I could talk about Nov.5, which will be colossal, for a while.. I’ll try to capsulate as much of it as I can in this post. I like the Tide by a point right now. Will have my final prediction on Monday. Defenses are pretty similar as are offenses. I would give LSU the edge in the secondary, Alabama a big edge at linebacker, with the best linebacking corps in the country, and I have it even on the defensive line. Don’t hear much about either defensive line though both units are solid. LSU has cornerback Tyrann Mathieu, who is returning from his “severe” punishment by Miles for smoking pot (synthetic, whatever that is, though it has killed a college basketball player so it’s serious) and db Morris Claiborne. They’re both excellent players, so I think the LSU secondary is a little better.
On offense, I’d give a slight edge to Alabama at full strength. But Cyrus going down, and Barrett Jones and Anthony Steen battling injuries hampers the Tide a little bit, though this bye week will help them heal up. It’s pretty much even. At the receiver position, ‘Bama has more playmakers, but LSU will have the best receiver on the field in Rueben Randle. Hanks, Maze, Michael Williams and guys like Kenny Bell are pretty good though. Running back it’s Trent for sure. Spencer Ware will be back from his tap on the wrist as well for taking bong hits, so that will help LSU. They’ve also had a new back emerge in Kenny Hilliard, who had a good game last week running for 65 yards and two TDs. He was a highly recruited player by LSU and is a stellar back. Not sure how much he’ll play though with Ware back. LSU will also throw Michael Ford and Alfred Blue in there. Ware’s run for 512 and six tds and Ford for 441 and six scores. But I like Trent and his 989 yards and 17 TDs. Eddie Lacy has run for 465 and five scores and third stringer Jalston Fowler has run for 329 and three TDs. Trent is averaging 6.6 yards per carry, Eddie 8.0 and Fowler 7.0. I’ll go with Tide there.
Quarterback is the most interesting matchup. A.J. has been outstanding lately. For the year, he’s completed 67% of his passes (134-200) for 10 TDs and three ints. He threw his first interception in 152 throws last Saturday against Tennessee. That’s pretty amazing. He is playing at a very high level and is a lot more a playmaker than a game manager. His last five games since Arkansas have been phenomenal. How he does against this fast, highly aggressive defense could be the key to the game. LSU might put two or three more people in the box, say have seven on the line of scrimmage, to stop Trent and make McCarron try to beat them. They’ll play one on one against Maze, Hanks and company and challenge A.J. to throw it down field. A.J. will have to play smart and take care of the football in order to win this game. He may need to use some of his game management skills in this game throwing more screens and flare outs to Trent. That will be critical. Jarrett Lee and Jordan Jefferson have been a tremendous one-two combo for LSU. Lee has been awesome. He’s 98-155 (63.2%) for 1,250 yards and 13 TDs. Jefferson has thrown for a pair of scores and run for two more in four games after kicking a guy in the head repeatedly during a preseason bar fight in which four guys were put in the hospital. Speaks to the high character shown in Miles’ program, but that seems to be the way big time football goes now. Coaches want to win and be famous and they’ll give their players every opportunity to succeed with rules or laws put on the backburner. S’s handling of Brent Calloway’s smoking synthetic pot is”internal” as well. Not sure if anything substantial will happen to him either. Doesn’t seem to matter to the coaches much. But I’ll get off that. It bothers me, I wish it would change, but I do enjoy college football, so I’m hopeful these players can get their acts together. A lot of them have their acts together.
I’ve got Alabama 28-27 at this point. Will have final prediction on Monday.
AU really struggling. Defense looks soft and quarterback looks pretty bad. I guess Kiehl Frazier is the quarterback of the future, unless incoming (2012) five star Zeke Pike becomes the man next year. Not sure how well Kiehl throws the ball. Hasn’t shown much in that area so far. Auburn going to try and get through this season with Moseley and Frazier. This Saturday is no guarantee. Ole Miss may have mailed it in, but they may want to knock off the Tigers after getting blasted last year by Cam and company. Don’t think Auburn will quit; at least I hope not. The defense is just not getting it done. At some point, Ted Roof needs to have a good defense. Last year the defense was good enough, but not great. This year, it’s really struggled. I know there are a lot of young players, but they should be better by now. There are some older guys like T’Sharvin Bell, Neiko Thorpe and Darren Bates who can’t seem to rally the guys. It’s not working right now. Not sure why. Maybe they need some better players, but a lot of the guys were four star recruits, so that shouldn’t be the issue. They just don’t play aggressively. The schemes they run don’t seem to work. They don’t play disciplined not filling their gaps or containing. And they can’t cover receivers. It looks like a lack of talent, but there should be talent there. Roof is not getting it done at this point. Chizik isn’t either really. That book tour and all the offseason hoopla was nice for him, but it usually seems to come back and get you. Teams always seem to struggle after a national championship season. Auburn lost 24 seniors and a lot of them were key players. They lost four important offensive line starters and the line is just not there yet. It really struggled against LSU. Part of it was LSU, but I don’t think there’s much leadership there. I think youth has something to do with this. I know it does. I thought AU was going to be better this year. I know it’s frustrating for a lot of Auburn fans. Now, it’s just hope to scratch out some more wins starting this weekend, try to upset Georgia and hang on against ‘Bama, though that probably won’t be possible. Not sure about 2012 right now either. Thought 2012 might be a big year, and it could be, but Auburn’s defense has to take a look at themselves and decide if they want to be winners. Their quarterback situation will be an issue, too. I would think Malzahn and Chiz would go with Frazier. He just needs to be able to throw the ball down field. He is certainly an athlete and can make a lot happen.
Looked at some national games over the weekend, too. Clemson, Stanford, and Oklahoma State are all powerful teams offensively. Kansas State kind of an unusual team. They’re a little boring, but they somehow win. They win with special teams, some defense and a workable offense. Kansas State has Oklahoma this weekend and depending on if OU shows up after their upset loss to Tubby and Texas Tech, KState could lose this one. Quarterback Collin Klein has run for 670 yards and 14 TDs. He’s completed about 60 percent of his passes for eight touchdowns. Running back John Hubert has rushed for 637 yards and two scores.
Clemson looks like they have a shot to run the table in the ACC and go undefeated. They look like an Auburn of last year. Have Ga. Tech this weekend at Tech, so that will be a challenge though Tech has struggled lately. Quarterback Tajh Boyd is a Heisman candidate for sure. He’s completed 61 percent of his passes (172-278) for 2,379 yards and 24 touchdowns with only three ints. Wide receiver Sammy Watkins is the most exciting player in college football in my opinion. The true freshman has caught 54 passes for 819 yards and nine touchdowns. He’s also run a kick back 89 yards for a touchdown and it was at a critical time in the Maryland game when Clemson came back from a deep hole and won big over the Terps. There are studs on offense at Clemson. Stanford and Oklahoma State are juggernauts on offense as well. Andrew Luck, who along with Boyd, Trent, Kellen Moore and Brandon Weeden are my top five for the Heisman right now, is 145-202 (72%) for 1,888 yards and 20 TDs. Stepfan Taylor is an excellent running back. He’s rushed for 697 yards and six TDs. Chris Owusu is their leading receiver with 30 catches for 349 and two TDs. They also have Griff Whalen who has 24 for 345 and one TD and Zach Ertz, a tight end, who has 22 for 308 and three TDs. Coby Fleener, also a tight end, has 17 for 384 with seven touchdowns. Luck loves to use his tight ends. I was looking at their recruiting the past three years and it has really improved every year. Got some four stars in 2008 including Luck who was a 6.0 four star, almost a five star. He is certainly a five star now.
For Oklahoma State it’s Weeden( 222-309, 72%, 19 TDs, 7 Ints), wr Justin Blackmon (61 recepts-662 yards and eight TDs) and rb Joseph Randle (121 rushes for 690 yards and 12 TDs) who are leading their offensive arsenal. They excel as well.
But none of these teams plays great defense like Alabama and LSU. Stanford probably is the best of the bunch, but they’ll be tested this weekend against Matt Barkley and USC. Barkley has thrown for 2006 yards and 19 touchdowns. Wide receiver Robert Woods has caught 72 passes for 902 and eight scores. They will severely test the Stanford defense this Saturday at the Coliseum. Should be a fun one there. It won’t be for David Shaw, Stanford’s coach. He’ll be sweating this one out hoping his team can survive the Trojans and stay in the national championship hunt. The Trojans have lost to Arizona State by a big margin but stand at 6-1. After an impressive victory over Notre Dame, they could be primed for the upset. Stanford is a 7 1/2 point favorite. Seven PM, Saturday Night on ABC.
This brings me to my final point and this has already been talked about some. If Alabama and LSU were to play a thriller with one team barely securing the win, then both teams won out the rest of the way, should there be a rematch? This is my take on it: If LSU wins barely, I don’t think there should be a rematch because the game is in Tuscaloosa, which is a big advantage for the Tide. If LSU beats Alabama at their place, they deserve to not to have to play Tide again. They would have proved they deserve a shot at a national title without playing ‘Bama again. If Alabama beats LSU barely and both teams win out, I think LSU, if they are impressive the rest of the way, should get another shot. These are the two most complete teams in the country by a pretty good margin. Clemson, Stanford and Ok. State have better offenses, but ‘Bama and LSU have solid offenses and epic defenses. I would be for a rematch if Alabama wins barely and both teams take care of business the rest of the way. If LSU wins, one of those other teams, provided they win out, should get a shot. If they don’t, I would give the Tide another shot. Then there’s Boise State, a good football team, but a team that just doesn’t play the level of competition worthy of a BCS championship shot. It’s not totally their fault that they play in a non AQ conference and they’re trying to rectify it by merging with C-USA and the Big East, but as of right now, unless something drastic happens, they probably won’t get in. Kellen Moore is phenomenal and they are a mentally and physically tough team, but they need to play better competition to be included in the discussion. It’s not totally out of the question, and the Broncos are excellent, but they just don’t play the quality competition necessary to play for it all at the end.
I’ll have my analysis and predictions on Friday. More on ‘Bama-LSU on Monday.
(A.J. McCarron will be critical to the Tide’s chances of beating LSU. Maybe the most important piece.)