College Corner: LSU Tigers
There’s nothing quite like a Saturday night at Tiger Stadium. Over 102,000 LSU fans are screaming at the opposition, ready for LSU to pounce on them. It is the loudest stadium in college football without a doubt, and they don’t call it Death Valley for nothing. LSU have lost ten times in ten seasons with Les Miles at home, and just four times in five years before that. But when you get away from that, LSU have not lived up to their talent.
Les Miles has one National Championship in Baton Rouge despite having some of the best talent in the country. Despite being an elite recruiter and a fantastic head coach, even LSU fans have to know that time might be running thin on him if they don’t deliver this season. The pressure is on. Will they deliver?
2015 Season: LSU had their opening game against McNeese State cancelled due to a lightning storm in Baton Rouge, and it wasn’t rescheduled. After that the Tigers got off to a blistering 7-0 start behind Leonard Fournette. He just ran over all challengers, and it saw LSU jump all the way to #2 in the rankings. Next game their old nemesis Alabama in Tuscaloosa, who were #4 in the country.
That game was the most dominant defensive performance I have ever seen from a college football team. Fournette was averaging 193.1 rushing yards a game and 7.9 yards a carry. Against Alabama he had 31 rushing yards on 19 carries. Alabama just smashed him. That rocked LSU and they never recovered. They lost their next three games, knocking them down to an irrelevant bowl game. They had an 8-3 regular season and won the bowl game, but at LSU that is a bad season.
Key Losses/Recruiting: LSU really didn’t have an overwhelming presence in Chicago at the NFL Draft. They had five players drafted, and two of them were in the seventh round. The highest player drafted was linebacker Deion Jones, who went #53 overall to the Atlanta Falcons. They did lose two talented offensive lineman to the NFL, but outside of that the debris isn’t too bad.
LSU are probably in the best spot in the country for recruiting. They are the only major school in the state of Louisiana, one of the most talented filled places in the country. To say that Les Miles has that state on lockdown is an understatement. On top of that they share a border with the goldmine that is Texas. Put all of it together and you get a historically good recruiting class in 2016.
The Tigers have a ridiculous 19 of the ESPN top 300 coming to Baton Rouge. That is just a crazy number to wrap your head around. Of those 19, 14 of them are from Louisiana, and three are from Texas. They have that area controlled. The highest rated recruit is defensive tackle Rashard Lawrence at #12, followed closely behind offensive tackle Willie Allen at #16. LSU have four of the top 31 and nine of the top 100 recruits. This class was an absolute home run.
2016 Outlook: LSU have to deliver in 2016. Les Miles barely got out of 2015 with his job, and you can be sure another season like that will extinguish him. You just can’t have the recruiting success that he has had without transferring it toe the field. It’s now or never for the Tigers.
As for the players that will be delivering the results, it’s Leonard Fournette. He was stymied towards the end of last season, but he was pretty much untouchable for the first seven games. LSU will go where he takes them. Their quarterback situation is bleak at best with Brandon Harris back for another season. He was very poor last season for LSU, but they really lack options outside of him.
LSU will be a very run heavy offense in 2016. When you have a running back as good as Fournette and a quarterback as inconsistent as Harris, you have to be. But Harris is going to have to provide at least a little bit of a threat in the air to balance the offensive dynamic a little bit. If he can do that remains to be seen.
On defense things are really looking up. Hard-hitting linebacker Kendall Beckwith is back, and so are pass rushing threats Christian LaCouture and Lewis Neal. Add to that what they recruited and you have a group that has the potential to be a really good defense.
The schedule throws a little bit of a curveball at the SEC West powerhouse to start the season. They will play Wisconsin in the first college football game at Lambeau Field in 33 years in week one. That’s a winnable game, but Wisconsin set up well with a tough run defense and will be a formidable opponent.
From there it is what you would expect out of a typical SEC schedule. The SEC West is the toughest division in college football, with their two opponents from the East this year being Missouri and Florida. There are a lot of tough games, but of course one stands above the others.
Alabama come to Death Valley on November 5th for their annual clash of the titans. Both teams have a few tough games before that, but it’s not unrealistic to think both teams could be undefeated entering that. Alabama are the one team that LSU can’t figure out, and it’s down to Nick Saban outcoaching Les Miles year in, year out. This will be the flashpoint game, and the one that determines the rest of their year.
2016 Schedule:
9/3 Wisconsin*
9/10 Jacksonville State
9/17 Mississippi State
9/24 @ Auburn
10/1 Missouri
10/8 @ Florida
10/15 Southern Mississippi
10/22 Ole Miss
11/5 Alabama
11/12 @ Arkansas
11/19 South Alabama
11/24 @ Texas A&M
*At Lambeau Field
Prediction: 10-2 (6-2 in SEC Play)