Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Why LSU Football Is Just Like You- Here We Come National Championship (Florida Game Week)

EDBS pokes some fun at Les Miles here at Evil Contrarianism: Why LSU Is The Frontrunner For The National Championship

However there is some logic there!

Just watch Alabama and stand in awe of their fearsome symmetries: their pinpoint precision with defensive assignments, their power run game coupled with an efficient and devious passing game, their locked-up special teams coverage. Alabama's pants are pressed to a fine crease, their hair styled to a fine edge, their ties knotted with a precision Germans would find intimidating. They write thank you notes with immaculate penmanship, and never forget their mother's birthdays.

This is not you, most likely. You forget things. You mismanage the clock, and often find yourself scrambling at the end of the day just to get the most basic assigned tasks done. You probably have a stain right now on your pants, and it's probably food, you disgusting pig of a person. You don't drive with your hands at ten and two on the wheel, and most likely sometimes hit the rumble stripes while looking at an interesting bird or shapely lady walking down the street. Honestly, sometimes you do it just because you're thinking about bacon or something. It's amazing you haven't killed anyone yet.

You're a lot closer as a person to being the LSU football team than you are to being the
Alabama Crimson Tide, because admit it: sometimes, despite the bad snaps you've made in life, you're ahead of a lot of the plodding dullards who insist on showing up "on time" and "clean shaven" and "totally sober" to their required appointments in life. Sometimes that's been part of the fun, something you can only admit to yourself after you've run around with your hair on fire, broken several major rules of company accounting and best practices, and possibly stabbed a fellow employee in order to get done what you needed to get done to survive.

This is precisely how LSU wins football games. They beat West Virginia when
Noel Devine suffered an injured toe and Patrick Peterson returned a punt for a TD. They beat Tennessee by having their slowish non-running running quarterback go for an 80-yard TD. They'll probably beat Florida by kicking a 70-yard field goal, punting for a safety, and scoring off a rugby scrum as the final whistle blows. Only one of those is possible by rule in college football, you say? Les Miles says you won't know until you try, son, and that's why he's making $3 million a year as football coach and you're sitting there reading about it.

You're practically a hunter-gatherer, man, and that's a lot more fun than plowing the boring furrows of Nick Saban's Process Farms. You're just like Les Miles, who may really not know where his next meal is coming from*, and whose football team isn't ever really sure they're going to score a point. Your aspirational self may lean Alabama, but you know at heart that you're just a fake field goal and an illegal substitution penalty away from victory at any point. Look deep into your soul: you know it to be true...................


If Les Miles and Team can pull out a win against Florida expect the mood to change. That faction of LSU fans that have a "want" to fire Les Miles 24/7 are going to be overshadowed by people thinking for the first time "Hey we might actually be able to pull this off"

Yes people will go THIS IS INSANE but it will be fun to embrace the madness. Beating Florida means that hey we can beat Auburn, Arkansas , and dare we hope big BAMA itself.

People forget but if not for some quarterback issues the two losses LSU has recently suffered to Bama were not because of poor coaching. In fact Les and Staff did a pretty good job. Last year it was LSU15- Bama 24 . The year before it was LSU21- BAMA27 (OT).

In other words LSU Players and Coaches get up for the Bama game. This time we have them at home.

Speaking of Florida let's look at our last two losses. We just got ran out of the stadium in 2008 down in Florida LSU 21- Florida 51 . No doubt one of Les Miles worse losses while at LSU. However just one year later LSU3- Florida 13 . Again not great but not a blowout either.

This week we go down to Florida and sadly for us have to battle a team that is smarting from a blowout to Bama. However our players have something big to prove too. Who wants it more? Well looking at how Florida has been playing this year I am going with LSU as to that.

The LSU Players are 5 and 0 but the fanbase refuses to treat them like a 5 and 0 team. In other words the LSU players want to do something so they can actually get some benefits from their hard work. They want to walk around campus and hear HAPPY THINGS not BAD THINGS. They want to after this week to be treated like a 6 and 0n team in the SEC should be treated not like a 0 and 6 team.

A loss to Florida would not be devastating in the pure numbers game. As we have seen LSU gets ups for Bama and the SEC WEST could still be ours and thus the SEC Championship.

Still a LSU win on the road against Florida would be significant in a lot of ways. One gets a sense that the future of this team , and perhaps Les Miles himself, is very tied to getting a ROAD win against mighty Florida.

Further our past wins could start to look better. Tenn plays Georgia this week. While Georgia stinks for whatever reason Georgia is favored. A Tenn win on the road between the hedges would make last week LSU win more easy to swallow. Mississippi State appears to be playing better and better too. Finally Vanderbilit who we beat even when losing seems to be playing some very solid football.

For future games it appears Ole Miss has corrected their problems with solid wins over Fresno and Kentucky. Then there is Auburn that is currently undefeated and who should have no problem with Kentucky this weekend. Arkansas is legit and no doubt will be tough.

So the past team we beat seem to be doing well and the future teams well are very good. In other words in this wild world of TCU and Boise State a undefeated LSU or even a LSU with one loss seems to be a shoe in for the National Championship game if they get to the SEC game in Atlanta and win it.

But look at our offense!! It will not happen. Well it is a tough road ahead but recall the Bama National Championship team of the 90's. This LSU team sort of looks like that one.

A win against Florida on the road will dramacticlly change the mood. If that happens people will be rooting for this team nationwide because well despite the quirks there is something about this team.

2 comments:

Andy said...

"For future games it appears Ole Miss has corrected their problems with solid wins over Fresno and Kentucky."

I'm not sure about this. Their problem is 2nd half collapses, in recent games the collapses have been less spectacular, but still there.

Jax St - Up 31-10 at half, lose 49-48.

Tulane - Up 24-3 at half, win 27-13.

Vandy - Tied 14-14 in 3rd, lose 28-14.

Fres St - Up 41-10 in 3rd, win 55-38.

Kentucky - Up 42-20 in 4th, win 42-35. But for KY dropping an onside kick and allowing OM to convert a 3 and 20 late in the 4th, this game was OT bound.

Lot of heartburn in the second half in Oxford. Lots.

James H said...

You might be right there. I did not realize that Fresno players made it more of a game. An I missed a that last part of that Kentucky game

So you have a point about them