LSU @ Texas A&M Post Mortem

As I’ve done the last couple of weeks (including on Thursday), I’m going to wait until the College Football Playoff standings come out for detailed analysis of the remaining competitive teams (which of course no longer include Clemson or LSU), but you can see my ratings here.  I will comment briefly that I think it’s appropriate for a couple of different reasons for USC to be ahead of Ohio St. at the moment, so I commend the polls for coming to that conclusion as well and doing so decisively.

I’ve also updated the LSU-Texas A&M Rivalry Blog, which was first written before the 2010 Cotton Bowl.  Jimbo Fisher may have a worse record as Aggie head coach than Kevin Sumlin did overall, but he’s 3-2 against LSU compared to Sumlin’s 0-6 record.  It’s also the third time in those five games that the team with the better record lost on the road. 

Jimbo Fisher walks the sidelines as the LSU offensive coordinator before the BCS championship/Sugar Bowl in New Orleans in January 2004. He now has a winning record against his former employers.

I started writing this before the game ended, but I think there will be a few reactions to the LSU-Texas A&M game that aren’t accurate. (ESPN confirmed this this morning, saying “Jimbo Fisher EXPOSES LSU” in the headline of their YouTube video about the game. If the title is something that low-IQ, I don’t even click on it.  So I’m not making a point-by-point rebuttal, but I will elaborate more below.)

I don’t think it was trap game or that LSU was looking ahead.  It was the next major-conference opponent for two weeks.  Yes, there was a big game coming up against Georgia; but the players knew they had some things to clean up after the Arkansas game.  Texas A&M had beaten Arkansas earlier in the year after all.  The Aggies had suffered some injuries since then, but so had Arkansas.  Everyone knew it was a talented, dangerous team.  This isn’t a coaching staff that would have distracted the team with an early preview of Georgia (Kelly confirmed this with the media), and winning the game yesterday would have actually taken a weight off of them.  Maybe you shock the world, but even if you don’t you have a great bowl game no one expected you to be in to fall back on.  Now that’s in doubt.

My impression is that it was the opposite of looking past the opponent.  I think some of the LSU players were too nervous and playing not to lose.  It’s easy to feel unease in a hostile environment.  If there were some consideration of A&M’s record, I definitely think the thought was more, “How much would it suck if we lost to a team with that record?” than “Forget all the great athletes they have, we’ll beat A&M easily because their record isn’t good.”  

Playing not to lose was cited by multiple people as why Alabama lost to Tennessee, and I got a similar vibe here.  I think that is a more frequent problem with the top teams than “looking ahead”.  The Tigers also seemed like they were playing tight against Arkansas, and they weren’t looking ahead three weeks.  Arkansas just didn’t have the athletes (or they weren’t playing well enough that day) to capitalize.

I would cite a combination of rivalry, revenge (for last season when LSU won with the lesser team), and wanting to take out an overachieving team that was possibly in position to make the playoff without a loss.  Also, they knew it was the last chance to play a game for several months (or ever in some cases).  It doesn’t make up for how badly A&M underachieved of course, but there is only so much you can do in one game.

Yes, A&M was up three touchdowns midway through the fourth quarter (I’ll get to the circumstances below), and I think some will say LSU didn’t “show up,” but a game getting away from you doesn’t mean you never showed up.  I told Tennessee fans the same thing when some of them said that after the South Carolina loss.

LSU RB John Emery, Jr., scores the tying touchdown early in the third quarter in College Station yesterday. Emery would only finish with 55 yards from scrimmage but scored all three of LSU’s touchdowns (at least the ones that counted).

In the second half, LSU started with two three-and-outs on defense and a touchdown on offense to tie the game.  I wouldn’t say everything had gone according to plan, but that was a more comfortable position than LSU had had at a similar point in most of the previous games against major-conference opponents.  After three drives of the third quarter against Florida St., LSU was down 17-3.  At the same point against Mississippi St., LSU was down 16-10.  At the same point at Auburn, LSU was down 17-14.  At the same point against Ole Miss, LSU had just scored to get to make it 24-20 Rebels. LSU was also way down against Tennessee, but that was the only one LSU didn’t either lose as a result of a blocked extra point or win. I guess one problem was only one of those situations had taken place on the road, so this was more difficult.  LSU had some luck against Auburn that they didn’t have here.

Going back to this game in the third quarter, LSU had withstood the A&M rally and was in position to take the lead (and to take the crowd out of it) with another good drive.  With the ball and a 17-17 score, LSU gained six yards on first down.  That was more than they had gained on any first down in the previous drive (which ended in a touchdown), and the Tigers had only had to convert one third down.  But in two plays all of that momentum was reversed.  The Tigers were forced into a third down.  It was a third and one, which seemed like no big deal given what I said about some prior plays that half, but Daniels made what appeared to be a bad decision not to hand the ball off and tried to roll out.  He fumbled as he was hit trying to get around the end, and A&M returned the fumble for a touchdown.

LSU QB Jayden Daniels picks himself up from the turf as DB Demani Richardson is about to return Daniels’s fumble for a touchdown to give the Aggies back the lead, which they would not relinquish again.

It also didn’t help that LSU’s attempted comeback was thwarted by what I think was a completely incorrect call on the field in the last three minutes, but it still would have been unlikely for the Tigers to come up with another touchdown, a two-point conversion, and at least one other point after.  If that’s called a touchdown and there is no fumble, that’s nearly the entire difference in the game though. 

This isn’t sour grapes or blaming the refs for the loss, but this is something that has annoyed me for a long time even if it’s not against my team.  I think if you have the ball secured against your chest and your feet land in the end zone, that should be a catch, the play should be over, and nothing else should enter the equation.  In this situation, WR Jaray Jenkins also took two steps out of bounds with the ball secure.  It’s bad enough if the player then goes to the ground in the end zone, but it’s absurd to even talk about what happens on the edge of the turf as he’s avoiding people on the sidelines, but he did eventually go to the ground and drop the ball.  I’ve seen players toss the ball up in the air or spike it after demonstrating far less control over the ball.  This whole “surviving the ground” thing is nonsense in that situation. 

It’s the equivalent of a baseball catcher tagging someone out and then falling and dropping the ball on the way to the dugout.  Or an even better analogy would be a basketball player calls timeout as he’s going out of bounds and then drops the ball when he lands on someone’s lap, so the timeout doesn’t count because he retroactively didn’t have possession.

Rant over.  My point is it really was a close game, not that playing a 7-loss team close is something to brag about; but it wasn’t in reality all that different from the previous conference game.  I don’t think LSU was exposed or embarrassed or anything of the sort, just not the better team that day and certainly not the team that got more breaks. 

I noted the live stats as of the end of the third quarter, so it’s not the official three-quarter stats, but it’s close enough.  At that point, LSU had about 50 more yards in the air (but more incompletions) and about 50 fewer yards on the ground.  This included most of the Texas A&M drive that resulted in the Aggies going up two scores, so LSU was generally the better team before the fumble.  The one weakness in the stats was the third-down performance on both sides of the ball.  Four of 9 wasn’t bad for LSU’s offense, but giving up 7 of 10 to the other team is terrible, especially if they got a touchdown on one of your OFFENSIVE third downs. 

Speaking of third downs, another key play I wanted to highlight took place after the start of the fourth quarter.  LSU still had a decent chance of coming back as they were only down 14 with 11:30 to play and had forced a third and six from the A&M 27.  The Aggie quarterback Conner Wiegman threw deep downfield to WR Moose Muhammad III, who could not have been covered better, and even threw a little bit behind him.  But partly due to Muhammad’s timing in reacting to the ball, it came down right between him and LSU safety Sage Ryan even though both players were touching one another as the ball arrived (it was correct not to call interference either way).  The ball even touched Ryan’s fingertips as Muhammed was hauling it in. 

I couldn’t find a picture of the play I was talking about, but this was just a couple of plays later: another great catch by A&M WR Moose Muhammad, III, who finished with 94 receiving yards. His right arm may be extending a little bit too much, but it’s still a great catch; you also can’t fault Sage Ryan on this play either.

I knew the fumble-touchdown had been a dangerous turn in momentum (Brian Kelly said after the game, “That momentum swing, I don’t know that we ever recovered from it”), but that’s in hindsight.  It didn’t seem insurmountable in the moment.

That catch, though, gave me a strong conviction that it was not going to be our night.  I’m rarely that discouraged in a two-possession game with over 11 minutes left, but I think it was warranted.  If we couldn’t stop them despite covering a receiver that well, we weren’t going to be able to stop them.  At least not enough to outscore them by two touchdowns the rest of the way.

I do want to elaborate on why I think saying LSU was exposed was a low-IQ take.  A good example was 2018, when Ohio St. had beaten unranked opponents by an average score of 51.4 to 16, and the only team that had stayed within single digits of the Buckeyes was a top-ten Penn St. team in Happy Valley.  Then Ohio St. loses to unranked Purdue 49-20.  That’s exposed. 

“Exposed” is not when a two-loss team shows problems it had shown all year (slow start on offense, giving up a large number of rushing yards on defense) but unable to make up for it in other areas on that particular night. LSU gave up 222 rushing yards to Florida, and the Gators were playing from behind (and therefore less inclined to run than they normally would be) the entire second half.  Texas A&M never trailed, so it’s not surprising that they did even better.  The Aggies did end up on the wrong side of a couple more games, largely due to injuries of key players; but they’re not a dramatically different team than Florida is.  Exposing an opponent isn’t confirming a weakness that other similar teams have exploited in the past.

Also, if any exposing was done, it wasn’t Jimbo Fisher doing it.  Two of the plays I highlighted were defensive plays, and the offensive play (or plays if you include the touchdown in the picture) was a great individual effort by Muhammad. It wasn’t a brilliant call or a great pass.  Without that catch, the Aggie offense would have had only two touchdown drives against three three-and-outs in the final 50 minutes of game play.  You’d like them to have zero touchdowns over that span of course, but that’s not being exposed by the other team’s play-caller.

Anyway, I think most reasonable people predicted 8 wins or fewer for LSU, maybe 10 on the high end after a bowl game, so having 9 going into the game is still something to be very proud of.  Most people predicted more wins for Texas A&M. I actually wish we didn’t have to play Georgia, but there is a chance something crazy could happen.  I thought LSU was going to get blown out by Tennessee in 2001 (the last time LSU made the SEC championship game with three losses), but they weren’t.  Regardless, for a team that was so out of it 11 months ago that they barely had enough players to play an embarrassing Texas Bowl to get to #5 in late November was impressive.

The College Football Playoff Picture with Two Games Left

I wanted to start by saying happy Thanksgiving. I thought it was best to get this out today since there is only one game, which is probably not of crucial importance.

Because they have been so dominant until now, Georgia is the only one-loss team I can see finishing ahead of either LSU with two wins in the final games or USC with two wins in the final games.  The loser of Ohio St.-Michigan will not have anything on their resume similar to Georgia’s wins over Oregon and Tennessee.  It could be an interesting argument if TCU loses or if both LSU and USC lose though. I don’t automatically discount non-champions (even with the same number of losses), but I believe they should be looked at more skeptically.

Strength of Schedule

I touched on this last week, but something that many basic fans either don’t grasp or don’t bother to look into is how much schedules vary.  Most conferences are not like the Big XII where it’s a pure round robin; but even in the Big XII, there are still three non-conference games.

I wanted to go over who is on the schedule of the following teams that have a realistic chance at the playoff.  I’ll go over the top four teams of the respective conferences and the biggest non-conference game.  I’ll mention TCU last because I think most people’s sense of their schedule is accurate.

LSU: Georgia (plays December 3), Alabama (win), Tennessee (loss), Ole Miss (win), Florida St. (loss).

Georgia: LSU (plays December 3), Alabama (did not play), Tennessee (win), Ole Miss (did not play), Oregon (win).

USC: Oregon (not played; possible conference championship opponent {NPPCCO}), Washington (NPPCCO), Utah (loss), UCLA (win), Notre Dame (play on Saturday).

Ohio St.: Michigan (plays Saturday), Penn St. (win), Iowa (win, may play again), Purdue (NPPCCO), Notre Dame (win).

Michigan: Ohio St. (plays Saturday), Penn St. (win), Iowa (win, may play again), Purdue (NPPCCO), Connecticut (win).

Clemson: North Carolina (plays December 3), Florida St. (win), Pitt (did not play), Duke (did not play), Notre Dame (loss).

TCU has beaten the following: Kansas St., Texas, Oklahoma St., Baylor, and Texas Tech.  Out of conference, the best win was over 6-5 SMU.  As I discussed in the last blog, the Horned Frogs will play either Kansas St. or Texas for a second time in the championship game. 

Former walk-on Stetson Bennett IV (pictured above throwing on the run against Florida in Jacksonville last month) helped lead Georgia to its first national championship since 1980 and has the Bulldogs well-positioned for another.

Early Resume Comparison

I’m not making predictions about the remaining games, but I’ll discuss the teams as if I’m comparing them at the end of the season.  For instance, if I say LSU will have beaten Georgia, what I’m talking about is the only scenario in which LSU is a contender. I don’t expect LSU to come particularly close to beating Georgia.

The committee does not consider the wins a team would have at the end of the year, or Clemson and USC would be higher.  Those are the only two above who have two really decent opponents left.  I think it’s harder to have to win successive games like that.  Even moreso with USC because it would be three strong wins in a row: UCLA, Notre Dame, and then the #2 Pac-12 team.

If Iowa beats Nebraska, which is highly likely, LSU and TCU will be the only teams to have played every other top-five team of their respective conference.  I do think the quality of LSU’s top opponents would make up for the extra loss if TCU were to lose a game.

I know it doesn’t seem like either Big Ten team would be missing a big resume bullet point by not playing Purdue, but Purdue has one fewer loss than Illinois, which led Michigan with about one second left on the clock last week.  Also, if you’re not really missing any competition by not playing one of the top five teams of your 14-team conference, that doesn’t say much about your conference schedule.

As I suggested, I’ll be impressed by USC if the Trojans manage to win the next two weeks, and I would not be bitter about it if they were to edge out LSU.  I tip my hat to the committee for having LSU #5 right now.  I think it shows they understand the lists above, and if the last two games barely put USC ahead of LSU, so be it. 

That’s not to say I don’t think LSU would have an argument.  One key point is USC’s loss thus far.  Utah lost to a mediocre SEC team and beat USC.  That suggests to me that USC would have more than one conference loss if they played at least four teams who finished higher in the SEC than Florida did.

This comparison only takes place if LSU wins, so we would either have an SEC non-champion having blown out USC’s best win at the beginning of the year or we would have USC avoiding one of the more dangerous teams in its conference.

Teams Who May Lose Late and Be Considered; Why Clemson Might Deserve a Spot if They Do

Putting LSU aside, Ohio St. would be a very interesting contender if they lose to Michigan.  I think they would compensate for having two fewer games against the Big Ten West as a result of the non-conference game against Notre Dame.  This argument becomes even stronger if USC is knocked out of the running by Notre Dame.

Ohio St. WR Emeka Egbuka stretches for a touchdown against Notre Dame in September in Columbus. Although the Irish have had a couple of ugly losses since then, this still may be a key win for the Buckeyes.

One-loss Michigan would be a poor contender against anyone but a one-loss TCU though.  I know Connecticut beat Liberty and became bowl-eligible, but Connecticut is not a good team.  TCU is the only team in this discussion with a similar lacking best non-conference opponent.

Maybe the committee disagrees, but I would prefer a one-loss Clemson to a one-loss Michigan.  The ACC wouldn’t be the reason, but playing two non-conference opponents with the kind of quality wins that South Carolina and Notre Dame have would make the difference for me. It would be two good non-conference opponents to zero.

As I discussed in the previous blog, one reason I give Clemson more credit so far than others do is if you play a series of let’s call them high-medium teams (not ranked but above average) such as Louisville and Wake Forest, you’re still exposing yourself to risk of a loss to a higher degree with each game.  Just ask Tennessee and Ole Miss.  They didn’t show signs of being vulnerable to teams like that over the previous month or two, but they got to the point of playing too many teams that were high-medium or better and apparently didn’t get up enough for every one. 

On the other hand, based on the above, you can imagine what the committee has probably said.  Even if these other teams are in equal conferences (the ACC is probably the worst of the bunch), Clemson has only played one team in the top five of its conference, and they lost to the only team they’ve played so far who would be in the top five of their conference.  

This conversation would probably only come up in seeding, but I wanted to address it anyway.  Some are assuming that Georgia will definitely be ahead of LSU even if they lose to the Tigers, but I’m not so sure.  If Georgia had to play Alabama and Ole Miss, it’s certainly possible they’d be entering the championship with a loss.  Right now, I think the non-conference game against Oregon resolves any doubt; but it becomes a more open question if both Oregon and Florida St. have three losses at the end of the season.  This wouldn’t matter in my ratings, but obviously how that SEC championship game plays out would influence this discussion.

Week 12 Top 25 and CFP Reaction

First, I want to note that I’ve updated the LSU-Arkansas series blog. I didn’t mention that if you didn’t watch the game, the final score is misleading. The LSU defense was extremely dominant, and the 13-3 late edge seemed almost insurmountable, although of course one more late play could have made the difference in the game. This was the third consecutive game in the series that was decided by three points and the third consecutive win by the road team, both firsts in series history.

Assuming I have time, I’ll write more about potential playoff scenarios later, but I’ll just make general comments about the ratings. I did wait to publish this until after the College Football Playoff (CFP) rankings.

The Race for #5

Since someone will lose between Ohio St. and Michigan, both currently ranked highly enough to make the four-team playoff, there is a lot of interest in who #5 is or will be.

Although in my rankings (and in the CFP’s), LSU stayed ahead of USC, I don’t necessarily fault the rankings that allowed the Trojans to go ahead. Obviously, UCLA is significantly better than UAB and the combination of UCLA and Notre Dame is significantly better than the combination of UAB and Texas A&M; but I just hope that LSU and USC can switch places just as easily if LSU beats a much better team on December 3. Even in my ratings, I expect the Trojans will go ahead with a win (over Notre Dame) after the games this weekend.

The CFP committee doesn’t let us know how close USC is to overtaking LSU, so we will just have to guess there, but I do think if they didn’t move USC ahead now, it would indicate that either (1) they aren’t going to move the Trojans ahead next week either or (2) if they do, it would be a very close call and can be just as easily switched back by LSU beating a better team in the conference championship game.  Despite what Bo Nix says, I think Oregon (assuming they make the title game… more about the “civil war” opponent below) is still a good bit behind Georgia.  If Oregon loses, that makes it worse for USC regardless of whether the Ducks still make the championship game (I think they would need Washington to lose in that scenario.)

I do have Clemson ahead of LSU right now, but I also think a win over Georgia would overcome the deficit.  It may be closer than I would have thought previously given South Carolina’s win over Tennessee.  The Gamecocks have a reasonable chance of winning the in-state rivalry though.  That win by an SEC team would also give LSU a higher rating in comparison to other competitors for #4. 

I think I value many of the same things the committee does, but I think they have a dim view of Clemson for a few reasons. For one, they just don’t seem that capable of scoring the points to keep up with a good offense; and it’s just very rare that your defense can be dominant enough against a good team (and they were anything but against Notre Dame) to compensate. In my ratings, you can win every game 7-3 and you get the same number of points as if you win 77-3 or 77-73. (I do take off a little if you win close games by three or fewer at home though.). For another, although they have played a long list of above-average teams, they’ve only played two teams in the top 20, and they’re only 1-1 against those teams. Also, those two teams each have three losses apiece. When I add in the “weighted” ratings, that’s meant to give extra credit for playing some of the best teams; but the overall ratings do not have the extreme focus on best opponents that the committee has.

Shifting ratings of prior opponents has some impact upon teams moving up and down in my ratings, but I think they’re still pretty stable being that there were only two teams that fell out of the top 25 (and they both obviously deserved to).

Although I think every reasonable ratings system has Georgia #1, there are some shortcomings being that the Bulldogs didn’t play any of the top three teams of the SEC West. If they’d played Alabama or Ole Miss, it would help LSU more to win that game. At least before the Texas A&M game, Auburn (whom Georgia plays every year) looked like the worst team in the SEC West. Mississippi St. isn’t the best either, although maybe those Bulldogs will win the Egg Bowl. I think a two-loss LSU would be a deserving #4 regardless, but I’m just talking about the numbers right now.

Other Developments in the Rankings

Tennessee’s falling four spots was reasonable.  I think they should remain ahead of Alabama.  I don’t think head-to-head is a good reason alone (given that it means the worse loss is worse for Tennessee), but the fact that Tennessee has played Georgia and Alabama hasn’t is a good reason.  Both Tennessee and Alabama have played LSU in the same stadium, and we know how those games went.

It’s also helping LSU that Florida St. has been increasing its standing.  Although I generally like Florida St. better, I’m used to having more mixed feelings in their games against Florida because I usually want to make LSU look better.  But in this year, it’s the opposite since (although LSU has played both) I think it’s better if a team LSU lost to increases its rating instead of the fourth or fifth team the Tigers will have beaten doing so.

You might have expected some of the teams to fall more due to losses, but a loss to a good team this late in the year doesn’t hurt too much given that each successive game is a lower percentage of the total.  Even a loss to a team that is destined for a less-than-impressive bowl game isn’t catastrophic.  I have a couple of SEC results in mind.  If you’re Central Florida, you can’t lose to Navy though.

Oregon St.’s rise may seem unusual, but all of their best prior opponents have been improving. Fresno St. lost its first four games against FBS opponents but has won all six since then. Boise St. started 1-2 against FBS opponents and is now 7-3 in such games. Washington St. has won three games in a row to improve to 7-4 overall. You’re probably already familiar with the gradual improvements of USC, Utah, and Washington. Although USC was high in the polls all year, they didn’t justify it much until later in the season.

Without commenting on the Playoff, USC appears to be the team to beat west of the DFW Metroplex. After struggling to score at times in the first half, the Trojans scored touchdowns, including the one above by WR Kyle Ford on the first play of the fourth quarter, on their first four possessions in the second half to take a 10-point lead in the Rose Bowl on Saturday. After UCLA threw a late interception, USC held on for a 48-45 win.

Finally, Texas has improved in recent weeks as the Oklahoma win has gotten stronger and the Alabama and TCU losses have been hurting the Longhorns less.  Some may wonder how they could possibly be ahead of Kansas St., but you can’t just look at records and conference membership.

Even within the same conference, a better strength of schedule can compensate for a loss. Obviously, Alabama is a much better team than Tulane, and even Texas’s second-best out-of-conference opponent (UTSA) is comparable to Tulane (and they actually rate better as an opponent although not overall). It also helps that Texas did not play an FCS team. Kansas St. not only played an FCS team, but that team is only 3-7 within the FCS (3-8 overall). I think TCU playing Texas again would make for a better game, but I guess we’ll see how it goes.

The Horned Frogs finish with Iowa St. and most likely Kansas St., two of the old Big XII North opponents (only three of which remain in the Big XII after the departures of Nebraska, Colorado, and Missouri). The Wildcats play Kansas, the only other former Big XII North team still in the conference. If Kansas St. wins, they’re in the championship game. If not, they’d need Texas to lose to Baylor. Even though I already think Texas is the better team, I suspect the committee would like TCU better if they beat two-loss Kansas St. rather than three-loss Texas.

Top 25

Rank	Team	Last
1	Georgia	1
2	Ohio St.	2
3	Texas Christian	3
4	Michigan	4
5	Clemson	6
6	LSU	8
7	USC	9
8	Tennessee	4
9	Alabama	7
10	Penn St.	11
11	Oregon	14
12	Utah	12
13	Florida St.	18
14	Troy	20
15	Notre Dame	15
16	Oregon St.	—
17	N Carolina	10
18	Texas	—
19	Ole Miss	16
20	Tulane	23
21	Kansas St.	21
22	TX-San Antonio	23
23	UCLA	13
24	Washington	22
25	Coastal Carolina	19
—	Central Florida	17
—	Oklahoma St.	25

Week 11 Top 25

This is kind of a rushed post. I always add the new rankings Saturday night or Sunday morning even if it takes until it’s sunrise for some of you; but for those who subscribe by email, it will not notify you when that is posted. Feel free to check whenever you get up on Sunday. I don’t always manage to post the conference ratings until Sunday afternoon though. By that time, I’ve also usually checked to see if any teams are out of place to make any needed corrections.

Until now, the top 25 in the blog was different from the computer top 25; but now that I’ve added the “weighted” component of the ratings, that will no longer be the case.

I apologize for this being so late, but normally I don’t even have to respond to anything work-related after 4:30 Pacific, but I was given a bunch of work right before 4:30 since one of my colleagues is on vacation. I didn’t want to have to scramble around at the last minute on Sunday, and of course I don’t want to be at all distracted on Saturday.

I also didn’t have time to update the Arkansas rivalry blog, but I should be able to update both that and the Texas A&M series this weekend. Obviously the A&M one will need to be updated again in about 8 days, so it’s possible I might wait until then.

LSU players gather around the LSU/Arkansas rivalry trophy in Fayetteville on Saturday. I can’t tell who the players in the back are, but the ones in front are (l to r) WR Jaray Jenkins, P Jay Bramblett, and S Sage Ryan.

I’ll only comment briefly about the top 25 given time constraints of it being late and there being games in less than 14 hours.

Commentary about Rankings Changes

Tennessee has passed up Michigan, but this is rather academic being that the Ohio St./Michigan winner is expected to pass up the Vols and remain ahead until the bowl season. The loser is expected to be behind the Vols and stay there until the bowl season.

With the win over Ole Miss, Alabama has passed up the Tigers, but this also likely doesn’t mean much as to the final pre-bowl ratings. If LSU loses a third game and Alabama doesn’t (unlikely against FCS Austin Peay or Auburn), Alabama will be ahead. If LSU beats UAB, Texas A&M, and Georgia, LSU will be ahead regardless of what the Tide does. I’m not making promises aout the top 4, but LSU may also pass up multiple other teams, especially those who don’t play a championship game, with wins in the remaining contests.

I doubt it has a bearing on the national championship picture, but the Pac-12 is very interesting. I was correct in suggesting people pay attention to the Washington-Oregon game last week. Putting the Huskies’ new rating aside, the Pac-12 now has four teams between #9 and #13. That’s interesting enough, but all four of those teams play another one of those teams this weekend. There will be two one-loss teams and possibly three two-loss teams in the conference heading into the final weekend. The championship now involves the best two teams, so every two-loss team after this week may still have a realistic chance if one of the winners were to lose next week.

I don’t have a whole lot to say about Texas-San Antonio (who mostly has moved up by virtue of not losing in not-very-good conference, or Oklahoma St., who has been in and out of the top 25 due to inconsistent performance.

But there is another interesting new team, which is Central Florida. You may have heard of them. The Knights will potentially unseat Tulane from a New Years Six spot by virtue of beating the Green Wave; however, there is also some potential drama in the closing weeks regarding crowning a champion of the American conference. The Knights, who have beaten both teams already, will most likely play the winner of Cincinnati (which made the Playoff last year) and Tulane (set for November 26) in championship week.

I completely disagree with championship games that simply match the two best teams, particularly when they involve a rematch (which, if the winner has a better record, is completely unfair to whomever won the first time), but it does help make for some excitement.

Top 25

Rank	Team	Last
1	Georgia	1
2	Ohio St.	2
3	Texas Christian	3
4	Tennessee	5
5	Michigan	4
6	Clemson	6
7	Alabama	11
8	LSU	8
9	USC	9
10	N Carolina	15
11	Penn St.	17
12	Utah	13
13	UCLA	7
14	Oregon	10
15	Notre Dame	18
16	Ole Miss	12
17	Central Florida	—
18	Florida St.	18
19	Coastal Carolina	21
20	Troy	24
21	Kansas St.	20
22	Washington	—
23	Tulane	16
24	TX San Antonio	—
25	Oklahoma St.	—
—	N Carolina St.	14
—	Texas	19
—	Syracuse	22
—	Liberty	25

Week 10 Top 25 & Week 11 Preview

I got more views this week than I’ve gotten since the pandemic, so welcome to anyone who might be new here. Happy Veterans Day as well.

I thought about making this week the week where I removed the subjective input into the top 25 below (see here for the completely objective unweighted ratings as of right now), but the weighted rankings aren’t quite where I want them yet.  This coming week may clear up a few things.  I think the big game to watch will be in the SEC again, Alabama against Ole Miss.  I’m not one to be sympathetic to Alabama; but win or lose it was going to be hard for them to physically and mentally recover from Saturday and play another road game that could help decide the SEC West (somehow LSU is in the driver’s seat now though).

Oregon-Washington is an interesting upset opportunity.  The Huskies just beat a ranked Oregon St. team for their third straight win, and UO-UW is a rivalry game for both teams.  They’re often the two best Pacific Northwest teams, especially now that Boise St. has reverted to mediocrity, and both teams are a little more high-profile than their respective in-state counterparts.

Washington RB Sean McGrew is tripped up for a loss last year in Seattle. The Huskies were held to an average of 2.3 yards per carry and did not score a touchdown until the fourth quarter as Oregon won 26-16, the Ducks’ third straight win in the series. The previous two games in the series (2018 and 2019) were decided by a total of only seven points though.

It will also be interesting to see if Clemson bounces back against Louisville.  The Cardinals have won four in a row after a 2-3 start.

There are two other matchups of ranked teams according to the polls.  TCU travels down the I-35 to Austin, and Central Florida visits New Orleans to play Tulane.  I want to make sure not to over-rate TCU or Tulane for having good records but not playing great competition.  Either they’ll earn their ranking a little bit better or they’ll prove the skeptics right.

Also, I thought there was enough overhaul going on this week as is with the two big SEC games and the instability of the ACC and the Big XII.  It’s hard to balance record versus big games.  I want to make sure teams like Alabama aren’t penalized too much for losses to very competitive teams; but if I lessen the effect of “good” losses, Tennessee could be as high as #2.  I’m not sure that’s appropriate either. 

With Arkansas’s loss to Liberty, the Big XII is starting to creep up on the SEC.  We will know a lot more the last two weeks of the season though.  Almost half of the SEC plays out of conference in two weeks, and then there are the annual rivalry games the following week.  I at least expect Georgia to beat Georgia Tech, but anything can happen in the others: Kentucky-Louisville, Florida-Florida St., and South Carolina-Clemson.

Speaking of the Big XII and Rivalry Week, I like that KU and K-State are now playing one another at the end of the season unlike in prior years; and they’re both pretty good now.  TCU will likely finish in first place in the Big XII regular season being that the Horned Frogs are two games ahead, but K-State is part of a 3-way tie for second with Baylor and Texas (who play one another during Rivalry Week).  Kansas is tied for fourth with Oklahoma St.  Every team has three games left. There are no late bye weeks or late out-of-conference games like there are in the SEC.

Among the conferences (these are listed after the team ratings), the Pac-12 and Big Ten were almost tied for a distant third, but they’re both rather top-heavy.  The ACC is more split along divisional lines, and obviously the top ACC team took a big hit out of conference.  At least the ACC is still one of the top five conferences.  There is a big separation among the non-Power-5 conferences though.  The American, the Sun Belt, and the independents are leaning toward respectability, while the CUSA, Mountain West, and MAC lag way behind.

Top 25

Rank	Team	Last
1	Georgia	5
2	Ohio St.	2
3	Texas Christian	4
4	Michigan	6
5	Tennessee	3
6	Clemson	1
7	UCLA	10
8	LSU	13
9	USC	11
10	Oregon	9
11	Alabama	7
12	Ole Miss	8
13	Utah	14
14	N Carolina St.	23
15	N Carolina	20
16	Tulane	15
17	Penn St.	17
18	Notre Dame	—
19	Texas	—
20	Kansas St.	16
21	Coastal Carolina	—
22	Syracuse	18
23	Florida St.	—
24	Troy	—
25	Liberty	24
—	Illinois	12
—	Oklahoma St.	19
—	Oregon St.	21
—	Wake Forest	22
—	Maryland	25

LSU Finally Beats Alabama (and the Refs) at Home

It had been 12 years since the last time LSU beat Alabama (series link has been updated) in Baton Rouge.  Mason Taylor, who caught the winning 2-point conversion and LSU’s last touchdown of regulation, was 6 years old.  Both of LSU’s starting tackles (Will Campbell and Emery Jones) and Harold Perkins, the most disruptive pass rusher, are also about the same age.

True Freshman TE Mason Taylor catches a touchdown pass despite two Alabama players converging in the fourth quarter in Baton Rouge on Saturday.

If this is even a hint of how the coaching staff can develop and prepare young players, this won’t be the first historic milestone in the next few years.

Nick Saban beat Alabama in Baton Rouge in his first season in 2000, but that wasn’t an important game nationally and barely even noteworthy regionally.  LSU was still alive in the SEC West but had already lost three games, and Alabama only won three games all year.  It was historically significant in that LSU hadn’t beaten Alabama at home since 1969; but if there were any year to do it, it was probably that one.  Part of the reason it wasn’t meaningful nationally was the SEC had only had two national titles since 1980 at that point.  It’s hard to imagine this happening in the last 15 years or so, but Florida would actually win the SEC that year despite finishing third in the state of Florida.

This was only the second time Nick Saban lost in Tiger Stadium since he departed the Citrus Bowl to take over the Miami Dolphins after the 2004 season. He even beat the Saints there in 2005.

In 2010, LSU won in an upset at home over Alabama.  The Tigers had already lost to Cam Newton and Auburn, so they were only really playing for bragging rights and a better bowl position.  This was still better than 2004 and 2006, both of which the Tigers entered with two losses and both of which were far worse Alabama teams than the 2010 Tide.

I was too young to appreciate the tie in 1985, so the game yesterday is definitely my favorite home game against Alabama in my life.  (The late Bill Arnsparger, head coach in 1985, went undefeated against the Tide over three years {2-0-1} and decided to quit while he was ahead.  Saban, Miles, and Kelly are the only head coaches since to have winning records against Bama at any point.)

It’s too soon to tell where Saturday ranks among wins over Alabama in general.  If LSU somehow ends up in the playoff, it might be in the top three along with 2011 and 2019.

LSU is favored to at least win the SEC West for the right to play Georgia (this was also the reward for LSU’s two other overtime wins in the series, in 2005 and 2011), but the Tigers do have two conference games to play.  Arkansas and Texas A&M have had better teams; but they’re both road games, and Alabama had their struggles against both.  If Ole Miss wins their remaining games (starting with Alabama on Saturday), LSU could not afford to lose either and win the SEC West.  Another reason to win both is LSU probably also controls its own destiny for the national championship, not that even winning the SEC would be very likely.

I try not to focus on predictions because I don’t want it to take away from my ratings and how they reflect which teams have been good so far rather than which teams are going to be good. While I had said not to bet the farm on LSU beating the spread, I was at least right to take the over of 56. I needed overtime to be right about that, but that’s not important. I also gave good advice with my Ole Miss prediction, for what it’s worth.

Red Wave Versus Crimson Tide?

This last part is meant to be fun, so I hope no one gets mad.  I’ve noticed that LSU usually does better in years that Republicans win, and Alabama usually does better in years that Democrats win. 

If you didn’t catch it, the subheading refers to the irony of Alabama being a reddish team with a nickname that refers to ocean movements and it being common political commentary to talk about Republicans being red and oceanic analogies such as, “Will the midterms be a red ripple or a red wave or even a red tsunami?” It doesn’t make sense for Republicans to be red, but for some reason that started to be universal in 2000. Maybe because red starts with R and Republican starts with R? In most countries, the more left-wing parties use red for obvious reasons.

The Alabama/LSU coincidence has been more true in presidential elections, but I’ll mention some Congressional ones too.  Between 1984 and 2012, LSU beat Alabama every time a Republican won (1984, 1988, 2000, and 2004), and Alabama beat LSU every time a a Democrat won (1992, 1996, 2008, and 2012).

Alabama has won too often, especially in Baton Rouge, for the winner per se to be a predictor of Congressional elections; but LSU seems to do better in Republican years since 2010.  I know close doesn’t count in politics or football, but it’s still interesting.

In 2010, LSU won and Republicans gained significantly in both houses of Congress.

In 2012, LSU lost a close game; and Republicans were able to hold onto the House of Representatives, which normally doesn’t happen when that party loses the presidential race.

In 2014, an overmatched LSU team took Alabama to overtime.  I still maintain LSU should have won in regulation.  Republicans again kept the House and this time flipped the Senate.

In 2016, LSU also played well in a loss.  The Tigers had an interim coach and only lost 10-0 to a team that made the national championship game.  Democrats did gain in both the House and the Senate, although they failed to take either chamber and also lost the White House.

Of course Alabama won easily in both 2018, when Democrats had large gains in the House, and in 2020, when Democrats kept the House and gained control of both the White House and the Senate.

I don’t know if Alabama losing a close contest means there will be some kind of silver lining for Democrats.  It didn’t mean that in 2010, although I guess you could argue losing only 6 seats in the Senate was a success given just how many seats they lost in the House (63). 

WR Josh Reed catches a touchdown pass from QB Josh Booty in Baton Rouge in 2000.

In 2000 (when LSU only won by 2 against a bad Alabama team, as mentioned), there were somewhat mixed results, as Democrats gained slightly in both houses despite failing to take control of either chamber or of the White House.  For what it’s worth, the presidential election went into several overtimes and both “coaches” had used all their challenges by the time it was decided.

Week 9 Top 25 and Final Thoughts about Saturday

I’ll have some things to say about LSU at the end, but a one loss team playing a two-loss team obviously takes a back seat to the match-up of unbeatens (Tennessee/Georgia) in Athens on Saturday. The two games will likely decide the participants in the SEC Championship Game (although Ole Miss will also control its own destiny if Alabama beats LSU), the winner of which has made every College Football Playoff thus far.

I didn’t want to put either one #1 at this point, but I do think it’s likely that whoever the winner is will pass up Clemson, who barely hung onto #1.

Top 25

Rank	Team	Last
1	Clemson	1
2	Ohio St.	5
3	Tennessee	2
4	Texas Christian	3
5	Georgia	4
6	Michigan	7
7	Alabama	6
8	Ole Miss	9
9	Oregon	8
10	UCLA	12
11	USC	10
12	Illinois	17
13	LSU	13
14	Utah	21
15	Tulane	18
16	Kansas St.	—
17	Penn St.	15
18	Syracuse	11
19	Oklahoma St.	14
20	N Carolina	23
21	Oregon St.	22
22	Wake Forest	16
23	N Carolina St.	20
24	Liberty	19
25	Maryland	25
—	Troy	24

Top 25 Comments

The Tigers did slip in the computer rankings, which is normal after a bye week, but I’m still including a subjective component.  Clemson also lost some ground due to losses by Wake Forest and Syracuse.

I have been calculating percentages of the best rating (after my input) every week without publishing them, but I really wanted to emphasize it this week.  The closest team to Clemson last week was Tennessee, who had 88.99% of Clemson’s score.  This week, there are five teams who are closer to Clemson than that:
Ohio St. 99.83%
Tennessee 99.59%
TCU 98.17%
Georgia 97.96%
Michigan 90.42%

After some difficulty in the first quarter, the Georgia defense easily contained QB Hendon Hooker (6.6 ypa passing and 0.4 ypa rushing) and the Tennessee offense in a 41-17 win last November in Knoxville. Tennessee was a much different team though, having entered the contest at 5-4. Just as last year, the Bulldogs enter the Tennessee game undefeated.

With the top teams this closely packed, it’s much easier for a team to jump from #3 or #5 to #1.

The other teams aren’t playing the most impressive opponents either.  Clemson plays Notre Dame, Ohio St. plays Northwestern, TCU plays Texas Tech, and Michigan plays Rutgers.  The only one of those with a winning record is Notre Dame, who is unranked at 5-3.  The Irish are the only one of the four who is even close to the top 25.  Northwestern is one of the 10 worst teams in my ratings.  Clemson is only as highly rated as they are with my subjective input, so it should be particularly easy for Tennessee to become #1 with a win.  There is a little bit more uncertainty with Georgia; but I think when I add my subjective input, it would be enough to for them to move up to #1.

Ohio St.’s win over Penn St. gave them more points than Tennessee’s or Georgia’s (or TCU’s) wins last week, but obviously that will be balanced out on Saturday.  Michigan didn’t play a good team, but it’s better than not playing any team, which is what Alabama did.

Most of the shuffle at the bottom of the rankings can be understood by the recent wins and losses.  The only particularly remarkable change was Kansas St., who enters at #16; but I was very skeptical about them given the loss to Tulane.  Also, the win over Oklahoma St. was by far their best win.   

The only team to fall out was Troy, who did not play last week.  It can be difficult for teams from the Sun Belt and similar conferences to get enough points to stay in the top 25 week to week.

CFP Reaction

I’m glad I wrote about Alabama earlier in the week and waited on the rankings so I could mention the CFP rankings.

First of all, I really don’t like how the media overhypes these.  It’s not any kind of serious drama or dispute if Tennessee is #1 and Georgia is #4 or the other way around.  Whoever wins Saturday will be ahead.  The loser Saturday will still have a decent chance if they go undefeated.  I do think it’s right to value one win over Alabama and another at LSU more highly than what Georgia has done thus far.  It’s great that they blew out Oregon two months ago, but that shouldn’t count for more than two big conference games in the last month.  Also, if you give Georgia credit for margin of victory over Oregon, you should take some credit away for Missouri and Florida.

LSU is 10^th, and I don’t think they’re that good; but there is an expected loss coming.  I think if LSU wins they should definitely be in the top 10.  If LSU finishes with three losses or fewer, they’ll be in a decent bowl.  That would be true if they were #8 right now or #12, which I think would be more appropriate.

Alabama is #6, and I don’t see what the problem is there.  We all know if Alabama has one loss and is the SEC champion (If they finish with only one loss, they’re guaranteed to be the champion; and it would take multiple bizarre results for them to win it with two losses) they will most be in playoff.  I don’t see what the gripe would be with Clemson, Michigan, or Ohio St.  Michigan of course plays Ohio St., and Clemson at least would pass up the loser of that game and at least the loser of the SEC championship.  I’ll be surprised if TCU finishes the year undefeated anyway; but even if they do, we can expect a lot of upheaval around them.  So again, I don’t think anyone is “snubbed” or has a reasonable grievance yet.

LSU/Alabama Final Thoughts

I wasn’t going to elaborate further after the previous blog about the Alabama/LSU game, but now that I’m discussing the teams, I did want to draw attention to a new entry of a vlog I mentioned before, “College Football Nerds”.  I don’t always appreciate what they have to say, but I at least like what the second guy said.  Alabama winning by a touchdown seems like the most likely single outcome.

I am not expecting a great defensive struggle though. Some people thought that about Mississippi St., Ole Miss, and Florida.  The only game that really was a defensive struggle was Auburn, but I don’t think that’s likely to repeat itself.  If the LSU offensive is ineffective, I think eventually the defense will be overwhelmed like it was against Tennessee.  I mentioned before that I don’t think Bryce Young is Jaxson Dart or Robbie Ashford or Will Rogers where the defense is going to crack the code and Alabama will suddenly be unable to score for 40 minutes or whatever.

LSU QB Jayden Daniels suffered some knee problems, which seemed to limit his confidence and his ability to keep plays alive, and left the October 1 game at Auburn early. Daniels has not seemed similarly affected in subsequent games.

Too much was made of the Auburn game.  LSU did give up a fair number of yards in that game, but they were just on a few plays early on.  Auburn’s inability to have sustained drives was still an issue.  Also, LSU’s lack of passing yards in that game probably isn’t applicable to other games either.  They were in extreme ball control mode that they will not be in against Alabama unless LSU has a lead well into the fourth quarter.  It was also that way because Jayden Daniels was playing hurt and then started having trouble walking, so Brian Kelly took him out.  The coaches don’t trust Garrett Nussmeier, the backup, to throw downfield.  As long as Auburn couldn’t score, there was no reason to allow him to.  Alabama won’t go 40 minutes without scoring like Auburn did.

Then the hosts of College Football Nerds tried to bootstrap the Auburn game into the Tennessee game to make it seem like it wasn’t a unique circumstance.  One of them said something like, “Sometimes you get the Auburn/Tennessee LSU, and sometimes you get the Ole Miss/Florida LSU.”  Just because they were both low scoring outputs for LSU doesn’t mean they were similar games.  LSU had 300 passing yards against Tennessee and 80 against Auburn.  LSU got well into Tennessee territory multiple times, but they were never in a situation where settling for field goals or trying to focus on ball control made any sense.

It’s also not really surprising that the LSU offense seems more comfortable at home.  There are multiple transfers, including Daniels; and there are two freshmen on the offensive line not including the primary receiving tight end.  Nonverbal communication doesn’t take place as well with players who are less familiar with one another, and verbal communication is a challenge in a hostile environment.  This happened on both sides of the ball in the Auburn game especially.  That was LSU’s first true road game.

If this game were in Tuscaloosa, even though LSU has historically done better there than in Baton Rouge, Alabama should be favored by 14 or more.  Alabama also can be a different team on the road than they are at home.  The game could play out exactly like the Tennessee game did, so I’m not saying to bet the farm on LSU beating the spread; but I think if that game were played 10 times, that would have been one of the largest margins of victory.  Every key moment went against LSU.  Alabama seems like a similar team to Tennessee.  It was just luck of the draw at the end between the field goal kickers, and the game was in Knoxville.  I don’t see any way at all the game Saturday looks like the Auburn game though.

Happy Birthday/Halloween to the Coaches & The Scary Story of the LSU/Alabama Series

Intro

Being that it’s a bye week, I don’t have anything to say about the prior LSU game other than what I said to accompany the previous top 25 blog.  I won’t do a detailed LSU/Alabama preview like I did with Ole Miss, but I have a few general thoughts.  I don’t usually post blogs this late, but I thought with it being Halloween and there being an NFL game with a bunch of former LSU players in it, people would be up.

This is the best preview I’ve heard so far. You can skip the first few minutes and the last minute or so.

I don’t really believe in astrology, but I guess it’s sort of appropriate subject matter today.  I wanted to note for any who find it interesting that since the last time either of these teams played a game, both Brian Kelly and Nick Saban have had birthdays (Saban’s is today), so they’re both Scorpios like I am (although I was almost a Sagittarius, and Kelly was almost a Libra… maybe that’s what stopped me from being a multimillionaire with a job in sports). 

Their respective ages (Saban Is 9 years and 360 days older, for what it’s worth) are seen by many as a detriment, especially in this era of 30-something offensive coaches.  Even if I were impartial though, I would look forward to this game because I think you have two coaches with some patience and wisdom (they’re not going to panic if they’re down a couple of scores or try to do anything weird to put the game away if they’re up) but also coaches with high expectations and attention to detail who will let players know promptly if they mess up.  Some people might think it’s mean or regressive, but I relate better to coaches who are willing to vent a bit than I do to the easygoing “player’s coaches” or the ones who just robotically move on to the next play.  I like to see a more old-school combination of professionalism and emotional investment.

Early Thoughts About Saturday

I see a range of outcomes, sort of like I did with Tennessee.  LSU winning easily is unlikely for myriad reasons, but anything from a close game to an Alabama blowout seems realistic.  There might be a few good plays on defense that help, but for the most-part I think the LSU defense is going to be beaten more often than not, along the lines of Alabama/Tennessee this year, LSU/Alabama in 2019, and the Alabama/Clemson national championship games.  I don’t think LSU allows 52 unless Alabama has a very high number of possessions and/or very good field position (due to turnovers, three-and-outs, bad special teams, etc.), but high 30s may be unavoidable. 

After being behind 28-10 midway through the second quarter in Knoxville on October 15, Bryce Young led the Alabama offense to 39 points in the next 2 quarters. I think LSU will need to keep them below that number for the game.

The Tigers have had sustained drives in recent weeks, sometimes multiple drives in a row; but I think it will be more difficult to do that against Alabama than it was against Ole Miss and Florida.  I also don’t think LSU can afford its characteristically slow starts because I don’t think the Alabama offense will just sort of hit a wall like Mississippi St.’s and Ole Miss’s did while the Tigers can take the lead and pull away over multiple possessions.  You can’t just diagnose their schemes and watch Bryce Young become ineffective like you could for some other quarterbacks. Alabama might have a slow 10 minutes of game play at one or two points, but the offense never really shuts down. 

I didn’t save the link or a time stamp or anything, but I did hear some commentary from the LSU media that annoyed me.  There is a show I normally like called Hunt and Hill, where former LSU running back Jeremy Hill talked about how when he played the Miles coaching staff would bring up Alabama a month ahead of time.  Hunt Palmer (the co-host if you couldn’t guess) defended the former coaching staff for adding hype to the Bama game.  He said it wasn’t possible to pretend it wasn’t a big game. 

That’s a false dilemma.  Whatever you tell them or whatever routine you have isn’t going to stop them from knowing that they have to raise their level of play more against Alabama than they did against New Mexico, for instance; but there is a danger of increased insecurity and trying too hard. 

You don’t have to lie in order to concentrate on one game at a time and not act like a given game is life and death.  You can’t tell a team that their whole lives rest on a single game for a month and then expect them to lose that game and be ready to play the next.  Even if they win, the next week can be difficult to get up for. 

I think Nick Saban exaggerates a little when he calls these greater narratives that the media hypes up “rat poison,” but the point is you do all you can to avoid it in order to minimize and counteract its impact to the extent possible.  A team is much more confident if you instill a sense of routine. 

Saban made a less dramatic point this week when he talked about an individual player, former LSU defensive back Eli Ricks: “I think it’s important that he just, y’know, goes into this game and bes (sic) himself and doesn’t think he has to do something fantastic.”  Obviously if he follows his assignments and also does something fantastic (that’s not unduly risky), Saban isn’t going to complain; but the point is the first priority is to concentrate on adhering to the system in place and the plays that are called.  If there is a little bit of extra energy you can channel into such tasks, great.  Regardless of this game potentially deciding the SEC West, the game means something personal to Ricks; but the same applies to players who might be tempted to take chances or depart from things they normally do well and consistently because it’s a big game.

Historical Notes and Observations

I don’t think this game is like some of the Alabama/LSU games 8-12 years ago where LSU loses its primary goals and lacks enthusiasm afterward, but I’m glad we have a coaching staff that isn’t likely to lose its focus and professionalism for a given opponent.  Other than his statement that it’s a privilege to play important games like this rather than a reason to be nervous or insecure, there wasn’t a single sound bite to focus on, but Kelly made similar general points during his press conference.

Going into the 2015 game in Tuscaloosa, LSU was undefeated and ranked #2 in the country with a Heisman leader at running back, but the star running back of the game turned out to be Derrick Henry (2) rather than Leonard Fournette. LSU lost the next two games as well and fell out of the top 25. Alabama would defeat Clemson for another national championship.

Transfer Portal

I think there are a couple of things about the current transfer portal era that help too. 

First is that I think Alabama has been weakened by the addition of players who weren’t originally recruited to go there and either continued bad habits from high school or picked up bad habits at their prior program.  This is probably part of the reason we saw a much sloppier Alabama team against Tennessee than we’re used to.  I also think LSU is much sloppier now than they were in the early years of Les Miles and than they will be in future years under Brian Kelly, but Alabama and LSU are much closer in that regard than they have been in prior years. 

Also, despite the ability of Bryce Young to improvise, Alabama is usually much more robust on third down than they are this year.  LSU was mediocre in some games this season, and they still do better on third downs than Alabama does.  I’m not minimizing the difficulty I believe LSU will have in taking advantage of mistakes or failures of the Alabama offense, not am I minimizing Saban’s ability to clean up any sloppiness in a bye week.

The other benefit I can see from the teams being a higher percentage of transfer players is that LSU doesn’t have this complex about playing Bama instilled into them, and Alabama doesn’t have a feeling of superiority that no matter what they’ll find a way to win.  I think it was overblown by some in the media, but I think we got a hint of this in the pregame against Tennessee.  Saban even said the team was more reserved than normal.  They weren’t chanting and didn’t seem as loose.  You’d think that if you dominated a series like that you’d be more confident even if you are on the road, but I just don’t think there is the same continuity with prior seasons as there was for those great LSU/Alabama games in the past. 

Obviously, in this case, the veteran players do remember LSU beating Alabama.  Even though LSU was a much more disadvantaged team last year, they hung in there pretty well on the road, only losing by 6.  The 2020 game against Alabama was horrendous for LSU, who didn’t have a good quarterback at the time and had a terrible defense; but if it didn’t affect things last year, I don’t think it affects things this year.

LSU QB Joe Burrow runs for a big gain in Tuscaloosa in November 2019, in LSU’s only win over the Tide since the 9-6 OT win in 2011. Burrow was less impressive in the game against the Browns tonight, but a number of Browns are also former Tigers.

Lessons from 2012 and 2014

I’ve covered some of this in my past blogs about the LSU-Alabama series, but I don’t think I approached it in response to this specific argument before.

I don’t think this affects the current players who were in elementary school at the time (if any are reading, stop now), but I wanted to recap a couple of games where I thought the players and coaches let Alabama get in their heads too much.  It would be nice to finally get one back at home.

(The last two LSU wins, in two fairly memorable years of 2011 and 2019, were in Tuscaloosa.  Since Bear Bryant’s hiring in 1958, LSU has only beaten Alabama five times in Baton Rouge. Nick Saban won two of the five for LSU {in three tries} and lost only one of the five for Alabama {against six wins in Tiger Stadium as the Alabama head coach).  The one loss by Saban was in 2010, the last year in which his team lost more than two games in a season.)

LSU did lose to Alabama in overtime in 2008, but I don’t think there was anything wrong with what the players or coaches did leading up to the game.  LSU QB Jarrett Lee had a big problem with interceptions (particularly pick-sixes) that year, but it was a general problem and not specific to Alabama.  Then, as I mentioned parenthetically, LSU did beat Alabama at home in 2010.  I think both teams played normal games and the team that was a little better ended up winning.  The better respective teams also won close games in 2007 and 2009 {some say LSU was the better team on the day in 2009, but Alabama did go undefeated and LSU did finish with four losses} in Tuscaloosa.

Looking back, it all changed in the 21-0 national championship game in January 2012, as many know; but many don’t realize that it didn’t have to be that way.

In the game the next November, the Tigers went down 14-3 after the first half.  The halftime score was as bad as it was because of a failed fake punt and a missed field goal.  I believe there was another trick play by LSU as well.  There is a lot of psychology that goes into trick plays and field-goal kicking, and obviously the decision to call the fake punt might have betrayed some insecurity by the coaching staff.  Even though 52 weeks before that LSU had beaten Alabama to take a 5-2 series lead since Miles took over, it showed the coaches were approaching the game as if Alabama was a vastly superior team that they were trying to get lucky and knock off.  After the missed field goal that would have cut the lead to one point, the Tide took over and scored a touchdown right before half.  If LSU had just taken what they were given, the Tigers might have had better field position, leading to a touchdown or at least a closer field goal attempt and possibly would have prevented Alabama from scoring a touchdown at the end of the half.

Despite having been outscored 35-3 by Alabama over six quarters and having another disappointing end to a half, LSU still didn’t act defeated.  The defense would force four punts and a fumble to start the second half.  After a three-and-out to start the half, the LSU offense drove deep in Alabama territory four consecutive times.  So basically the game was even in the first half apart from the bitter and, and LSU had dominated the second half.  LSU just didn’t have the points to show for it. 

I mentioned the missed field goal in the first half.  After the third offensive drive of the second half though, LSU was nonetheless ahead 17-14.  I don’t know if it was more on the players or the coaches (I suspect the coaches), but it seemed like everything after that backfired. 

After a 35-yard pass from Zach Mettenberger to Odell Beckham to set LSU up at the Alabama 33, it seemed like the coaches were content to play for a field goal.  Normally a 6-point lead rather than a 3-point lead isn’t the best strategy at the end of a game, but there was still about 10 minutes left, so it made some sense if they had stuck with it.  They called two runs and one short pass.  But since this set up a 4^th and 1, they then decided to gamble and go for it, even though it seemed like this move contradicted previous play calls and it should have been a red flag how much trouble the Tigers had running the ball on the two prior plays that set of downs.  Of course, LSU was stuffed, and Alabama took over on downs.    

The LSU defense responded with a three-and-out despite what had looked like a shift in momentum.  The LSU offense also seemed undeterred.  After some more runs and shorter passes (I don’t know why they didn’t take more chances against what seemed to be a tired secondary when they had Jarvis Landry and Beckham to throw to, but that was not uncommon for LSU offenses of that era), there was a 13-yard pass to Landry and a 22-yard pass to Beckham.  All they had to do was keep the pressure on.  But no, the coaches wanted to play for a field goal again.  This was much less defensible now since Mettenberger had become more confident and now there were only about 2 ½ minutes to play.  Unlike the last time, it was pretty cut-and-dried that Alabama would take over with a chance to take the lead in the final minute whether you made the field goal or not. 

People focus on the screen pass for a touchdown on the ensuing Alabama drive, but the LSU defense should have never been put in that position.  I also don’t think prevent was the best strategy in the plays leading up to that.  If they had scored with 2 minutes left, that would have been better than having them score with 51 seconds left.

Alabama’s T.J. Yeldon scores the winning points in Baton Rouge on November 3, 2012. This was the start of a 5-game winning streak for the Tide in Tiger Stadium, which LSU hopes to break on Saturday. (It was the second of 8 straight wins overall in the series.) Alabama went on to win the national championship over Brian Kelly’s Fighting Irish the following January.

So I don’t think that feeling of inevitability of a loss against Alabama was really established until the second game of the 2012 calendar year.

2014 is a much simpler narrative.  With the convincing loss in Tuscaloosa in 2013, it was now a three-game losing streak against Alabama.  Still, the Tigers were able to play a close game, more along the lines of 2011 than 2012; but it was still a good contest. 

After LSU had opened the second half with a field goal to tie the game at 10 (it was the opposite of 2012, when the Tigers punted on the first possession of the half and then played well offensively), there was nothing but punts by both teams until Alabama took over at their own 1 with 1:50 to play.  On second down from the 5, the Tide fumbled, giving LSU a huge gift.  Unlike in 2012, it seemingly didn’t matter whether they played for a field goal or not.  All they had to do was make sure the clock ran and kick a field goal on fourth down if needed.  Of course, it didn’t work out that way. 

After a first-down run, there was some pushing and shoving on the line.  The referee who made the call should have been fired on the spot since there was no reasonable way not to either call no foul or to call offsetting penalties, but you still don’t give them that opportunity.  Fall down and play dead.  If Alabama doesn’t stop the after-the-play shenanigans then, you’ll get a call from one of the refs.  If they do, you get the last laugh anyway.  Anyway, so the penalty stopped the clock.  It also took a realistic possibility of a touchdown off the table, and LSU was only able to run the clock down to 50 seconds before kicking the go-ahead field goal.  Then, instead of kicking it away, they tried to be cute and call a squib kick.  That kick went out of bounds, setting up Alabama at the 35 with no time taken off the clock.  Even if it had not gone out of bounds, a squib kick only takes a few seconds off; and I think it would have been better to give Alabama farther to go to get into field-goal range.

Like in 2012, the LSU defense had finally been battered just enough that they gave up points.  This time it was only 3 points, but it didn’t matter in the end since Alabama would win in overtime.

I don’t fault the coaches for not doing this, but I actually thought LSU should have broken the unofficial rules and gone on offense first.  This would have given the defense more of a break.  I wasn’t surprised that after the Tide drove 55 yards in 50 seconds they were able to drive for a touchdown with unlimited time.  I also wasn’t surprised that the LSU offense went four-and-out after being so ineffective since the first drive of the second half.  Maybe once regulation ended it a tie, it was all over anyway. 

January 2012 might have been when the mortal was turned into a vampire or the day the coffin was built, but I think that day was the first nail in the coffin of the Les Miles era.  Too bad we had to deal with some kind of undead Dracula/Frankenstein abomination for nearly two more years.

Week 8 Reactions and Top 25

This was almost completely written over the weekend (and I updated the records on the Ole Miss blog), but it was just one of those weeks where everything took twice as long as it should have.  I have a salaried position; so if things take longer, that just takes away my free time.

Ole Miss @ LSU and the Final Score

LSU and the top 25 finally aren’t completely separate topics, but I’ll address and elaborate upon that game first and most extensively.  LSU had the best knockoff of a top team (I wanted to say upset, but it wasn’t one) in the win over Ole Miss.  I had the Rebels 5^th and LSU 19^th, but the major polls had the Rebels 7^th and LSU unranked.  Las Vegas and I both picked LSU to win though.  I heard that the amateur bettors (misled by polls and sports shows, I guess) picked Ole Miss in droves to keep the line close.  Ole Miss may still make a New Years Six bowl though, because I don’t know who other than Alabama is likely to beat them.  The Egg Bowl may be close, but Texas A&M and Arkansas look bad more than they look good these days.

I did pick a much closer game, but it could have been 28-10 at the half (rather than 20-17) without a great play by Jaray Jenkins to catch an underthrown touchdown pass through double coverage and without Ole Miss settling for two field goals.  Ole Miss would have also scored in the final minutes of the third quarter without an interception by Joe Foucha in the end zone on a second-and-goal from the 9.  Despite being much shorter range, that was even more of an underthrow than there was for the Jenkins touchdown (due in part to the pressure on the quarterback). 

It was the opposite of the Tennessee game, where all the breaks before and after halftime went the other way and put the game out of reach for the Tigers.

I’ll explain further why I don’t think I was terribly wrong in my estimation of the Ole Miss offense or the LSU defense; but I did say that if the game got to a point where Ole Miss needed to rely on Jaxson Dart (more on him in a moment), they were probably in trouble.  When LSU scored on the ensuing drive after the interception that kept it a 4-point game, I didn’t see a realistic way back for the Rebels.

LSU could have done the 4-down kneel to avoid the last touchdown late in the fourth quarter, and that would have put them only three points over the 35 I predicted; but I don’t think scoring on a run up the middle is running up the score.  If you had told me LSU would have the ball for nearly a quarter more than Ole Miss did, I would have increased LSU’s score on that basis too. 

On the other hand, if you had told me how many total yards the two teams would have, I might not have changed my score prediction.  LSU did a much better job of making their yards lead to points.  That hasn’t always been the case.

Regardless, if you followed the score I predicted, you won money on both the point spread (LSU -1.5) and the over/under (64), so I don’t feel bad that LSU won by about 20 more points than I thought they would.

Freshman LSU LB Harold Perkins pursues Ole Miss QB Jaxson Dart Saturday in Tiger Stadium. Both Dart and head coach Lane Kiffin commented on Perkins’ impact on Ole Miss, particularly in passing situations.

Jaxson Dart

I do want to say that I didn’t mean my remarks in the preview about Dart to be insulting.  I actually like him, and I’m glad he transferred from USC to a team I don’t mind cheering for most of the time.  I just thought he and the offense as a whole had some limitations that LSU could exploit.  I watched him play against BYU last year, and they nearly won that game even though it was toward the end of a terrible season for the Trojans.  I still remember his positive attitude during and after that game.  I also respect the way he hung in there Saturday despite all the hits.  His interview with the media struck a good tone as both an opponent and as a teammate.  He seems more mature than Lane Kiffin does, to be honest. Dart was also one of the scholar athletes of the game, so it’s OK if I’m correct that he’s not one of the best quarterbacks in college football.  He’ll probably be fine if he doesn’t go pro.

Rating LSU, Ole Miss, and the ACC Atlantic

As in the polls, there was too much of a gap for LSU to surpass Ole Miss in the rankings regardless of the final score.  Even though Florida St. has only lost to ranked teams (more on their division in a moment), their three losses are too much of a drag on LSU.  Although LSU’s schedule otherwise has been better than Ole Miss’s, there is still the FCS win over Southern and the win over New Mexico, probably one of the five worst FBS teams. 

I’m a little surprised only one voter in either poll voted for Clemson as #1.  I know their wins haven’t been by large margins, but two different teams (Wake Forest and Syracuse) can credit their only loss to Clemson.  North Carolina St. only has two losses, one to Clemson and one to a team (Syracuse) whose only loss is to Clemson. Florida St. has three losses: Clemson, Wake Forest, and North Carolina St.  There are no ties, so all of these other teams had to account for wins against one another at some point; but no outside team has beaten any of the five.  I think they’ll all be favored in the remaining games not against each other also.

After four turnovers by otherwise-reliable offensive starters, Clemson backup QB Cade Klubnik (2) led the Tigers to just another routine win over an undefeated opponent. It was Clemson’s 38th straight home win, an ACC record.

I do think the winner of Tennessee and Georgia (if undefeated) will likely overcome Clemson at some point.  Right now, I think Tennessee would win; but I believe in getting credit for the wins that have actually happened once they occur and not before.  That’s why I wouldn’t have wanted Ole Miss higher than they were.  Just because they would eventually have a mostly SEC schedule doesn’t mean they should have gotten special treatment when they had only played a few SEC teams, two of them in the bottom fourth of the conference.

Additional Top 25 Commentary

Ohio St. moved down and back up based on something I had entered incorrectly into the computer formula, so their increase isn’t apropos of anything.  By the way, it’s also possible that the eventual winner of Ohio St. and Michigan could pass up Clemson. 

Another possibility of Clemson being passed up without losing would be after the conference championship games.  Right now, North Carolina (who lost to Notre Dame and barely beat Appalachian St.) leads the ACC Coastal by a game and a half over Duke and Georgia Tech. 

Teams like Illinois and Utah didn’t do anything wrong, but you can get passed up when you don’t play.

Tulane, Liberty, and the aforementioned North Carolina join the top 25 for the first time this year.  I don’t think they would beat now-unranked teams like Texas (who lost to Oklahoma St.) and Mississippi St. (although Liberty versus Mississippi St. would be an interesting game given the two head coaches); but none of the three has shied away from competition, and they only have one loss apiece.  Newly arrived Troy has two losses, which is why they are the last of the new teams, but one of those losses was after giving up a Hail Mary touchdown to Appalachian St. (making them just barely worse than North Carolina through the lens of the common opponent anyway) and the other was to Ole Miss.

Kentucky only fell out due to a bye week, and Mississippi St. only fell out due to losing to Alabama, so either could be back shortly.  Another SEC team, South Carolina, is getting close to consideration for a ranking.  Other than the ones who just fell out, other teams in my top 35 are Kansas St., Coastal Carolina, Texas-San Antonio, Houston, and Cincinnati. 

For the full list of 131, follow the link above to “Knights’ Ratings” or go here.  I’ve now included conference ratings (simply based on average rating) below the team ratings.

Top 25

Rank	Team	Last
1	Clemson	1
2	Tennessee	2
3	Texas Christian	6
4	Georgia	3
5	Ohio St.	7
6	Alabama	8
7	Michigan	4
8	Oregon	13
9	Ole Miss	5
10	USC	11
11	UCLA	9
12	Syracuse	10
13	LSU	19
14	Oklahoma St.	20
15	Penn St.	16
16	Wake Forest	14
17	Illinois	12
18	Tulane	—
19	Liberty	—
20	N Carolina St.	18
21	Utah	15
22	Oregon St.	24
23	N Carolina	—
24	Troy	—
25	Maryland	25
—	Mississippi St	17
—	Texas	21
—	Purdue	22
—	Kentucky	23

Week 7 Top 25 & Ole Miss @ LSU Preview

Rankings

As this becomes more computerized, I’m probably going to spend more time addressing what seems to be inadequate or excessive rises and falls.  Ordinal rankings don’t really tell you how far teams are apart.  For instance, #10 could be 10 points ahead of #13 going into the week and then fall behind while #11 and nos. 14 through #17 all lose.  This would mean that #10 only loses two spots even though they lost a lot of points.  The same week, #18 might only be two points ahead of #25. If #18 loses to a better team than #10 lost to, they could fall out of the top 25 as a result of the teams behind them being closer to begin with and winning that week.  But that won’t stop people from saying, “it’s unfair that #10 didn’t fall more spots for a worse loss.”

No one does that in baseball.  No one asks, “Why didn’t the team that got swept over the weekend not fall behind the team they started 5 games ahead of?  I’ve seen other teams fall two spots in one night.”  The rankings below are still partly subjective, but if you want to know how far teams are really apart, you’ll get a better idea by going to the ratings page than you will by looking at the rank.

Specific Teams

One team that seems out of place here is Mississippi St.  They just lost to a team that was barely ranked and they only fell two spots.  The loss just canceled out their rise from the week before.  Three teams who were behind them are no longer behind them, one team who was ahead of them (Kansas) lost to a worse opponent and several teams who might have otherwise passed them up lost.  Last week’s #19, #20, and #24 all lost.  #22 and $25 were idle.  So if Kansas and the 5 other teams had all won instead, people might be asking me why I “punished” the Bulldogs so much for a loss to a ranked team.

Mississippi St. is ahead of two teams who beat them, but I believe that this is better than losing to a team who isn’t even being considered for a ranking right now. 

This is the case with Kentucky (who lost to South Carolina) and LSU (who lost to Florida St.).  Kentucky only had three FBS wins going into the week.  Two of the three lost (Florida to LSU and also Miami U. to Bowling Green), while the other had a very weak win (Northern Illinois over Eastern Michigan; the Eagles don’t have a bad record, but trust me).  As I mentioned, the computer is becoming a more important part of this, and the Wildcats were 40^th in the computer last week, so I guess a better argument is I shouldn’t have ranked them last week in the first place.  I think I didn’t realize just how underwhelming South Carolina’s resume was apart from the win over Kentucky.  I’ll pretend it was because I was just that confident the Wildcats were going to beat Mississippi St. though.

The other team who beat Mississippi St. is of course LSU.  While LSU’s best win (Mississippi St.) and best loss (Tennessee) are better than Mississippi St.’s best win (Arkansas) and best loss (LSU), respectively, LSU’s worse loss (Florida St.) was to a team who isn’t even close to being ranked while Mississippi St.’s worse loss was to Kentucky.   Also, two of LSU’s wins (Southern and New Mexico) rate much worse than Mississippi St.’s worst win (Arizona).  By the way, New Mexico lost to New Mexico St. (possibly the worst team in college football entering the game) on Saturday, so that hurt their rating even more. LSU did get a fair number of points for beating Florida, and Mississippi St. did lose a fair number of points for losing to Kentucky.  That and the week the Tigers played the Bulldogs are only two weeks out of seven though.  Going into last week, Mississippi St. was 14 spots ahead of LSU in the computer.

Tennessee QB Hendon Hooker looks to throw downfield against Alabama in Knoxville on Saturday. Despite leading the Vols to the win, his streak of pass attempts without an interception ended at 262, the third-longest such streak in SEC history.

Speaking of Tennessee, I did rank the Volunteers #1 in my subjective rankings.  I don’t think any other team would have beaten LSU handily on the road and then been able to beat Alabama the next week.  But again, that’s only 2/7 of the season.  Two weeks ago, Clemson was 16 spots ahead in the computer.  The Tigers haven’t lost over that time, so it was even harder to catch up.  I mentioned Florida St. isn’t close to being ranked, but they are still in the top 40.  Of course, Tennessee gets a ton more credit for beating Alabama, but it just doesn’t make up for the whole season up until that point. 

You might laugh since Alabama is exponentially more likely to stay that way, but both Clemson and Tennessee have wins over otherwise-undefeated teams.   Clemson’s was over Wake Forest, and as of right now you don’t get a whole lot more points for beating Alabama.  Clemson’s second-best win was over North Carolina St., who rates a little better than LSU does.  Clemson’s third-best win was over Florida St., who rates a little better than Florida does.  It continues like this down to Clemson’s worst win, which was Boston College.  The Eagles have seen better days, but that’s a pretty respectable WORST win.  Much better than Akron, Tennessee’s worst.  The Zips have no wins over FBS opponents and barely beat St. Francis, which sounds like an elementary school.

Clemson and Tennessee were close enough that I thought about overriding the outcome of my mix of subjective and objective, but Clemson and possibly some other teams could pass up the Volunteers after this weekend anyway.  A win over Tennessee-Martin will not give the Volunteers many points, and I don’t like to switch up #1 teams that often without a loss.  The only team other than Alabama I have ranked #1 this seasonwas Georgia, but the Bulldogs have a bye week coming up, followed by Florida.  Michigan was the only other team that even had 90% of Clemson’s overall point total (in the overall rating), but the Wolverines’ next three opponents are Michigan St., Rutgers, and Nebraska.  I think picking anyone other than Clemson (whose next game is against undefeated Syracuse) right now would be a higher risk of instability anyway.

Top 25

Rank	Team	Last
1	Clemson	3
2	Tennessee	7
3	Georgia	2
4	Michigan	6
5	Ole Miss	5
6	Texas Christian	8
7	Ohio St.	4
8	Alabama	1
9	UCLA	13
10	Syracuse	17
11	USC	9
12	Illinois	21
13	Oregon	12
14	Wake Forest	11
15	Utah	—
16	Penn St.	10
17	Mississippi St.	15
18	North Carolina St.	14
19	LSU	—
20	Oklahoma St.	18
21	Texas	—
22	Purdue	—
23	Kentucky	23
24	Oregon St.	—
25	Maryland	—
—	Kansas	16
—	James Madison	19
—	Coastal Carolina	20
—	Kansas St.	22
—	Florida St.	24
—	Cincinnati	25

Ole Miss @ LSU Preview

If you wanted to see the updated Ole Miss Rivalry blog, see here .  I didn’t have much to say about the game last year.

I don’t normally do this; but since an undefeated top 10 team is coming to town and I feel much more confident in LSU at least playing a competitive game than I did against Tennessee, I’ll do a bit of a preview/prediction.

The best argument against LSU other than atrocious special teams play is that Tennessee ran up and down the field against LSU a couple of weeks ago, and this year the ground game is Ole Miss’s strength.  I do think the Tennessee stats are a big skewed though.  Tennessee got out to an early lead, and the last thing they wanted to do was let LSU get some confidence (or give the crowd some encouragement) before halftime (like what LSU got in the first two SEC games, at home against Mississippi St. and on the road against Auburn).  So at the end of the first half, the Vols had incentive to limit the LSU scoring opportunities as well as limiting the risk of a turnover. 

LSU also needed to respect the pass though, because Tennessee could have scored 60+ if they hadn’t.  Alabama has some players who can defend the pass (both in rushing the QB and in the secondary), and they allowed 52 to the Vols. I mentioned there was a throw late in the first half they barely missed.  That could have made it 59 points.  Ole Miss can make a good play in the air sometimes, but they’re much less successful than Tennessee is.  I don’t imagine Ole Miss would give Alabama the same kind of fits Tennessee did when they play them in a few weeks.

Ole Miss’s stats are also somewhat skewed.  Auburn may be the worst SEC team apart from Vanderbilt, and LSU managed to beat them despite a general lack of a passing game. Speaking of Vanderbilt, that’s another game that adds to the Rebels’ 3-0 conference record (and was a game in which Ole Miss trailed much of the time).  Ole Miss also barely held on against Tulsa and beat some other less-impressive programs: Central Arkansas, Troy, and Georgia Tech.

The only team I’d call good that they played is Kentucky, and the Wildcats had some success against the running game.  They did allow one 48-yarder, but apart from that there were 35 carries for 138 yards.  That’s similar to Florida’s stats against LSU minus the longest run.  It’s not necessarily enough to sustain drives, which is why the Rebels only scored two touchdowns the whole game.  Kentucky has played well defensively, but even Northern Illinois had that many touchdowns in the first half against Kentucky.

In the game in Oxford a few weeks ago, Kentucky lost two fumbles, including the one above on first and goal in the final minute. Ole Miss held on to win, 22-19.

Don’t just take my word for it.  Despite having played Kentucky, Lane Kiffin said about LSU, “This is the most talented opponent by far that we’ve played.”  About the location of the game, he said Tiger Stadium is “one of the hardest places in the country to play,” and, “We’ve been on the road a few times but nothing like this.”

The fact that Ole Miss relies more on a methodical ground game is part of the reason I think LSU has a better chance even if the Tigers start poorly (which, to be fair, they have done more often than not).  Given that Ole Miss only scored 22 the whole game against Kentucky, it’s much less likely they will lead 23-7 at halftime as Tennessee did.  Even if a halftime score like that does happen, the LSU defense has previously caused scoring droughts to give the offense a chance (it was just too hard to do that against a quick-strike offense like that of the Vols; no one other than Alabama has brought about a scoring drought of any consequence against Tennessee, and even the Tide defense gave up 52 points in the game). 

LSU outscored Mississippi St. 24-3 in the second half, they outscored Florida St. 20-7 in the last 15 minutes and 8 seconds of the game, they outscored Florida 28-0 in the 21 minutes of game play before the fourth quarter started, and they scored the last 21 points against Auburn (the scoring was in 18:01 of game play, but Auburn’s drought was over the last 39:38).  So I think LSU will be able to take advantage of the seemingly inevitable scoring droughts by the Rebels.

By the way, Auburn scored twice as many points last week at Ole Miss than they had scored at home against LSU.  Auburn had a stretch (lasting about a quarter toward the middle of the game) where they outscored the Rebels 24-7.  If Auburn can do it, so can LSU.  LSU has obviously shown better ability to close out games than Auburn has though, so I wouldn’t expect Ole Miss to then win the fourth quarter by 7 as they did last week.  Ole Miss did score much more easily against Auburn than LSU did, but it being the first competitive road game for LSU (and this will be the first competitive road game for Ole Miss) overcomes that counterpoint.

If things do go well early for LSU offensively (as they did last week), we haven’t seen the Rebels have to adjust to being behind this season.  LSU had a clear advantage when they forced Florida QB Anthony Richardson into a role where he had to win the game in the second half.  The LSU defense did look pretty silly when they gave up an 81-yard touchdown run to him, but I don’t think Jaxson Dart of Ole Miss is quite that difficult to take down.  He can run for a first down like Jayden Daniels can, but I don’t think he can break all those tackles against an SEC defense.  I’m sure tackling technique will be a point of emphasis for LSU at practice this week too. 

Dart also doesn’t seem likely to do what Richardson did against Tennessee and go 24/44 for 453 if the Rebels get behind.  As I mentioned, Auburn kept it competitive until late in the game, and Dart only completed 9 passes on 19 attempts.  If that’s what he does when he’s throwing the ball sparingly with time to waste and the defense isn’t sure whether Ole Miss is going to run or pass (and leaning toward the run), how is he going to do if everyone knows he has to pass?  Dart only has an 11:6 touchdown/interception ratio and only 61.7% completion rate.  Again, that would seemingly get worse if he had more pressure on him against better competition. 

By the way, Daniels has a 10:1 touchdown/interception ratio and 69.2% completion rate.  Daniels has thrown for about 80 more yards, so they’re similar in that department.  I think it also helps that Daniels played a lot better last week.  I haven’t seen huge improvement in Dart, and I even watched him play for USC last year. For what it’s worth (not much), Arizona St. (Daniels’s team at the time) beat USC 31-16 last year; but neither quarterback played very well.  Nor did then-Trojan Kedon Slovis, who now plays for Pitt (when he’s not injured).

I could be wrong – Dart could have some hidden talents he’s just waiting to unveil – but I’m going to be really confident if LSU gets a meaningful lead (or like last week they score the first few offensive possessions even without a lead).  I won’t feel great if Ole Miss has a lead instead, but I’m not going to stress about it either unless it’s 20+ points early or they’re still ahead multiple scores late in the game and LSU can’t seem to stop the run.

LSU is favored by about a point and a half; and I think that’s based on some intelligent projections and understanding of the respective teams that I’ve seen, so I’m not pretending it’s a slam dunk by any means.  I just see an easier road to a win for LSU than I see for Ole Miss.  I would expect a final score around 35-31.  So that’s just one disaster on special teams away from Ole Miss having the edge.