be as accurate as possible now, not to put last week on a pedestal and see who deserves to move up or down a set number of spots based on a preconceived idea of how good last week’s respective opponents were. I continue to think it’s the right thing to start evaluating teams differently around this time of year. Preseason, knee-jerk reactions to one or two early results, and margin of victory should count for very little going forward.
I’ve hardly had any teams from the G5 (those outside of the Power 5 conferences) ranked this season, but four of the best five unranked teams by both the computer and the overall formula are G5. They are as follows: James Madison, Kansas, Liberty, Memphis, and Wyoming.
I was going to leave it at that, but since I mentioned Liberty, it will be interesting to see how former Liberty and Ole Miss head coach and current Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze does in his first trip to Tiger Stadium since 2016. He was winless in three contests there as the head coach of Ole Miss, most notably in 2014 when his undefeated #3 Rebels were upset 10-7 in one of those Les Miles defensive and ball-control classics. When I get a chance, I’ll try to get caught up on the rivalry blogs.
I’ve been accused of being an SEC homer in the past, but I’m not going to sugarcoat it. There were two more disappointing results to add to the LSU loss in Week 1. Neither was as bad as Utah, the defending and eventual Pac-12 champions, losing to a Florida team that wouldn’t even finish with a winning record last season. By SEC standards though, losing to a similarly-placed team in another conference as Alabama and Texas A&M did is still bad news.
Texas A&M and Alabama
It was a doubly good weekend for Longhorns fans. I guess it will be OK in hindsight if Texas A&M finishes last in the SEC West and U. Miami is in the top half of the ACC, but chances are the Aggies will beat at least one competitive team this year (as they beat divisional champions LSU last season). I think there is a limit to how low Alabama can fall, but if they’re third and Texas goes undefeated in the Big XII, maybe that loss will also be understandable in hindsight by the end of the year. Alabama could still win the national championship, but I’m just giving one scenario.
In Tuscaloosa, Ala., Saturday, Texas QB Quinn Ewers threw for 349 yards and 3 touchdowns, including the one above to Xavier Worthy in the second quarter.
Early Big Games Are Not Always Determinative
Like I discussed last week, sometimes a team just gets off to a rocky start and fixes the problems before getting exposed by a conference opponent. This happened to Ohio St. in 2014 before winning the first College Football Playoff. An SEC example happened in 2006, when Arkansas was embarrassed against USC, 50-14, before winning the SEC West. 2006 was when the 7-year run of SEC national titles began, so it wasn’t a sign of a weak league then. USC went on to win the Rose Bowl, but not before losing as many Pac-10 games (2) as the Trojans had lost in the previous four seasons combined.
Putting A&M aside since I don’t think a lot of people picked them first or second in the SEC West, the fact that it happened to both LSU and Alabama is somewhat concerning. As far as I can recall, there wasn’t a second such game in 2006 or the few years after by one of the top SEC teams.
I also want to say I don’t agree with some people saying that this means Texas will be a top contender for SEC titles right away. One game isn’t an 8- or 9-game SEC slate; and even though Texas should be an easy place to recruit, they probably will have less experience in key positions next season. Also, without the divisional format, it isn’t likely they can make a championship game almost by default like Missouri did a couple of times. Texas A&M, which joined at the same time as Mizzou, still has never made an SEC championship game despite typically having much better teams.
Ole Miss and LSU
Neither of the next two SEC West teams I’ll mention have gotten much of the flak for last week, but I’ll also be fair and say I wasn’t impressed by them either.
Also, Ole Miss should have appeared vastly superior to a Tulane team that is missing a lot of its talent from last season (when they still lost to Southern Mississippi and Central Florida despite the positive season overall) and was also playing without its starting quarterback. The starting quarterback might not have made a difference of 17 points (the final margin of victory), but it easily could have made a 7-point difference. That game would have been a lot different if Ole Miss had made a field goal to go up three points instead of ten with just under two minutes left. If Tulane didn’t have the urgency of being down two possessions on the ensuing drive, the turnover that resulted in the final Ole Miss touchdown would have been less likely.
LSU was expected to beat Grambling by a big score and did so, but I still think it was a bad sign that it was 14-10 LSU at the end of the first quarter. If Grambling hadn’t deferred after winning the toss, they would have had two different leads. It’s not like the field goal was from 50 yards either. It was a 23-yard field goal, so Grambling was close to scoring before stagnating in the red zone. It shows you don’t even have to be an FBS talent to catch passes against LSU, you just have to be tall. I’m sure there are some tall receivers in the SEC. A few players got out of the backfield too easily too.
Nonetheless, if LSU manages to go to Starkville and get a win (more on that below), the other teams in the division could be beatable. I think the Tigers also have a fairly favorable cross-divisional schedule with Florida (at home) and Missouri (on the road).
Mississippi St. and Auburn
I mentioned last week that the Pac-12 had not lost any games against other conferences in Week 1. The one bit of good news from the SEC West is Mississippi St. and Auburn became the first two teams from other conferences to defeat Pac-12 opponents. Cal and Arizona only had a combined five conference wins last season, but it’s not like Auburn was terrific either (2 conference wins by a combined 6 points). Yes, I know LSU struggled on the Plains last year anyway; but LSU has struggled there in the past against weak Auburn teams (even in 2012).
It will also be interesting to see how hosting Arizona compares to hosting LSU from Mississippi St.’s perspective.
Mississippi St. QB Will Rogers, who has thrown the most completions in SEC history, runs the ball against Arizona in Starkville, Miss. He only threw 13 of those 1192 completions on Saturday despite the game going into overtime.
LSU/Mississippi St. Series
Even if LSU wins, it’s going to be bittersweet, to me at least. 2024 will be the first year that Mississippi St. will participate in an SEC season and not play LSU. The first SEC season was in 1933, and the last regular season Mississippi St. played without playing LSU was 1925. The only Tigers’ schedule that didn’t have the Bulldogs on it over that time was 1943, when Mississippi St. didn’t field a team.
I don’t understand why they couldn’t keep the series going next season while they figure out what the permanent rotation will be, but of course no one asked me. Next season, LSU will play Vanderbilt for the 33rd time, South Carolina for the 23rd time, and Oklahoma for only the fourth time. I think somehow one of those (or even Florida or Arkansas) could have found someone else to play while LSU played Mississippi St. again.
I will have more to say about this whenever I get around to updating the rivalry blog, but I want people to appreciate that much while the game is taking played.
LSU/Mississippi St. Preview
About the game itself, it might be a good thing for LSU that Mississippi St. has moved away from the air raid since I’ve made no secret of my lack of admiration for the LSU secondary so far. By the way, I had to laugh during the week when LSU commentators who acted like the Tigers could somewhat easily handle the Seminoles and were good bets for the top 10 (if not top 5) acted like they agreed when Brian Kelly told the media that he knew it would be an area of concern. I understand why he didn’t tell us, but why didn’t the LSU media tell us if they knew? LSU has a well-paid PR department. They don’t need volunteers masquerading as journalists.
I hope I’m wrong, but I think I’d take the Bulldogs and the points at home anyway. Based on what State did last week, I do give LSU the edge but not by much. Just because Miss. St. didn’t throw it much last week doesn’t mean they can’t or won’t if they feel like that’s what LSU is giving them. The LSU defensive backs can’t get taller in the next couple of days, but I’m hoping they do a better job at breaking up passes on throwing downs and that there is more of a rush to assist the pass defense than there was against Florida St.
if Mississippi St. is not able to generate much offense without the help of the turnovers which they relied on to win the last game, then it might be relatively easy to outscore them. In that case, this might result in LSU being conservative to try to preserve the lead. Something like 23-14 or 27-19 would still fail to beat the spread. If LSU has to try to go score for score, then it’s also unlikely the Tigers win by double digits.
General Blog and Rankings Comments
Before I post the Top 25, I did want to mention that I’m not completely confident about my posting schedule for the next couple of weeks since I have some traveling planned. It will be done by the time I usually post my first computer ratings in early October though. It’s also more difficult to post blogs of my usual quality while traveling. Enjoy the pretty rankings chart below since you might not see it again for a little while.
This is already long, so I won’t explain any particular ranking decisions. I’m still giving some credence to preseason rankings at this point; but when I transition into a purely computer-based system, all preseason bias will be removed. This does not take place in major polls or committee rankings.
Sometimes long weekends are the worst scenario. It was basically Wednesday by the time I was able to review some of the things that went wrong during the LSU game. If I had waited to review all of them, I might have never written another blog. Obviously I’m not a beat reporter in Baton Rouge, so I rely on public statements and coverage from the people who are based around the program. That process was delayed by a day or more given that the game took place on Sunday night. I did have Friday the 1st off, but nothing had happened yet. I had decided to go out of town to a baseball game on Saturday, so I couldn’t write live reactions about the teams who played on Saturday.
On Sunday, I barely made it back in time for the game, and then Mondays are workdays for me whether I go into work or not. My bosses check to make sure I’ve made enough progress on Tuesday mornings, and I have the type of job where I always have to spend time preparing for the next day the night before anyway. Unfortunately, I don’t just clock in and clock out without having to think about it until I clock in again.
LSU-Florida St. Reaction and Historical Comparisons
Anyway, I do feel a little good right now that at least I didn’t pick LSU to win the SEC West or make the playoff. I’m not throwing in the towel though. There have been teams with rough starts who ended up doing well in the SEC, but it’s pretty rare to be one of the top teams nationally. Ohio St. got run out of their own stadium against Virginia Tech in the first week of September 2014 before winning the first College Football Playoff, but that’s kind of the exception that proves the rule.
Also, the Buckeyes had two months before they had to play a major-conference opponent who would finish with 9 wins or more. That was a long time to fix the issues in the Virginia Tech game, and there was even a close call against a Penn St. team (which would finish 7-6) in the interim. I think LSU has a lot less time. Mississippi St., LSU’s opponent a week from today, will win 9 games or more.
In Columbia on October 6, 2012, Marcus Lattimore gained as many yards on the ground (109) as Georgia QB Aaron Murray gained in the air. LSU handed South Carolina its first loss the following week. The Bulldogs would win the SEC East over the Gamecocks and the Gators.
A couple of years before that, Georgia got blown out by South Carolina, 35-7. in early October but came just a couple of yards short of beating Alabama to win the SEC and make the BCS championship game (which they most likely would have won given how easily the Tide handled Notre Dame). I think that’s a more realistic example for LSU to hope to follow (possibly making the SEC title game and playing better than last year). Georgia of course had to overcome that game to win the East whereas LSU’s loss to Florida St. does not count in the SEC standings. Unlike the Ohio St. example, the Bulldogs’ next big game (in hindsight and at the time) was just a couple of games later against Florida, who would finish 11-2. The only bad thing about following that Georgia example would be having to wait another 10 years to actually win a national championship.
I’ll update the Florida St. rivalry blog another time, but it’s just crazy how cursed LSU seems to be in the series. Of course, I still think LSU would have done quite well if they had played the Seminoles annually from about 2001 to 2019 (minus a couple of losses to Jameis, I suppose).
Thoughts on Brian Kelly
I said I’m not throwing in the towel on this season. I’m also not throwing in the towel on Brian Kelly. This was Kelly’s 15th game. Ed Orgeron lost to Troy in his 13th game in charge (two weeks after a 30-point loss at Mississippi St. that I still argue was worse). Les Miles lost his 12th game by 20 to a Georgia team that finished 10-3. Say what you will about Miles and Orgeron after the respective national championships, but no one was whining about it taking too long to get there at the end of 2007 (Miles’ third year) or 2019 (Orgeron’s third full year) seasons. By the way, 2014 was Urban Meyer’s third year at Ohio St., and Nick Saban didn’t win his first at Alabama until his third year (he had taken four years to win one at LSU). So even if it’s safe to assume a national championship is off the table already, I never thought it was a highly realistic goal for this year anyway.
LSU Head Coach Brian Kelly went on a bit of a rant at the end of his press conference on Tuesday.
Kelly can be a smooth talker, so I don’t always hold too much stock in his press conferences and whatnot, but I liked his rant at the end of his week-opening press conference. I disagree somewhat with faulting the enthusiasm gap, but I think it was a good message to put out there, and it showed he took onboard many of the issues fans and media pointed out.
“I could go through a number of different situations. We don’t get to the chains on third and 5… We’ve got a drop on third and 6 trying to get upfield… We’re 4th and 1 and we’re trying to make a play instead of reading what the defender is giving you. I could elaborate on defense. We’re spinning down a safety[, and] he’s watching the quarterback. We could have been more creative with play-calling. We could have been better defensively and [made fewer] spy calls and [brought] more pressure. I could attack the whole thing. The bottom line is I’ve got to get our football team thinking the right way and play[ing] with a competitive edge.”
I tried to clean up some of the grammar. He usually speaks better than that, but I’ll forgive it. I’ll accept some grammatical hiccups in exchange for his not sounding like a politician sometimes.
Other Results and Reactions
At least Kelly has been overshadowed somewhat by the hysterics about Dabo after Clemson’s loss to Duke. My prediction of those Tigers being the team to beat in the ACC isn’t looking too good right now. But that 2014 Virginia Tech team was in the ACC and ended up losing 6 games, 5 of them in conference, so we shouldn’t rush to any conclusions about that conference either. Even if Clemson continues to disappoint, I might still be right that the ACC champion will have a good shot at the Playoff though.
If I were a betting man (sports betting is still illegal where I live anyway), I would have taken Colorado +20.5. Although I did leave TCU ranked, I wasn’t very convinced they were going to be a competitive team this year. Deion performed better than many more experienced coaches in getting a bunch of transfers and other new players to support each other and have the needed enthusiasm. Whatever happens this season, he definitely did something right in preparing for Week 1.
Colorado head coach Deion Sanders confers with his son, S Shiloh Sanders, on Saturday in Ft. Worth. Sanders’ other son, Shadeur, threw for 510 yards in the upset win.
I don’t believe in making drastic changes after one week unless necessary, so I’m not dropping LSU and Clemson from the top 25. TCU was low enough that they will drop out though. I don’t really have the time and energy to re-work the whole thing even if I wanted to. I don’t really have a long list of teams that were just outside of the top 25 either.
I also wanted to put some of the conference talk into perspective. South Carolina has a much lower status in the SEC than North Carolina has in the ACC. The Tar Heels were the ACC runners-up in 2015 and 2022 and represented the conference in the post-2020 Orange Bowl. They would have been #2 in the conference had Notre Dame not temporarily joined. The Gamecocks have only made one SEC championship game, and that was back in 2010. They have only won 8 games or more twice since the 2013 season.
Florida is obviously a more successful program in the big picture than Utah is, but the Gators lost 5 SEC games (and two other games) last season and 6 the season before, going 6-7 overall both seasons. Utah went 10-4 in each of the last two seasons, winning the Pac-12 both years. I know Florida beat Utah anyway last year, but you can’t expect the SEC to win every game like that.
LSU-Florida St. was the only game of the three that was an apples-to-apples comparison.
It is interesting that the Pac-12 is disintegrating at the same the conference had the most successful Week 1; but other than Colorado, nothing is too impressive based on recent seasons.
I considered ranking Purdue in preseason, and Fresno St. beat the Boilermakers on the road. I thought it was good to make sure one team from outside of the major conferences (and Notre Dame) was included. I also considered Wyoming, which beat Texas Tech; but the Cowboys rarely sustain their early-season successes whereas Fresno St. is often one of the top teams in the Mountain West. I also take overtime wins with more of a grain of salt.
I don’t have that much to say about the LSU game itself. I thought they would lose by single digits if they had a good day, and they basically would have lost by three if you take out two disastrous plays (and leave everything else the same): a blocked field goal from fairly close range that was returned for a touchdown, at least partly because all but a couple of players on the field forgot the rules (a 10-point swing), and an interception deep in LSU territory that resulted from a ball that was falling to the ground that hit an LSU helmet instead (this set up a fairly easy touchdown drive).
I’m not surprised that Alabama and Tennessee went ahead of LSU in bowl consideration given that they each only have two losses. I would argue if LSU had beaten Texas A&M, but my guess is that didn’t matter either. Rightly or wrongly (obviously wrongly in my view), Alabama was seen as the best SEC team after Georgia; and Tennessee’s win over LSU would have been a tie-breaker for a New Year’s Six bowl even if one didn’t punish LSU for the extra loss.
LSU is a superior team to Purdue, but sometimes it can be hard to be enthusiastic about playing such a game. I think the Boilermakers will be relatively excited to play in the game and probably would be to play in any bowl.
I do think Tennessee should have gone to the Sugar Bowl, but I guess we didn’t need another game between Alabama and Clemson to take place in the Orange Bowl. All the other New Year’s Six Bowls were fairly obvious match-ups according to the guidelines. USC vs. Tulane in the Cotton especially made sense as the two westernmost teams not bound to the Rose Bowl. They will play one another in a bowl for the first time since the Trojans won the Rose Bowl after the 1931 season. That game might have helped inspire the creation of the Sugar Bowl a few years later. USC and Tulane also split a home-and-home in the 1940s.
I had said Friday that Ohio St. should move up if another team fell out of the top four. I didn’t realize that TCU and USC were far enough ahead of Tennessee and Alabama that they could afford a loss and stay in the top five. Actually, my first draft of the ratings had USC ahead of Ohio St.; but then I realized that somehow Utah was being counted as a better opponent than they were. Not to bore the reader with the details, but I try not to penalize teams as much for losing a close game on the road, but that wasn’t meant to treat the winner as one of the top teams in the country as the weighted ratings do if not corrected.
The Trojans did beat one more top-25 team than Tennessee did. It hurt the Vols that LSU lost in a way because now the Tigers are not in the highest classification of the weighted ratings. Had LSU won, Georgia would not have fallen out of that classification (which right now is the top 8 teams). In the bigger picture, USC beat 8 Pac-12 teams and Notre Dame whereas Tennessee only beat 6 SEC teams and Pitt. You can think the former is more impressive while still having the SEC as the best conference.
I’ve written about Clemson playing a deceptive number of quality opponents, so that’s why they’re ahead of Alabama. The Tigers only beat one top 25 team (the same number Alabama has beaten), but they’ve beaten five other teams in the top 42 to Alabama’s one. Illinois is #39 and was a missed field goal from beating Michigan, and #37 Pitt took Tennessee to overtime, so I’m not talking about opponents that anyone can take for granted. (For an even better example, Florida is #51 and beat Utah.). Alabama does have better losses, but that doesn’t make up for that volume of decent wins.
Florida LB Amari Burney intercepts a pass to win the game against Utah in Gainesville on September 3. In hindsight, it’s another reminder that there are a lot of teams (including those who fall well outside of the top 25) who are threats to some of the best teams, even eventual Power-5 conference champions. On Friday, the Utes beat USC to claim the Pac-12 title and eliminate the Trojans from Playoff consideration.
I think it’s appropriate that the respective Big XII and Pac-12 champions round out the top 10. I don’t think Tulane, Troy, and UTSA would beat many of the 5 to 10 teams immediately below them, but I don’t mind that in my system teams like that are in the top 20 as long as they’re not in position for the Playoff. I’m glad not to be in New Orleans to hear from the Tulane fans who don’t know anything about national college football listing all the SEC teams they’d beat with their one good team in a generation though. I have mixed feelings about Troy playing UTSA in the Cure Bowl. On the one hand, it’s good that they’re both playing a ranked team; but on the other hand, I wonder how they would do against one of the lower Power-5 bowl teams.
I know the Playoff is going to expand to 12 teams, but one or two of those teams being non-Power-5 champions is fine with me. I will want most Power 5 teams to be eliminated with three or four losses. This isn’t the NFL; I’m not willing to take a team seriously as the potential national champion if they lost 1/3 or more of their regular-season games.
I don’t like Oregon being ahead of Oregon St. even though I do think the Ducks have been the better team overall this year. USC didn’t beat Oregon (both “civil war” teams played Utah), so it doesn’t hurt Oregon for the Trojans to lose. USC did beat Oregon St. It also helps that Oregon’s best non-conference opponent solidified its claim as the best team in the country. Oregon St. played Boise and Fresno, and neither is as good as LSU anyway, so there wasn’t as much of a gain there (there was a slight improvement to strength of schedule though).
My formula did put the Egg Bowl rivalry in the “correct” order (according to head-to-head results) though, with Mississippi St. at #25 and Ole Miss at #26. Of course, it helps that Mississippi St. played Georgia instead of Vanderbilt (all the other conference opponents were the same, and the two teams have the same record).
Some teams moved up or down more than they normally would given how many teams didn’t play. I hadn’t worked on the weighted formula in a few years and it was still new before COVID, so there were still some kinks to iron out. Given that most of the changes still made sense given the results and there was no turnover in the top 25, I don’t think I changed anything too abruptly.
I’ve updated the ratings after the Army-Navy game before, but this year I’ll just treat is as a bowl game since neither will play an actual bowl game.
For the ratings of all 131 teams and all FBS conferences (and independents), see here or click “Knights’ Ratings” above at any time while browsing this site.
As I’ve done the last couple of weeks (including on Thursday), I’m going to wait until the College Football Playoff standings come out for detailed analysis of the remaining competitive teams (which of course no longer include Clemson or LSU), but you can see my ratings here. I will comment briefly that I think it’s appropriate for a couple of different reasons for USC to be ahead of Ohio St. at the moment, so I commend the polls for coming to that conclusion as well and doing so decisively.
I’ve also updated the LSU-Texas A&M Rivalry Blog, which was first written before the 2010 Cotton Bowl. Jimbo Fisher may have a worse record as Aggie head coach than Kevin Sumlin did overall, but he’s 3-2 against LSU compared to Sumlin’s 0-6 record. It’s also the third time in those five games that the team with the better record lost on the road.
Jimbo Fisher walks the sidelines as the LSU offensive coordinator before the BCS championship/Sugar Bowl in New Orleans in January 2004. He now has a winning record against his former employers.
I started writing this before the game ended, but I think there will be a few reactions to the LSU-Texas A&M game that aren’t accurate. (ESPN confirmed this this morning, saying “Jimbo Fisher EXPOSES LSU” in the headline of their YouTube video about the game. If the title is something that low-IQ, I don’t even click on it. So I’m not making a point-by-point rebuttal, but I will elaborate more below.)
I don’t think it was trap game or that LSU was looking ahead. It was the next major-conference opponent for two weeks. Yes, there was a big game coming up against Georgia; but the players knew they had some things to clean up after the Arkansas game. Texas A&M had beaten Arkansas earlier in the year after all. The Aggies had suffered some injuries since then, but so had Arkansas. Everyone knew it was a talented, dangerous team. This isn’t a coaching staff that would have distracted the team with an early preview of Georgia (Kelly confirmed this with the media), and winning the game yesterday would have actually taken a weight off of them. Maybe you shock the world, but even if you don’t you have a great bowl game no one expected you to be in to fall back on. Now that’s in doubt.
My impression is that it was the opposite of looking past the opponent. I think some of the LSU players were too nervous and playing not to lose. It’s easy to feel unease in a hostile environment. If there were some consideration of A&M’s record, I definitely think the thought was more, “How much would it suck if we lost to a team with that record?” than “Forget all the great athletes they have, we’ll beat A&M easily because their record isn’t good.”
Playing not to lose was cited by multiple people as why Alabama lost to Tennessee, and I got a similar vibe here. I think that is a more frequent problem with the top teams than “looking ahead”. The Tigers also seemed like they were playing tight against Arkansas, and they weren’t looking ahead three weeks. Arkansas just didn’t have the athletes (or they weren’t playing well enough that day) to capitalize.
I would cite a combination of rivalry, revenge (for last season when LSU won with the lesser team), and wanting to take out an overachieving team that was possibly in position to make the playoff without a loss. Also, they knew it was the last chance to play a game for several months (or ever in some cases). It doesn’t make up for how badly A&M underachieved of course, but there is only so much you can do in one game.
Yes, A&M was up three touchdowns midway through the fourth quarter (I’ll get to the circumstances below), and I think some will say LSU didn’t “show up,” but a game getting away from you doesn’t mean you never showed up. I told Tennessee fans the same thing when some of them said that after the South Carolina loss.
LSU RB John Emery, Jr., scores the tying touchdown early in the third quarter in College Station yesterday. Emery would only finish with 55 yards from scrimmage but scored all three of LSU’s touchdowns (at least the ones that counted).
In the second half, LSU started with two three-and-outs on defense and a touchdown on offense to tie the game. I wouldn’t say everything had gone according to plan, but that was a more comfortable position than LSU had had at a similar point in most of the previous games against major-conference opponents. After three drives of the third quarter against Florida St., LSU was down 17-3. At the same point against Mississippi St., LSU was down 16-10. At the same point at Auburn, LSU was down 17-14. At the same point against Ole Miss, LSU had just scored to get to make it 24-20 Rebels. LSU was also way down against Tennessee, but that was the only one LSU didn’t either lose as a result of a blocked extra point or win. I guess one problem was only one of those situations had taken place on the road, so this was more difficult. LSU had some luck against Auburn that they didn’t have here.
Going back to this game in the third quarter, LSU had withstood the A&M rally and was in position to take the lead (and to take the crowd out of it) with another good drive. With the ball and a 17-17 score, LSU gained six yards on first down. That was more than they had gained on any first down in the previous drive (which ended in a touchdown), and the Tigers had only had to convert one third down. But in two plays all of that momentum was reversed. The Tigers were forced into a third down. It was a third and one, which seemed like no big deal given what I said about some prior plays that half, but Daniels made what appeared to be a bad decision not to hand the ball off and tried to roll out. He fumbled as he was hit trying to get around the end, and A&M returned the fumble for a touchdown.
LSU QB Jayden Daniels picks himself up from the turf as DB Demani Richardson is about to return Daniels’s fumble for a touchdown to give the Aggies back the lead, which they would not relinquish again.
It also didn’t help that LSU’s attempted comeback was thwarted by what I think was a completely incorrect call on the field in the last three minutes, but it still would have been unlikely for the Tigers to come up with another touchdown, a two-point conversion, and at least one other point after. If that’s called a touchdown and there is no fumble, that’s nearly the entire difference in the game though.
This isn’t sour grapes or blaming the refs for the loss, but this is something that has annoyed me for a long time even if it’s not against my team. I think if you have the ball secured against your chest and your feet land in the end zone, that should be a catch, the play should be over, and nothing else should enter the equation. In this situation, WR Jaray Jenkins also took two steps out of bounds with the ball secure. It’s bad enough if the player then goes to the ground in the end zone, but it’s absurd to even talk about what happens on the edge of the turf as he’s avoiding people on the sidelines, but he did eventually go to the ground and drop the ball. I’ve seen players toss the ball up in the air or spike it after demonstrating far less control over the ball. This whole “surviving the ground” thing is nonsense in that situation.
It’s the equivalent of a baseball catcher tagging someone out and then falling and dropping the ball on the way to the dugout. Or an even better analogy would be a basketball player calls timeout as he’s going out of bounds and then drops the ball when he lands on someone’s lap, so the timeout doesn’t count because he retroactively didn’t have possession.
Rant over. My point is it really was a close game, not that playing a 7-loss team close is something to brag about; but it wasn’t in reality all that different from the previous conference game. I don’t think LSU was exposed or embarrassed or anything of the sort, just not the better team that day and certainly not the team that got more breaks.
I noted the live stats as of the end of the third quarter, so it’s not the official three-quarter stats, but it’s close enough. At that point, LSU had about 50 more yards in the air (but more incompletions) and about 50 fewer yards on the ground. This included most of the Texas A&M drive that resulted in the Aggies going up two scores, so LSU was generally the better team before the fumble. The one weakness in the stats was the third-down performance on both sides of the ball. Four of 9 wasn’t bad for LSU’s offense, but giving up 7 of 10 to the other team is terrible, especially if they got a touchdown on one of your OFFENSIVE third downs.
Speaking of third downs, another key play I wanted to highlight took place after the start of the fourth quarter. LSU still had a decent chance of coming back as they were only down 14 with 11:30 to play and had forced a third and six from the A&M 27. The Aggie quarterback Conner Wiegman threw deep downfield to WR Moose Muhammad III, who could not have been covered better, and even threw a little bit behind him. But partly due to Muhammad’s timing in reacting to the ball, it came down right between him and LSU safety Sage Ryan even though both players were touching one another as the ball arrived (it was correct not to call interference either way). The ball even touched Ryan’s fingertips as Muhammed was hauling it in.
I couldn’t find a picture of the play I was talking about, but this was just a couple of plays later: another great catch by A&M WR Moose Muhammad, III, who finished with 94 receiving yards. His right arm may be extending a little bit too much, but it’s still a great catch; you also can’t fault Sage Ryan on this play either.
I knew the fumble-touchdown had been a dangerous turn in momentum (Brian Kelly said after the game, “That momentum swing, I don’t know that we ever recovered from it”), but that’s in hindsight. It didn’t seem insurmountable in the moment.
That catch, though, gave me a strong conviction that it was not going to be our night. I’m rarely that discouraged in a two-possession game with over 11 minutes left, but I think it was warranted. If we couldn’t stop them despite covering a receiver that well, we weren’t going to be able to stop them. At least not enough to outscore them by two touchdowns the rest of the way.
I do want to elaborate on why I think saying LSU was exposed was a low-IQ take. A good example was 2018, when Ohio St. had beaten unranked opponents by an average score of 51.4 to 16, and the only team that had stayed within single digits of the Buckeyes was a top-ten Penn St. team in Happy Valley. Then Ohio St. loses to unranked Purdue 49-20. That’s exposed.
“Exposed” is not when a two-loss team shows problems it had shown all year (slow start on offense, giving up a large number of rushing yards on defense) but unable to make up for it in other areas on that particular night. LSU gave up 222 rushing yards to Florida, and the Gators were playing from behind (and therefore less inclined to run than they normally would be) the entire second half. Texas A&M never trailed, so it’s not surprising that they did even better. The Aggies did end up on the wrong side of a couple more games, largely due to injuries of key players; but they’re not a dramatically different team than Florida is. Exposing an opponent isn’t confirming a weakness that other similar teams have exploited in the past.
Also, if any exposing was done, it wasn’t Jimbo Fisher doing it. Two of the plays I highlighted were defensive plays, and the offensive play (or plays if you include the touchdown in the picture) was a great individual effort by Muhammad. It wasn’t a brilliant call or a great pass. Without that catch, the Aggie offense would have had only two touchdown drives against three three-and-outs in the final 50 minutes of game play. You’d like them to have zero touchdowns over that span of course, but that’s not being exposed by the other team’s play-caller.
Anyway, I think most reasonable people predicted 8 wins or fewer for LSU, maybe 10 on the high end after a bowl game, so having 9 going into the game is still something to be very proud of. Most people predicted more wins for Texas A&M. I actually wish we didn’t have to play Georgia, but there is a chance something crazy could happen. I thought LSU was going to get blown out by Tennessee in 2001 (the last time LSU made the SEC championship game with three losses), but they weren’t. Regardless, for a team that was so out of it 11 months ago that they barely had enough players to play an embarrassing Texas Bowl to get to #5 in late November was impressive.
The Bayou Blogger 
Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, College Football, Florida, football, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi St., Missouri, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St., Ole Miss, SEC, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Tulane, USC, Vanderbilt
Pre-Bowl Top 25 and LSU 2024 Schedule
In College Football, General LSU, History, Rankings, Rankings Commentary, Rivalry on December 15, 2023 at 4:04 PMLSU’s 2024 Schedule : Historical and Competitive Ramifications
I’ve sat down to this blog a few times, and each time some other news item comes out. The most recent event was the release of LSU’s schedule with the actual dates.
I decided to just cover that and the top 25 for now. Interesting bowl games (to me anyway) are still about two weeks away, so the rest can wait.
We’ve known all the teams on LSU’s 2024 schedule for a while but not who LSU was playing on what date. The one constant going back as long as I remember is Alabama after a bye week and between about November 3 and 12, this time on the 9th. Alabama seems to keep roughly the same order from year to year, but no one else does that I’ve noticed.
Given the addition of the second bye, I like that it was added before Ole Miss. That’s been a tough contest lately. LSU has a three-game losing streak in College Station, but I’m still less worried about that game than about Ole Miss.
Texas A&M was scheduled on the traditional late October date for Ole Miss though. LSU will play the Rebels two weeks earlier, with Arkansas sandwiched in between.
Florida was traditionally around the date the Ole Miss game is scheduled, but this might be the last year of what has been an annual series since 1971 anyway. It was also after Alabama this year, so it was easy to leave it where it was. At least they weren’t both road games in either year.
LSU doesn’t have a long ongoing annual tradition with anyone else on the 2024 schedule.
They had only played Texas A&M once (in a bowl) between 1995 and 2012, the year the Aggies joined the SEC. LSU had previously played the Aggies in early September, but it’s different when it’s not a conference game.
I wouldn’t be opposed to making it an early game in the future though, especially since LSU won’t play Auburn annually anymore. Mississippi St. was a typical September fixture for a while also, although on the traditional schedule they were after Alabama. I’m still annoyed LSU plays neither Auburn nor Mississippi St. next year.
Since the annual series with Tulane ended in 1994, LSU has played whatever somewhat proximate SEC is left without a good end-of-year rival. Arkansas was not particularly close to and had no longstanding recent rivalry with anyone in the SEC when it entered, so that was fine for about 20 years. Then after Missouri and Texas A&M joined (and two “transitional” years elapsed), it made sense to split that up when it became clear that the Aggies weren’t playing Texas anytime soon.
Now that the Thanksgiving/rivalry-week Longhorns-Aggies series is rekindled and Bedlam is on hiatus, it wasn’t a huge shock that LSU finishes with Oklahoma in Baton Rouge. We are used to playing a team with a reddish color from a neighboring conference to the west.
The SEC could have mixed things up in some other ways in 2024, but it was easier not to, especially since next year is just a one-off and not part of any dedicated rotation. Just as a neutral fan of college football and historical rivalries, my hope is that Oklahoma either can manage to schedule Oklahoma St. again or that they play Missouri on rivalry week. I would be OK with LSU going back to Arkansas or having some type of rotation (perhaps switching between Oklahoma and Arkansas or between Vanderbilt and Kentucky). There was some history with Kentucky. LSU played the Wildcats 51 years in a row at one point (ending with the 2002 season).
As far as I’m concerned, LSU could even go back to playing Tulane if the two sides could come anywhere close to a mutually agreeable deal; but since that hasn’t happened in nearly 30 years, I’m not optimistic. There was a home-and-home in 2006 and 2007, but LSU felt like they gave up revenue from a potential home game to enrich Tulane. Since then, LSU has played every other Louisiana Division I program, all of whom seem content with being paid money to travel to Tiger Stadium occasionally rather than expecting a home-and-home exchange.
Anyway, putting tradition aside, I like that there aren’t brutal back-to-back weeks. Going to Florida after hosting Alabama isn’t ideal, but there is only one instance of LSU playing 2023 bowl teams two weeks in a row, and that’s UCLA and South Alabama (both were barely eligible and both will be home games).
USC and UCLA are separated by Nicholls St. and South Carolina. The Bruins or Gamecocks could have a good year, but I doubt both will. I don’t see much risk of looking past an SEC road game or coming down from an emotional high for the first home game that is against a Power 5 opponent.
There were years when I’ve been glad LSU got an apparently tough opponent from what we used to call the SEC East, but we didn’t need one given the out-of-conference slate. Also, I’m not even sure if you need a good non-annual schedule, especially if the SEC eventually adds a ninth game, in the playoff system. I guess we will see how lines get drawn between 4 and 5, 8 and 9, and 12 and 13 in playoff selection
Top 25
Other than their effects upon the Playoff resumes as mentioned in the previous blog, I didn’t have much to say about the conference championship games because they weren’t very surprising. I don’t know why Oregon was favored by so much; but as I kept telling everyone, they didn’t deserve it. I wasn’t a big believer in Georgia since the only SEC West teams they faced were Auburn and Ole Miss and they didn’t do anything out of conference until beating an average Georgia Tech team a couple of weeks ago. Very good Alabama teams have struggled with Auburn before, so I didn’t attach much importance to that. In lieu of Georgia, I admittedly picked the “wrong” Big Ten team as #1, but it wasn’t my fault Ohio St. had a better schedule than Michigan. As expected, the Wolverines had no problem with Iowa.
I’m listing my top 25 teams below, but I think they all fairly logically proceed from the results of those games and what I had written about the Playoff teams last week.
Honorable mention: Kansas St., Oklahoma St., Oregon St., Clemson, Memphis