I think there's a lot more to it than that. If you have a true shutdown CB, he can cover half or a third of the field allowing safeties to slide over to the other side. It affects a lot more than just making it 10 on 10.
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That really depends on what offense a team runs. He can?t shut down a third of the field with spread 4 WR sets and a back who will be running a ton of routes in this system. Even a great shut down corner can?t cut off that much of the field vs this type of system.
I think we need to dial it down a bit. I agree that LSU shouldn't be the measuring stick of this team. It is a win win. If we do manage to come out and score points we can all be pleased. But, if we don't and the O struggles a bit it isn't the end of the world and we don't need to immediately go to "well this experiment isn't going to work.". Tempered reasonable expectations where we see significant improvement over last year should be the goal. Ill be more than pleased if we play tough and physical on Defense and limit the false starts and delay of games on offense. Fix those two things and I will be happy after week 1.
If we manage to pull an upset that will just be icing on the cake.
LSU was a fringe top 25 defense last year and lost 9 starters and a shit ton of key depth pieces to the draft or opt outs. They aren't going to be a great defense and have a ton of question marks. Our offensive line matches up extremely well against their front 7 and we will be able to move the ball consistently on them. The game will be decided by the LSU quarterback. If the guy who State and OM passed on and hasn't been any good for the first 4 years of his college career can just be average, LSU will win the game. We need him to stink it up.
THIS. If we pull the upset then that'll be great. But a loss, unless it's a blowout where we can't move the ball and we make Brennan look like Burrow 2.0, doesn't sink the season. I'm looking more towards week by week improvement and hoping we're full throttle by A&M. That's a toss up for us that we need to have.
I don't think we beat LSU but it's going to be a close game. We are going to feel really good about what this team can accomplish as the season progresses while the Bayou folk have a meltdown b/c they didn't stomp a mud hole in our butts and dominate us for four quarters.
Was LSU really fringe top 25? Or were they a really good defense whose stats didn't look as good b/c their offense got off the filed quickly and they let up a lot in blowouts?
Honest question, I really didn't pay attention to their D last year.
Regardless, they've lost a lot. But at the same time, we still don't have anyone who is even shown to be an above average SEC WR. I'm not sure we have a WR who has shown he's even average. And we're running a passing offense.
I've glad we've got LEach and the air raid and am optimistic about what he'll be able to do, but we still have offensive personnel that are more suited to a run first offense.
They gave up a lot of points to a lot of bad teams. 37 to Ole Miss. 38 to Vandy. 41 to Alabama (who is great but still). 38 to Texas. 20 to Arkansas. 20 to Auburn.
They lost nearly everyone off a defense that gave that up on a consistent basis. They aren’t better and were not great last year. The defense got bailed out by the best offense college football has ever seen. They were not shutting these teams down in the first half and letting them explode in the second half outside of Ole Miss, who absolutely shredded them in the second half.
I imagine we'll dink and dunk a lot this game to get some confidence going. There's a lot of that in this offense. That's what I think KJ meant by "take what they give you and take it now" too. Someone will be open, it's getting the ball out and trying to get yac most of the time.
IF they do that, we'll run shavers/heath/whoeverstingleyison deep every play. Then throw it to hill 1v1 with a LB underneath on that side that is "shut down" since the safties have shifted to the other side. Now we have our RB in the open field. I'll take that 15/10 times. Hill will have 300 yards.
I know one thing. I watched Leach take a mediocre WSU team to Auburn a few years ago and with a mediocre at best qb give Auburn all they wanted. Might've beat auburn without all the ints. Leach knows how to pick apart even the best defenses. Now how many points our defense gives up is a different story. It could be a basketball score 😂
Again LSU is 3 years out from losing to us 37-7 and home loss to Troy.
They wanted O ass gone.
That team was arguably more talented than the team they have this year
They have lost their DC Aranda and QB coach ( basically their OC ) Brady
And lost over 3/4 of their starting line up on both defense and offense
The 2019 LSU team could be considered the best team this decade but
LSU isn’t Bama or Clemson.. they aren’t even close.. one year doesn’t make you a dynasty
Let’s see what happens.. give me that 17.5 all day and what the hell give me some of that ML
Yes our Def is. A HUGE question mark .. but they lost damn near their starting 11and prob a couple of 2 deeps on D as well
outside of WR ( maybe) They have Terrance Marshall retuning, we check every box on offense vs LSU
Qb check
Rb Check
OL check
I would feel a lot better about that if we had an offense that won't just jam it down people's throat. Again, I'm glad we have Leach and the air raid, but my understanding is that Leach won't just run it down people's throat and if the numbers dictate passing, he's going to pass.
The match-up is our O vs their D- we will score some points for sure.
Their O vs our D- their OL will handle our DL and they will rape our Secondary.
We may cover the 17 for sure because of all their new faces. But I'll be beyond shocked if we win this game
LSU got WAY better near the end of the season- they held A&M and UGA to 7 and 10 points, which is impressive given they were blowouts. Then they held offensive juggernauts OU and CLemson to 28 and 25, which is the lowest point total of the season for either team. Clemson scored 29 on OSU in the semis so LSU's end of year D is about comparable to OSU's.
They still weren't the best, but end of year LSU D was a top 5-10 D. Their season stats don't reflect that