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.
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 went on a short overnight trip to see a friend this weekend, and I got back just in time to watch Alabama score 21 unanswered points and just in time to spend 4 hours trying to get my computer to work. Due to the trip, I hadn’t done any of the steps I usually do in advance, such as entering in the bye weeks and the weekday games. That’s why the computer ratings were delayed until later. Also, I wanted to write this and get in all the key points while the game (and some of the pregame information) was fresh in my mind. Given that I still have a lot of work to do with the ratings, I’m not going to spend time looking for more than one picture.
Proper Perspective and Looking at the Bright Side
I can assure you the delay wasn’t because I was overcome with grief over LSU. I’m actually fairly unfazed. I’m far less upset or frustrated than I was after the other two losses this year.
You don’t have a 28-21 lead in the third quarter of a game like this if you’re just average and don’t belong on the field with these guys. According to Saban and all the Alabama commentators I heard, this was the healthiest Alabama has been all year, and I definitely think it was the most complete game by their offense all year. The final score being a loss by 14, especially given how it ended, doesn’t mean we played like a worse team than Arkansas, who lost by 3, or Texas A&M, who lost by 6. It doesn’t mean we’re equivalent to South Florida, who also lost by 14. Those teams didn’t get Bama’s best shot, which is what LSU typically gets after the Tide has all offseason, 8 games, and a bye week to figure it out.
No matter who we could have theoretically hired in late 2021—Nick Saban, Bill Belichik, Andy Reid, Pete Carroll, Urban Meyer, whoever you can name who’s still alive—I would not have expected that person to win the SEC West in year one and have the inside track to win the West after the Alabama game in year two. (Not to mention Jimbo Fisher, Billy Napier, or Lincoln Riley, the people some wanted to hire.) Maybe one of those guys doesn’t go 1-4 against the combination of Florida St., Ole Miss, and Texas A&M so far; but I wouldn’t have expected a single one of them to follow last year’s West championship with putting LSU where they would have been with two conference games left this year.
One bit of good news is chances are about 99/100 that as of next week we will be able to say for the foreseeable future “Ole Miss never won the SEC West.” Technically, the SEC regards losers of the tiebreaker to be “co-champions,” but I don’t have to agree. I think the pro sports have the right interpretation of this. The point of a tie-breaker is not to have a tie anymore, so even if you have the same record as the division champion, you’re not the division champion if you’re not the team that advances with that designation. So for SEC divisions, if you lost a tie-breaker and don’t get to go to Atlanta, you shouldn’t be called the divisional champion. The same should apply to Alabama last year or the Alabama team who lost the “Kick Six” game, by the way. So if someone corrects you and says, “actually we were the champions that one time, we just didn’t go to Atlanta,” tell them you don’t believe in participation trophies.
Also, we now have a good chance (less good if Daniels is out, but maybe Nussmeier will finally prove he can be reliable) to finish the season on a four-game winning streak including the bowl. That would not be the case if Georgia were on the docket. Even though in January we won possibly the biggest blowout ever in a bowl game, I still had a bit of a bad taste in my mouth at the end of last season because of the SEC Championship Game. It was some consolation that Georgia eventually became the national champions with a dominating game though.
The Final Score was One of Many Foreseeable Results
In the preview, I mentioned that Alabama had scored 40 against Mississippi St. and I wasn’t sure what their upper limit was if they weren’t up 31-13 at the half as they were against the Bulldogs, but it was somewhere above 40. So it wasn’t an unforeseeable event that they scored just two more points than they had against Mississippi St. since not only were they not up at halftime, they were behind before they even saw the ball in the second half. The maximum was at least 48 though, because their kicker usually makes kicks of less than 50 yards, and he missed two.
I can’t fully address why the offense fell just short of what I thought their minimum point output would be without addressing what happened to Daniels, so excuse the upcoming rant.
When LSU won last year, I mentioned the referees are always on Alabama’s side in these games. It was the same thing this year. There was a horse collar on Jayden that they didn’t call (seemingly in the hopes that LSU wouldn’t score a touchdown at the end of the first half), and LSU scored anyway. But I think it gave Alabama permission to keep coming for him and there wouldn’t be any potentially game-altering consequences. Then even when they knock him out of the game, they don’t call targeting or even stop the game to review targeting. If launching at the quarterback so that the crown of your helmet hits him in the chin after he releases the ball isn’t targeting, they need to abolish the targeting rule entirely. 95-99% of the players ejected for targeting did something less deliberate and less egregious.
I thought the time where you can just throw the kitchen sink at a quarterback with the apparent attempt to injure him was gone, but I guess not when you have SEC officials and Alabama is involved. There was a scene in Mighty Ducks 2 where a player for Iceland (which is the villain team of the movie) goes to the penalty box and says, “Two minutes? Well worth it.” 15 yards when you’re still in LSU territory and don’t lose one of your own players was well worth knocking Daniels out of the game.
If this wasn’t targeting, the word has no meaning other than “play the officials don’t like.”
Anyway, even if the officials had done nothing wrong and Alabama were treated fairly with those calls, my number of 31 as a minimum was assuming Daniels didn’t get hurt with over 20% of the game left to play. I didn’t think LSU would score over 40 regardless, but they would have had at least a chance to do that, so I think my belief that LSU would score in the 30s was well-founded. Also, LSU was in field goal position on two different occasions without coming away with points. One field goal attempt was missed, and the other opportunity was toward the end of the game when a field goal wouldn’t have given the Tigers an improved chance of victory. The latter was one of two times that LSU turned the ball over on downs.
Why Do We Have This Defense Anyway?
To go back to the coaching staff, some people might still be asking how coaches who are as well-paid as Brian Kelly and Matt House allowed such a bad defense in the first place that we have to worry about whether the opponent will score more or less than 40 points and whether we can keep up with them even with one of our best offenses in history.
Last season, we brought in a few stop-gap transfers because there was no choice given how depleted the roster was by mismanagement by Coach O and the departure of players who were not pleased with going .500 (and some other shenanigans) over the previous two seasons. This season we tried to do the same, and it just didn’t work out at all. I don’t know what Denver Harris (Texas A&M transfer) and Deuce Chestnut (Syracuse) did wrong, but they haven’t been participating with the teams in months. They still have scholarships at LSU, but we aren’t told anything official beyond that. One of the transfers last year actually had two years of eligibility and was expected to be the leader of the secondary. His name is Greg Brooks, Jr., and he’s currently battling brain cancer. We had brought in another transfer (J.K. Johnson from Ohio St.) who was hurt in the offseason. In addition to this, there was a fluke injury to Zy Alexander right before the starters left the game against Army.
I know it doesn’t benefit teams and coaches to whine about things like this and cite it as a reason for failures, and some people accept the standard “next man up” answer as fact because it’s so reinforced; but sometimes it’s just not the reality. You can’t take over a roster that was barely able to field a team for the Texas Bowl after the 2021 season and bring into your second season not only one of the best and most experienced offenses we’ve ever had BUT ALSO a defense so deep with competent players that they don’t give up multiple touchdowns a half to good teams after you lose 5 players in the secondary from what you had planned on going into the year.
In the future, if Kelly keeps recruiting well, we will have four or more classes of players that we have been able to develop within the system and possibly some transfers that we can give a chance to prove themselves. But every transfer isn’t someone just waiting to be great like Joe Burrow; some are misfits in one program and continue to be misfits in the next.
Alabama Played Close to Their Potential and LSU Did Not
Now, why was I saying people were bringing up the injuries too much before the game? For one thing, that was already factored into my point that Alabama could get their highest point total in an SEC game against LSU. For another thing, we had two opportunities (3rd and 3 from the Alabama 33 and 3rd and 11 from the LSU 33) to shut Alabama out in the second quarter. If we do that, we would have been on pace to hold Alabama to 28, which is what I thought was the minimum (again, factoring in the players we did have suited up and ready).
None of this is to say Alabama didn’t play better than LSU did, especially in the latter part of the third quarter. The Tide was the overwhelming favorite to win before the hit on Daniels. Even if he had two fourth-quarter touchdown drives in him, who’s to say Alabama makes the same calls on the second-to-last drive? Maybe they’re more aggressive and this sets up an easier field goal attempt or a touchdown. Even if you give LSU 14 more points, that only forces a tie. Alabama may have had time to get another field goal attempt before time expired. I also think they more likely than not would have won in an overtime.
I maintain that the players on both sides of the ball for LSU had the talent and training to play a lot better than they did.
One thing I didn’t mention was the interception. That alone could have put both teams in the 30s. It was one of the rare stops of LSU up to that point as well as setting up a 25-yard Alabama touchdown drive. Daniels has the ability to avoid short-yardage interceptions like that. It’s one thing if you take a shot downfield and it ends up being like a punt, which I think was the case for the last interception he threw; but it’s quite another if the other team takes over the ball when they’re already in field goal position. He’s also gone several games at a time with no interceptions. I think he played most of last season before he threw one.
There was also a timing issue with some of the receivers. I’m not sure exactly what the cause was. This seemed to have been the problem when Daniels missed Nabers on 4th and 1 from the Alabama 42 in the first quarter, for instance. That’s another play that could have changed the complexion of the game.
I also wonder if there might have been more opportunities for him to run. If you’re averaging 14.8 yards per run on 11 attempts, it seems you’d try to keep doing it. Maybe he didn’t want there to be more uncalled penalties against him though.
In short, a handful of plays could have easily gone differently and drastically affected the score, and I can’t think of any major skill player on the team who had a great day. Daniels had a great first 34 minutes (at that time LSU had 28 points and was on pace for 49 for the game) where he was able to compensate for most of the miscues; but in the next two drives before the injury, he completed two passes for a total of just 8 yards and threw the interception.
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.
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.
I will not be giving any details about the Bulldogs, just about what is going on with LSU. I have updated my Rivalry Series blog in light of the upcoming game though.
LSU has either lost to or barely beat the Bulldogs in every game recently except for the two years in which Joe Burrow was the starting quarterback. If we win at all, I’ll be satisfied. If we win somewhat comfortably, I’ll be very encouraged. A loss won’t necessarily be devastating, but LSU should beat unranked SEC opponents at home (even though I think the Bulldogs should be ranked) even in a mediocre year. I know it’s easier said than done, but it should be an expectation.
Malik Nabers carries the ball in the fourth quarter last year in Starkville. Nabers was the leading wide receiver in the game against Southern on Saturday.
One of the LSU shows found the biggest LSU naysayer they could. Even he picked LSU to win this game (and lose all the other SEC games). So while I do think the Bulldogs are underrated, I won’t be resting easy if LSU loses.
Usually I’d barely mention an FCS opponent, but I hope it gave the coaches more data to make better decisions in the future. What was done in the Southern game may also be a bit of a preview of what they’ll try to do against Mississippi St. I’m not going to preview the Bulldogs though.
LSU did shore up some concerns in the game against Southern even though obviously what works against Southern may not work in ANY future games. I think we can compare it to an NFL preseason game. Cuts to an NFL roster and to some extent decisions about plays and the depth chart are made based on performances against opposition players who themselves often aren’t going to be playing a whole lot in the NFL. Similarly, most Southern players could not get meaningful playing time at an SEC school (though a couple of former FCS players play for Florida St. and at least one plays for LSU). But I think going through the motions of a game against at least some competitive athletic talent can tell you a little bit.
It certainly gives you a basis for comparison of one player to another. It provides some data points by which to determine who plays where in future games. Coaches have a better idea of whom they can trust during the game. You can’t always know that from practices and scrimmages alone.
I don’t know if the new center Charles Turner will be better than Garrett Dellinger, the center in the Florida St. game; but I didn’t notice any problems with snaps, and the coaches seem to like how he communicated. Dellinger will still get a lot of playing time, but it will just be at guard instead. I don’t think anyone is pretending we know how well Turner will block an SEC defensive lineman at center because he did an adequate job against Southern, but they could see how he handled the game environment and worked with his teammates.
Jayden Daniels did leave the game early enough that I think we were able to get some information about where he is compared to the backup Nussmeier. Kelly said before the Florida St. game that they were 1-A and 1-B rather than 1 and 2 on the depth chart. I’m pretty sure that was a lie. We didn’t see Nussmeier at all in the Florida St. game even after the Tigers.
LSU only came up with 3 points in the first half; and although Nussmeier ended up throwing for more yards against Southern, he completed only 59% of his passes compared to Daniels’s 91%. Daniels did not commit a turnover in either game, and Nussmeier threw two interceptions. Daniels threw three touchdowns, and Nussmeier threw none. I don’t always think QBR is that great of a stat, but when one guy is near 100 and the other is under 20, I think that sums it up pretty well.
Again, I’m not banking on this counting for anything; but the starters did absolutely all they could. It has been 129 years since LSU first played intercollegiate football, and the Tigers had never scored 37 points in a quarter before. It only took 40 seconds of the second quarter to get to 44 points. As for the defense, Southern didn’t score until one of those Nussmeier interceptions was returned late in the third quarter. The LSU defense didn’t give up points until about 8 minutes remained in the game. That was probably the third or fourth team by then.
Micah Baskerville (23) blocks a punt late in the first quarter against Southern in Baton Rouge on Saturday.
Some players who weren’t even starters in the first game played great. For instance, the game ball went to Micah Baskerville, who blocked a punt (which resulted in a safety) and returned an interception for a touchdown. I’m told he was only in about a dozen plays against Florida St. I don’t care if it was against easy competition, doing both of those things in the same season is hard to do, not to mention the same quarter. Freshman 5-star recruit Harold Perkins, Jr., whom LSU just barely kept from going to Texas A&M, had a good game too with 7 tackles.
Malik Nabors was relieved of punt-return duties after two turnovers in that role against Florida St., but it was nice to see him score a touchdown on one pass and go for 60 yards on another. Even if the latter were his only catch, Nabors would have led both teams in receiving yards. It’s good that the ball was spread around by both quarterbacks too. Hopefully it will keep the receivers more engaged and facilitate better communication and trust than we saw against Florida St.
Also, importantly, LSU had no major injuries and a couple of key players are actually available against Mississippi St. when they were not against Southern. This includes RB Jon Emery, Jr., and DE BJ Ojulari. DE Ali Gaye was suspended for a half for targeting, so he will be back as well.
Top 3
This first section ties into last week about certain SEC opponents looking more like winnable games than they did at first blush, but it’s also relevant as to why I’ve made a change at #1. I did think it was a little unfair that Alabama had to play Georgia in a rematch, but maybe it was the SEC championship game that was the aberration last year.
Alabama has rebounded from looking vulnerable and even losing in September before; but even if by some miracle LSU had been able to convince Saban to come back (there is a contingent of LSU fans who had been trying to orchestrate that for 15 years… I think they finally gave up now that Kelly has a 9-figure contract and Saban is 70 years old), we probably would have had to start thinking about the future by now anyway. Alabama may still win the national title, but the close win over Texas can be added to the following somewhat concerning close games last season (with final record of opponent and margin of victory):
7-6 Florida, 2 points
8-4 Texas A&M, LOST by 3 points
6-7 LSU, 6 points
9-4 Arkansas, 7 points
6-7 Auburn, 2 points
I haven’t changed my mind about Oregon (Georgia’s big win) being overrated in preseason. I would have liked to have seen more Georgia Bulldog offense against Samford, but the defense can’t do anything better than a shutout.
The reason I made the change is that Alabama won by a single point (and as I mentioned probably deserved to lose), and obviously the shine is taken off of Ohio St.’s win over Notre Dame given the Marshall game. A team can win by one possession in a fluke, but the Irish had to score in the final moments of the game just to make it close. So that’s really a similar type of game to what the Irish did in Columbus.
Remainder of Top 25
The rest of the top 10 remained intact. Kentucky had a decisive road win against Florida, so that’s why the Wildcats moved up so much. BYU’s win over Baylor was at home in overtime, and Baylor was one of the teams I was doubtful about (along with Texas A&M, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma St.). The Cougars still got credit for beating a ranked team but not as much as what Kentucky did.
Apart from Baylor (whom I didn’t want to drop double digits for an understandable close loss), the rest of the top 20 is made up of teams who moved up by default.
Marshall is obvious. Oregon St. may not be, but I had Boise St. as one of the top unranked teams going into the season, and the Beavers beat the Broncos handily in Week 1. Last week, Oregon St. went on the road to Fresno St. (who won 10 games last year) and won, albeit in a close contest.
Oregon St. WR Silas Bolden escapes a Fresno St. defender during a touchdown play in the first half in Fresno on Saturday.
Tennessee wasn’t great against Pittsburgh, but it’s still a Power 5 road win, so I gave the Vols the Panthers’ former spot.
Houston was also on my waiting list in preseason, so I went ahead and gave Texas Tech a spot for beating the Cougars.
Iowa St. didn’t look a whole lot better than South Dakota St. had against Iowa (both games in Iowa City); but the Jackrabbits were one of the best FCS teams last year. As for the Cyclones, while they had needed the Hawkeyes to miss a field goal to escape with the win, I was still impressed by the defense. Iowa’s one score was on a very short field.
I give Texas A&M some credit for their defense against Appalachian St. (who put up 40 points in one quarter against North Carolina after all) as well and considered leaving the Aggies in the Top 25 instead. Although I do think the Aggies would likely beat the Cylones, 2-0 beats 1-1. Texas A&M will go ahead of the Cyclones with a win this weekend anyway, so I also don’t mind giving Iowa St. the benefit of the doubt for now.
Speaking of the Aggies, I learned a couple of facts I wanted to share. (1) Jimbo Fisher makes more than 20 times as much per year as Appalachian St. head coach Shawn Clark. (2) Texas A&M has 56 players who were either 4- or 5-star recruits out of high school, but Appalachian St. has just 1.
I’m sure most who are reading already know all of this, but I’ll provide a short recap for posterity. I will add this blog to the links on the “Rivalry Series” page. I know I’ve been posting something every other day, but don’t expect anything new until Sunday at the earliest. If you missed it, I posted my Top 25 and made some preliminary comments on Tuesday.
Recap
LSU got to the Florida St. 5 on the opening drive before settling for a field goal. The Tigers got to the 8 two drives later, but a 30-yard field goal attempt was partially blocked. There were only three LSU drives in the first half other than the one that was ended by the half. The drive in the middle was a three-and-out, and Florida St. took advantage with a touchdown on a flea-flicker, so the ‘Noles led 7-3. Toward the end of the half, Maliik Nabers fumbled a punt, but Florida St. turned the ball over on downs on the subsequent possession despite taking over at the LSU 16. This kept the lead down to 4 at the half.ings got more exciting in the second half.
Ontaria Wilson went high to catch the flea-flicker as the late-arriving defender went low in the second quarter in the Superdome Sunday. The Seminoles led for the remainder of the game.
Florida St. scored on their first two drives (field goal, then touchdown), interspersed with another LSU three-and-out, to take a 17-3 lead. LSU and Florida St. exchanged touchdowns on the next two drives. The Tigers cut the lead to 24-17 on the next drive (their second of the half); but given that the drive took almost five minutes off the clock, only 4:14 was left to play.
After a first down on the opening play of the next drive, the Seminoles stalled on the next three plays. So, with 2:!5 left in the fourth quarter, the Seminoles were forced to punt for only the second time all game, and it was fumbled by Nabers yet again.
Florida St. had a third and goal at the 1 yard line with only 1:20 on the clock, but on that play, FSU running back Treshaun Ward didn’t handle the pitch cleanly and fumbled the ball back to LSU.
This is what occasioned the 99-yard drive I mentioned. That drive almost ended when Mason Taylor caught a pass in the middle of the field. He was initially ruled out of bounds with one second left, but a replay seemingly showed that his knee touched with two seconds left. In the NFL, this may have ended the game as the clock would have kept running by rule.
But a first down stops the clock in college, and the play was whistled dead regardless. It looked like Taylor’s knee touched with two seconds left; but it was announced that there would be one more play, and no adjustment to the clock was made. It’s unclear if the LSU center would have been forced to snap the ball within that one second, but we will never know since Florida St. called a timeout before the snap anyway.
Regardless, on the final play from scrimmage, Jayden Daniels found Jaray Jenkins on a crossing route toward the back of the end zone to make the score 24-23 In another flashback to earlier in the game, the extra point was blocked, ending the game.
So all the fumble and ensuing drive ended up doing for LSU was to make the score closer. With LSU’s kicking problems, I wouldn’t have put money on the Tigers winning in overtime anyway. I also wouldn’t have been confident in LSU converting a second do-or-die two-point conversion play (which is basically the kind of play the touchdown was) either, so I don’t completely fault the coaches for not going for the win. I did wonder why Kelly instantly raised one finger in the air to indicate kicking the extra point though.
Another key to the game I wanted to mention was Florida St.’s success on third down. The Seminoles went 11 for 17 overall and 4 for 6 on third and long (defined as third and 7 or longer). LSU only converted 5 of 11 overall and 1 of 4 on third and long.
The Big Picture and Additional Reaction
Losing by 1 when the 4 points that were blocked would have covered the spread is nothing like the slap in the face that the 11-point loss to UCLA (after the margin was 18 late in the fourth) or the 22-point loss to Kansas St. (after the margin was 35 late in the fourth) was. Florida St. isn’t necessarily better than those programs, but LSU was never behind by three or more possessions in this game.
It’s unreasonable to expect to just flip a switch between the last game last year and the first game this year regardless of who the coach was. Kelly didn’t inherit a well-oiled machine like Les Miles did. He didn’t even inherit an underachieving (and overworked) squad of veterans like Ed Orgeron did.
The Tigers had a new starting quarterback, a center who had never been a center in an actual game before, and (for most of the second half) two backup defensive ends (Maason Smith was hurt in the first quarter, and Ali Gaye was ejected in the third quarter). They were also without running back Jon Emery, Jr., who was supposed to be the top returning back going back to last season. (More on that later.) This was in addition to replacing most of the rest of the offensive line and most of the secondary in the offseason.
By the way, I disagree with some of the comments that Daniels did terrific, and every drive that ended quickly was someone else’s fault. I think former LSU and NFL running back Jeremy Hill tackled that narrative well here. In short, while the offensive line does need work, there were open receivers that Daniels didn’t even look at before scrambling and usually running. The pocket didn’t instantly close around him every play. I didn’t catch the name on every play and I’m not going to re-watch the game to take notes (once was painful enough), but one of the best receivers at improvising to get open is Jack Bech, and he was only targeted once the whole game.
LSU QB Jayden Daniels runs for a first down in the Superdome on Sunday. Although he ran well and his completion percentage was good, the question remains if he can do enough in the air for consistent offensive success.
Will this year be another 1999 or another 2000?
I think most of those predicting 10 wins or more have now been disabused of that notion, but there are still very good (great may be off the table) and very bad ways this season could go.
Some younger fans may not know this, but there was actually a time before Les Miles. I want to draw an analogy to something that happened in the beforetimes. I remember the last time some stick in the mud from the Midwest whom we vaguely remembered facing in a bowl game showed up to coach LSU. Kelly has tried harder to shake that image than Saban ever did, but the point is Saban didn’t exactly wow everyone with results right away either.
I really think 2000 was the last season for LSU that was anything like this one going into it.
I would argue the team we saw in January was worse than what Nick Saban inherited in 1999. In the game before Nick Saban was hired, LSU beat a good Arkansas team, 35-10, under Interim Head Coach Hal Hunter. LSU did lose 8 games under Gerry DiNardo in 1999; but they were neck-and-neck with some very good teams, and players weren’t deserting the team like it was a sinking ship (it helped that the transfer portal didn’t exist then) or they would have had no chance to beat Arkansas (who’d entered the game at 7-3 after knocking off both reigning SEC divisional champions).
If LSU had had the same team it had in January all of last season, not only would we have lost every SEC game, I doubt even one of the losses would have been close.
Saban’s first team was able to ease into things. The first game was a blowout against Western Carolina (whose only two wins were over I-AA opponents). The second game was against a Houston team that would finish 3-8 (whom the Tigers beat by a pedestrian score of 28-13). Even with those warmup games, LSU dropped the next two, an understandable loss at Auburn, followed by an upset home loss to UAB.
UAB’s Rhett Gallego kicks the winning field goal in Baton Rouge in 2000.
As an aside, LSU plays UAB again this year. Assuming we get past them, Southern, and New Mexico, we probably won’t have lost to a team like UAB in this coach’s first year. I don’t think there is one game on the SEC schedule (LSU is the only SEC team to lose so far, by the way) that looks as easy to beat as that team should have been given that the two SEC East opponents are Tennessee and Florida.
Anyway, UAB did finish with almost as many wins as LSU had in 2000; but for two teams to be even, a Conference USA team needs to have more wins, not fewer. After a 41-9 loss to Florida, LSU did have a 4-game SEC winning streak in 2000, but one win was over 2-9 Kentucky and one was over 3-8 Alabama (by two points). Which two SEC opponents this season are only going to win 2 or 3 games total? Vanderbilt and South Carolina aren’t on the schedule if either of those were your answer (not saying they won’t do better anyway… Vandy is 1/3 of the way to bowl eligibility actually).
Unfortunately, I think that 1999 season is more similar to what LSU is facing this year. LSU played three games against teams that didn’t qualify for bowl games and won three games. They weren’t the same three, but the point is Saban’s four-game improvement in the regular season was partly due to the schedule. The worst SEC opponent in 1999 was Auburn, which finished 5-6 (so with a modern schedule the Plainsmen probably would have also qualified for a bowl). There were two one-point losses during the losing streak, and one loss was to the eventual SEC champions (Alabama) by six points on the road.
So the team did not play dramatically differently overall in Saban’s first year even though he was a dramatically better coach than his predecessor. Winning three close games rather than losing them is what made the Tigers bowl-eligible rather than 3-8. What happens in future close games could make a huge difference in the number of wins here also. I hope the Florida St. game isn’t a sign of things to come with regard to close games (as the loss at Georgia was in 1999); but the Tigers also dropped the first close game in 2000 (UAB), so it doesn’t have to be.
There is one slight advantage of this year compared to that year in that there are still three remaining non-conference games (LSU will likely be favored by multiple touchdowns in all three) whereas there were only three non-conference games total in 1999 with the same number of wins needed to make a bowl (6).
What To Expect
I touched on this earlier, but the chance of a season with double-digit wins went down considerably; but 7 or 8 wins, either of which I’d consider a success and said so before the season, are still realistic if things go well. I’ll get to what might happen if things don’t go well.
To get a little more into “inside baseball,” I know almost everyone improves from Week 1, but the way this team had to come together in the offseason, I think players will improve faster than most as they get used to one another and learn their roles better. Maybe Daniels will learn to read a defense before scrambling or Nussmeier will get a shot.
Also, I do think by the time Emery comes back (he fell behind academically due to COVID, and the NCAA… enough said there), LSU might have a rushing attack other than the quarterback. His first game will apparently be against Mississippi St.
I’m not being a what the forums call a sunshine pumper though. Assuming we get past UAB and the other non-conference opponents that remain, I can’t tell you with confidence what three SEC teams we beat to become bowl eligible. I won’t rest easy about winning a single one in isolation.
I don’t expect Auburn or Florida to be great this year (I barely had Utah ranked, so the win over the Utes [who probably should have won] didn’t drastically change my mind), but it gives me some pause that both games are on the road. Mississippi St. is a good shot at a win; but except for the two years when Burrow was on the team, LSU has struggled against the Bulldogs since Dak beat them in 2014. In my estimation, the quality of opponent only goes up from there.
Maybe the home crowd could put LSU over the top against Ole Miss, Tennessee, or Arkansas. Another occasional source of late-season success of late has been Texas A&M; but this is less true on the road, where the Tigers haven’t officially won since 2016 (some would say they won the 2018 game more than once).
On the other hand, I wasn’t overwhelmingly confident last year’s LSU team was going to beat #20 Florida or #14 Texas A&M (both of which were needed to become bowl-eligible) last year. I also don’t remember being confident about LSU in 2000 when they went into a game against #11 Tennessee and another against #13 Mississippi St., but they managed (winning both in OT). Had the Tigers lost both, they would not have made a bowl game in Saban’s first year. Side note: Tennessee also makes a rare visit to Tiger Stadium this year.
LSU TE Robert Royal catches the winning 25-yard touchdown pass in overtime to upset Tennessee in Baton Rouge in 2000.
Since that season in 2000, we always have had the talent and the fighting spirit (both of which were on display to an extent against Florida St.) needed to win the games we need to win to become bowl eligible (which LSU has been every year since 2000, although it voluntarily absented itself from bowl consideration in 2020), even if that means beating multiple ranked teams. I’m not taking anything for granted though. With special teams like that, even if the offense and defense improve, this could well be the year it doesn’t happen. If none of the three areas improve significantly, it could be a repeat of 1999.
I’ve had some computer problems that have prevented me from writing more and posting blogs when people are most likely to read them. I have switched browsers for blog-posting; but if that doesn’t work, I may have to go to a new site. If that happens, I will do my best to post a link here. You can also follow me on Facebook for updates. I also have a twitter account @TheBayouBlogger.
I will elaborate further later in the week, but I just wanted to say a few things about the LSU game and some of the reactions.
I HATE how the media is always in competition to say the most dramatic outlandish things after a single game. There is no accountability for being wrong, they just get more clicks by being dramatic. If it were up to the media alarmists, Ed Orgeron wouldn’t have made it past the Troy game. Les Miles wouldn’t have lasted past the loss to Tennessee in 2005. (I don’t remember it being this bad in 2000, but I’ll get to that.) Oh all problems at LSU aren’t fixed, I guess Brian Kelly stole 10 million dollars! He should never show his face in public again after a one-point loss to a Power 5 opponent at a neutral site (FSU fans were there in droves, don’t give me that)! He’s blaming everyone but himself when he cited coaching as an issue four times in an 11-minute press conference! He made a sarcastic comment about how maybe they could have played worse at halftime!
Then every November and December, these same people decry how fast coaches get fired after their fan bases are bombarded with dire negativity after every loss. Some of them (Colin Cowherd, for instance) even attacked LSU in 2019 (when the Tigers had NO losses all year), saying they weren’t up to snuff because they allowed too many points and yards to Vanderbilt and Ole Miss in garbage time.
Top 25
I don’t like to shake things up too much after one game. Two months from now, I won’t really care about margin of victory; but I think a couple of these teams showed more problems than teams like Notre Dame and Cincinnati showed in losses. All four Division I teams Brian Kelly has coached lost this week.
I think replacing Utah with Florida was obvious, but the game certainly could have gone the other way. Even Oregon might well be a top-25 team. In 2006, Arkansas lost by even more to USC (the defending national runner-up); and the Razorbacks were national-title contenders until late November.
I listed six teams that I thought were good candidates for the last spot in preseason, but Maryland was the only one that played up to expectations. Obviously, the Terps may not be a top-25 team, but there was no obvious candidate to move ahead of them. One team I considered was Penn St., who had a good win at Purdue. Another was Indiana, who beat Illinois after the Illini easily beat Wyoming in “Week 0”, so right now there are seven Big Ten teams in my top 30. Not quite as many as the SEC, but close.
I only have the Bulldogs #3, but they certainly put up the most impressive score of the weekend. Pictured is Kenny McIntosh finding the corner of the end zone for a rushing touchdown during the first half against the Oregon Ducks in Atlanta on Saturday.
Some have said Georgia should be #2, but I think Notre Dame is significantly better than Oregon at the moment. I certainly understand if people who believed Oregon was a top-10 team differ with that assessment.
I think most of the changes are obvious if you just look at the results of a given team. The only one who slipped a little who might not be obvious based on the final score is Kentucky, who won 37-13 over Miami U.; but they only led 13-10 at halftime, and they only out-gained the RedHawks by 53 yards on offense.
I wanted to start by saying that I know I’m behind as far as things I’ve been planning on.
I saw a joke online recently that said. “Hobbies? I am thirty-xx years old. I do not have hobbies. When I have any free time at all, I will go lie down.”
Sadly, that has been my pattern at times lately; although I do still have some hobbies. I still haven’t gotten my normal pattern back since the lockdowns and whatnot. I have gotten to travel a few times over the last couple of years, so I guess that counts as a hobby; but the way my work schedule works is I just have more to do before I leave and after I get back. So if I’m gone for a week, I can’t even think about blogging for two weeks, sometimes longer.
I still need to update the rivalry blogs. Since we are almost at the end of the academic sports calendar (schools are done, but baseball is still going), I’m going to wait until then to give an update as to what conference has been doing what in the major sports as far as top-four finishes.
I’ll wait until the football preseason to recap the last football year. I didn’t really wrap that up after the championship game. I was glad that four teams were able to vie for the championship rather than two; but due to the whole holiday situation I mentioned earlier (also, even if I wanted to, it’s hard to schedule a lot of things in December), I rarely have time to say much after the actual champion is crowned. I’m more interested in who goes to what bowl and who makes the Playoff now anyway since championship controversies are basically over with, but it was still nice to bring things to a nice conclusion when the season ended with the big bowls right around New Years before work was full-speed again.
Anyway, about a month ago, the SEC meetings in Destin, Florida, took place. Thankfully no final decision was made or there would have been no point to blogging about it at this point.
Two options were presented regarding scheduling once Texas and Oklahoma enter the SEC.
There are so many considerations and things to be aware of, so I’m just going to write one big long article. Maybe I’m not enough of a marketer, but I don’t have the time and the energy to split it up into small segments to tease where I’m going with this. I’d rather spent time catching up on the other things, so everything I think is worth noting on the topic will be here.
Option 1: Eight Games with One Permanent Opponent
The first is easy to dispense with, so I’ll start there. That would be an 8-game schedule with one permanent opponent. Among the established SEC teams, there are three two-team states [Alabama-Auburn, Ole Miss-Mississippi St., and Tennessee-Vandy], so that knocks out 6 of the 16 teams. Going forward there will be two annual neutral-site games. I’m not calling them the PC names—The Cocktail Party between Georgia and Florida and the Red River Shootout between Texas and Oklahoma. I know Texas A&M-Texas would be in-state, but I think both Oklahoma and Texas would insist on playing each other annually instead. Anyway, that takes out 4 more, leaving 6 teams to match up. I think they’re fairly common-sense:
I don’t think this is very controversial
LSU-Texas A&M (long-term occasional rivals before the Aggies joined the SEC, they’re in neighboring states and battle over many of the same recruiting prospects)
Arkansas-Missouri (existing annual rivals; and apart from Oklahoma, who’s obviously taken, they’re in a geographic area all to themselves while being close to one another)
Kentucky-South Carolina (annual rivals since the Gamecocks joined the SEC for the 1992 season, and frankly they’re the only leftovers on the eastern side of the map.)
I will acknowledge a few small arguments that might come up. I’ve seen some suggest Arkansas-Kentucky and Missouri-South Carolina, but that’s silly, especially if you’re only picking one matchup per team. Missouri and South Carolina were illogically forced into the SEC East together and made the best of it by creating a trophy; but that doesn’t mean the series must continue annually. Other than in years where Arkansas has a good basketball team, I don’t think anyone would be excited about Arkansas-Kentucky.
I think both Arkansas and LSU fans would acknowledge that they’re not that geographically close to each other [despite the two states sharing a border, Baton Rouge is in the Southeastern part of Louisiana, and Fayetteville is in the Northwestern corner of Arkansas; Little Rock and Shreveport are no longer suitable venues for major SEC games as they were in the 1930s and 1990s, respectively], and the trophy they pass back and forth was also kind of forced.
Texas A&M played Missouri a few times when both were in the Big XII, but they were never annual opponents except briefly in the couple of years after the Aggies joined the SEC, and that didn’t evolve into any kind of meaningful rivalry. Geographically, there is a lot of Texas to the North and East of College Station; and Texas and Missouri aren’t neighboring states.
Intro to Option 2: Nine Games with Three Permanent Opponents
It’s the other option that’s liable to cause a bar fight somewhere in SEC country. That would be 9 games with three permanent opponents.
First of all, why a 7/1 and 6/3 format? Why isn’t 7/2 or 6/2 an option? It’s simple. This would allow you to play the OTHER teams exactly twice every four years, one home and one away. So if there are 16 teams with an 8-game schedule, you subtract the team in question and the annual opponent (16-1-1=14). That leaves 7 spots for 14 teams. You play half of them the first year and the other half the second year. In the third year, you repeat the same schedule as the first year except it’s in the opposite respective stadiums. In the fourth year, you swap stadiums but otherwise with the same schedule as the second year.
With the 6/3 format, you subtract the team in question and three annual opponents (16-1-3=12). That way you have an even number and can play exactly half of the teams one year and the other half the next along the same lines as the 7/1 format I explained.
This is the option favored by the big wigs who have gone undefeated and/or have won national championships despite a loss.
I can definitely see a capable program like Ole Miss (with no national-championship team in 60 years and no consensus national championship ever) or Tennessee (with one in the last 70 years) worried they might get just one shot and blow it by losing the extra SEC game or that they might finish second in the SEC rather than first as a result of the extra game and not get the same forgiveness that Alabama might get when they finish second.
Even more marginal programs like Vanderbilt would probably prefer 8 games. If they can only manage to win three or four, they still have a shot at a bowl game. If they went 3-6, they would have to be perfect in the other games to make a bowl. If they went 2-7, they wouldn’t be allowed to play in a bowl. At 2-6, they might still have a shot if they can run the table out of conference. At 3-5, they can afford to lose one out of conference.
Also, an extra home game in Nashville every other year isn’t going to yield a program-changing amount of money regardless of the opponent. An extra Alabama-Florida or LSU-Georgia game by contrast is a huge sum of money and probably gets a prime TV spot. You can bet it’s not going to be at 11 a.m. on the SEC Network.
The other issue is with one more conference game, that’s one less spot for a meaningful non-conference game. Some argue that all 16 teams will just play one more easy opponent, but that hasn’t historically been the case. There have been many instances of an SEC team scheduling two quality opponents out of conference. I think if there are 9 SEC games, any team would be crazy to have more than one ever, at least not without a major expansion of the Playoff.
Rivalry Week
I didn’t think of this until I almost completed writing this blog, but the 9-game series would also make Rivalry Week weird for LSU.
If there is only one permanent opponent (as above), Texas A&M stays available for LSU in Rivalry Week since the Aggies won’t be playing Texas that week every year, assuming Texas-Oklahoma is the annual game instead. There isn’t an obvious team for Texas to play that week, but I imagine they could keep at least sporadic series going with former Big XII and Southwest Conference foes. Texas-Oklahoma is earlier in the year, and I hope Oklahoma would keep playing Oklahoma St. An alternative arrangement would be for LSU to play A&M earlier in the schedule in years where the Aggies are playing Texas and during Rivalry Week in other years, but then both LSU and Texas would have to find alternatives every other year. I would prefer if LSU/A&M kept the same date.
It gets trickier for LSU if A&M is playing Texas during Rivalry Week every year, which would most likely be the case in the 9-game schedule. These are the obvious Rivalry Week games in that scenario, assuming Oklahoma keeps playing Oklahoma St.:
Non-SEC teams are added as abbreviations with a transparent background. I’ll explain below why Louisville isn’t included.
If the annual series between Texas and Texas A&M is once again played during Rivalry Week (as was the tradition before the Aggies left the Big XII for the SEC), for the third time in 30 years the Tigers would be losing an annual “Rivalry Week” opponent. I’ll elaborate in the next two paragraphs for anyone who wants that explained.
With only a handful of exceptions from the 1930s through 1991 (a couple of rescheduled games and a couple of series against non-major Western teams), LSU completed its regular season against Tulane. Starting in 1992, LSU began to complete the season against Arkansas, which had just joined the SEC and needed to start (or re-start if you take a long enough view) a semblance of a rivalry with someone. Starting a few years after that, LSU decided it wasn’t worth it to play annual home and home series against Texas A&M (which usually started the year) or Tulane (which was second-to-last for a few seasons) in addition to the various SEC series.
A couple of years after Missouri and Texas A&M joined the SEC in 2012, it made sense that rather than playing each other they would play Arkansas and LSU, respectively. So since 2014, LSU has played Texas A&M (in part to replace Texas and in part because that was a “historical” series still in most fans’ memory) during Rivalry Week.
There would be no obvious SEC team to fill the gap for LSU. Traditionally (before 2014), Tennessee ended its season with Vanderbilt and Kentucky (for a long time Vanderbilt was last, but then they switched), but obviously the Volunteers can’t play both on the same weekend. Maybe if Tennessee ends with Vandy one year and ends with Kentucky the next, whoever isn’t playing Tennessee during Rivalry Week can play LSU. Kentucky has been playing Louisville that week of late, but traditionally the Kentucky-Louisville game was earlier in the season anyway. Surely the Cardinals could go back to playing someone else that weekend. I don’t want to get into ACC scheduling politics, but there are teams in the ACC without obvious traditional opponents for that week.
Suggested Permanent Opponents under Option 2
My Preferred Permanent Opponents
Alabama: Auburn, Ole Miss, Tennessee
Arkansas: Missouri, Texas, Vanderbilt
Auburn: Alabama, Florida, Georgia
Florida: Auburn, Georgia, South Carolina
Georgia: Auburn, Florida, South Carolina
Kentucky: Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee
LSU: Arkansas, Mississippi St., Texas A&M
Mississippi St.: LSU, Ole Miss, Vanderbilt
Missouri: Arkansas, Kentucky, Oklahoma
Oklahoma: Missouri, Texas, Texas A&M
Ole Miss: Auburn, Mississippi St., Vanderbilt
South Carolina: Florida, Georgia, Kentucky
Tennessee: Alabama, Kentucky, Vanderbilt
Texas: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas A&M
Texas A&M: LSU, Oklahoma, Texas
Vanderbilt: Arkansas, Ole Miss, Tennessee
If the competitive balance isn’t right or one of your favorites is missing, keep reading.
Hopefully, you can understand the basics of how the map works and I don’t have to provide the information in list format for every map I saw fit to mention in this blog.
Most of these should be obvious why I chose them on the map or based on a passing familiarity with the historical rivalries, but I’ll explain a few that I chose over others I could have chosen.
Oklahoma and Texas A&M were both in the Big XII South, and Oklahoma was in both the Big XII (albeit in another division) and Big 8 with Missouri. There isn’t a similar tie between Oklahoma and Arkansas even though they’re both in the Northwestern part of the map. Also, Arkansas and Texas were annual rivals in the Southwest Conference before the Razorbacks joined the SEC and have renewed the rivalry several times since. I mentioned that when that happened, the LSU-Arkansas rivalry was kind of forced and therefore not one that had to take place every year. However, being the #3 rivalry for both schools is reasonable.
Vanderbilt could have been matched with Arkansas or Missouri, but the only logical opponent to drop would have been Mississippi St., which has a really forced annual series with Kentucky that doesn’t make a lot of geographic sense. Why make longer trips for both if there isn’t a compelling reason to do so? Mississippi St. could have also been replaced with Kentucky, which would be slightly better for Vanderbilt but would make even less sense for Mississippi St.
Since I ruled out Missouri playing Vanderbilt annually, the only real option to Missouri’s east was Kentucky. Kentucky and Missouri are the two northernmost teams in the SEC, and neither had another strong competitor for the #3 slot.
While not quite as unnatural, hence Florida joining the SEC many decades before, the Gators have a similar issue to Missouri being that they’re in an extreme position on the map somewhat alone. In the last 10 years or so, they were probably happy to play Tennessee rather than Auburn most of the time; but I’m not sure Auburn is going to be a better program going forward.
Younger fans may not understand why other than geography Florida should play Auburn at all. Unlike some of the others I discussed there is nothing artificial about this rivalry. I know they’ve only played once since 2011, but bear with me. Until 2002, each team had two cross-divisional opponents. Florida-Auburn was important enough to be annual until then. It wasn’t quite as prominent as Auburn-Georgia though (and Florida was a more interesting and logical opponent for LSU than Kentucky was), so it had to go. In the 58 seasons between the end of World War II and the revamping of SEC schedules in 2003, Auburn played Florida 59 times. (They played in a rematch in the SEC Championship in 2000.)
So by now, you’ve probably figured out why Auburn might be perturbed with this map. They’re paired with three opponents who are among the most successful programs in the conference over the past several years in terms of championships and championship game appearances. No one else has three opponents all of whom have at least one national championship in the last 15 years. But a lot has changed with Florida since that Gators national championship in 2008. Other than 2020, when there were two extra SEC games (and the winning percentage in a typical year probably would have resulted in six wins), the Gators have only won 7 or 8 conference games three times since that championship season. One of those was the year after. By contrast, the Gators won four SEC games or fewer (that’s .500 or below) six times. Since 2008, Georgia and Florida have only combined for 13 wins twice. They combined for 10 or fewer wins seven times. Georgia has been a rock-solid program the past five years, don’t get me wrong; but the point is Georgia and Florida are rarely top teams at the same time.
As for Alabama, it’s possible Saban has peaked or at least will have in two or three years (or longer… they could start with 8 and go to 9 later) before this would go into effect. I don’t know if 2011 to 2017 Alabama would have lost to LSU in 2019 or to Georgia last year. I’m not saying he’s on his way out or that he might not have a more national championships in him, but I am saying we shouldn’t assume Alabama is going to be dominant for the foreseeable future. I know it was a long time ago, but in 7 of the 10 years before Saban was hired, the Tide won four games or fewer in the SEC.
If Saban retired tomorrow, Alabama could still win a national championship in January, but ask Auburn what happened after the last time they won one in 2010 or even LSU what happened in the last two years. Things can go downhill in a hurry. Malzahn nearly won one at Auburn in his first year in 2013, and it was pretty much downhill from there. Even that 10-year period at Alabama before Saban I mentioned… the first of those was only five years after Gene Stallings’ national championship season. As I mentioned, Florida has had just a few really good seasons since winning two national championships in three years under Urban Meyer. It’s not going to be three national-championship-caliber opponents every year.
It could be that Texas A&M would have more of a gripe with their schedule, but that depends how well Oklahoma is able to withstand its latest coaching change, how quickly Brian Kelly can get acclimated in Baton Rouge, and how soon Texas returns to national prominence. For Texas, it’s been “any season now” since 2009. Oklahoma has been a reliable standard-bearer in the Big XII and a regular participant in Playoffs and championships. Texas played for two national championships in the first decade of this century. I don’t like to brag about LSU this way, but obviously the Tigers have won three national titles and played for another in the last 20 years.
Speaking of Texas A&M, as I touched on at the end of the last section, it occurred to me that if they do start playing Texas every year once again (and almost everyone thinks they should if there are three permanent opponents), there would be some turmoil regarding who plays whom on Rivalry Week. Even if Bedlam stops being an annual series (I for one hope it doesn’t), Oklahoma and Texas probably wouldn’t want to move their traditional matchup in the Dallas area at the time of the Texas state fair to the end of the season and probably would want to (assuming they were playing A&M annually anyway) go back to playing the Aggies that week.
I do think no matter what arguments I make (or someone more notable makes) there is a high chance that people will reject a schedule that doesn’t pay more attention to perceived competitive balance than I did, but that’s unfortunate. Most teams are going to be luck of the draw anyway since every team in the SEC would be on your schedule at least once in a two-year period. Even if you get the annual opponents that seem easier, you might get the best Georgia team one year, the best A&M team the next, the best LSU team the year after that (and maybe another great Georgia team), and so on.
I’m not pretending these things don’t matter at all. Even when Vanderbilt is having a good run and Alabama is relatively mediocre, you’d still rather have Vanderbilt on the schedule. A mediocre Alabama team will have better athletes. Even in the 10 pre-Saban years you still would have had about a 1 in 3 chance of Alabama winning 75% or more of its conference games. Vanderbilt hasn’t won over 75% of its conference games since it was in the Southern Conference in 1929. The Commodores have only had two winning SEC records since 1959.
So there would be a percentage advantage or disadvantage in the big picture for some schools, but as long as it’s mostly beneficial to the schools who haven’t won, I think that’s OK. A given team playing South Carolina, Tennessee, and Missouri has an easier route, but Kentucky has never played for a conference title and hasn’t even gotten particularly close to a divisional title that I know of. I’m OK with that. Vanderbilt could have three easy opponents if Tennessee and the Mississippi schools are having off years. I’m OK with that too.
Part of the reason I’m not in favor of the nine-game schedule is it makes the competitive balance more difficult. It’s much more likely that a team comes ahead or behind based on strength of schedule whether it’s due to the luck of the draw, annual opponent, or unequal number of conference home/away games. The big schools are the ones asking for this, so if whoever is near your team that makes sense historically and geographically is too good, join the smaller football schools in pushing to keep the eight-game schedule.
My Strongest Alternative Suggestion
I’m willing to be nice and show a willingness to compromise based on those last few paragraphs. I would also be extremely happy with this second option, which I think avoids a lot of potential gripes from Auburn and Texas A&M fan bases in particular.
I’m not only going to show you these two, but the other two that I made myself are variations on things other commentators are suggesting, so this is the only other one that’s purely based on what I want and believe in.
Someone might have read what I said about Alabama and thought I was only saying that because I wasn’t pairing LSU with Alabama. Although I prefer Texas A&M (and not just because of LSU’s record against them), my alternative plan is to put my money where my mouth is and keep LSU-Alabama an annual event.
This pays less attention to the newer rivalries even if they make sense.
You can just by looking at the map that I did a good job keeping the far western teams together, keeping the central teams together, and keeping the Eastern teams together. It lacks some series I like such as LSU-Arkansas, Florida-Auburn, and Alabama-Ole Miss, but it adds some good ones.
Arkansas would play both of its old Southwest Conference rivals (Texas and Texas A&M) annually. Florida would continue to play three of the five SEC East teams it has played every year since 1992. Florida-Kentucky has been a reliably good game lately even though until recently the Gators had a decades-long winning streak over the Wildcats. Auburn-Mississippi St. isn’t going to be the Game of the Century anytime soon, but it’s better than Auburn or Mississippi St. versus Vanderbilt. Also, I think given that Missouri has had a killer travel schedule and will continue to have one regardless, it’s only fair to give them the closest three teams as permanent opponents.
LSU would also play its closest conference rivals, in that case the ones with whom they share the most history. In recognition of the importance, LSU completed its conference season for almost 30 years in a row with those three, ending when Arkansas joined as mentioned previously. Before that stretch (when Tulane was still in the SEC), they were almost always three of the final four conference opponents.
Oklahoma, Texas, and Tennessee would play the same teams as the previous map. Vanderbilt would have a slightly longer trip to play Missouri than they would have to play Mississippi St., but I don’t think that’s a big deal.
LSU vs. A&M, Ole Miss, and Mississippi St.
This is a blend of my two suggestions as far as LSU is concerned. I don’t mind it. I think it’s good to promote the LSU/A&M rivalry again, and I think it’s worse to lose the LSU/Ole Miss rivalry than Alabama. I would say that even if this were the late 1990s or early ’00s.
It’s the one that Matt Moscona thought was likely, but as far as I know he didn’t opine about which other teams should play which.
This is similar to my first suggestion, but i connected Missouri and Arkansas with the roughly parallel traditional SEC East teams.
There are the same Auburn and Texas A&M issues as in the first suggestion here, so of course I did an alternate keeping these opponents for LSU.
More similar to my second map, this keeps the western teams who weren’t in the SEC before 1992 playing each other along with maintaining more SEC East rivalries. It’s too easy on Alabama in my opinion though.
LSU vs. A&M, Ole Miss, and Alabama
I usually respect what Ross Dellenger has to say, but what he laid out in Sports Illustrated is terrible. I don’t know if it was just a joke, but when I used to follow him on Twitter, he used to post about drinking whiskey on the rocks whenever he was stressed about something. Maybe he fell off the wagon while writing his article.
With all the long and overlapping lines, it almost looks like there are more permanent games here.
I already talked about how I don’t think Missouri-South Carolina or Kentucky-Arkansas make a lot of sense. Kentucky wouldn’t really play any games to be excited about. I mention that I don’t think they really care about Mississippi St. Those were just two of the teams without obvious cross-division rivals. It’s not something anyone is going to be heartbroken to end now. That would leave Georgia as the only annual SEC East series for the Wildcats. I know they would give the Bulldogs their best shot, but even their biggest fan would probably dread the game more than they would be excited about it. At least they’ve held their own against Tennessee, and that’s much more natural rival geographically as well as historically. Even Kentucky-Florida has been a better series of late even though Florida dominated for decades.
Dellenger added some extra, even more contrived rivalries that make even less sense. I’m sure everyone will be talking about their plans for the big Auburn-Vandy game every year. Florida-Oklahoma sounds like a good Orange Bowl or Sugar Bowl when Florida has a good year, but annual rival? What? If you’re going to make Florida play a second heavyweight program in addition to Georgia, Oklahoma should be last on the list.
Mississippi St. is another school that wouldn’t have any rivals to be invested in except for the obvious. State and A&M played in a snowy Independence Bowl in 2000 as Jackie Sherrill got to sneak out a victory against his old program, but that was the only time they faced one another between 1937 and 2012, the year the Aggies started SEC play. The only time one team had visited the other school’s campus was 1913. It was a good matchup for the Independence Bowl organizers in that one year, but I don’t think it’s something “the 12th man” would be excited about on an annual basis.
Anyway, I felt it necessary to find a scenario that I think makes sense assuming he’s correct about LSU at least.
This is the only one I’ve done where Florida still plays Tennessee, but I think it’s wrong not to have Kentucky play Tennessee.
I kept his plans for LSU in tact, but I made some trades to try to rehabilitate his list to make it more palatable. I can understand what he was trying to do with balancing the schedule, but you don’t just do that and ignore everything else. I did keep Kentucky-Mississippi St., but I gave the Wildcats Vanderbilt and South Carolina, both of which make more geographic sense. I don’t know the history before 1992, but they have played every year since. At least I eliminated several of the matchups that made absolutely no sense.
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