The LSU Tigers have an excellent football team, but with one fatal flaw. Their defense is terrible and will end up costing them a national championship.
Through 12 weeks, the LSU Tigers have been the best team in college football. The Bayou Bengals are 10-0 (6-0) with four wins over teams that were ranked in the top-10 at the time of their meeting: Texas Longhorns, Florida Gators, Auburn Tigers and Alabama Crimson Tide. LSU has the frontrunner for the Heisman Trophy in senior quarterback Joe Burrow. This team is fantastic.
That being said, LSU has one fatal flaw that will end up costing it its first national championship victory since 2007: This defense is lousy. LSU has given up at least four touchdowns in five of their wins. The Tigers have surrendered at least 30 points in four of their victories. Even teams that won’t be bowl eligible like the Ole Miss Rebels and the Vanderbilt Commodores score on them.
Sure, LSU should skate by two SEC West rivals in the final two weeks of their season. The Tigers will smoke the Arkansas Razorbacks so bad it’ll smell the like sweetest barbecue you’ve been around this side of the Mississippi. Woo Pig! LSU will also give the Yell Leaders of the Texas A&M Aggies absolutely nothing to cheer about during Thanksgiving Weekend. But Reveille is a good girl.
So we should expect nothing less than to see LSU playing the Georgia Bulldogs in the 2019 SEC Championship Game in Atlanta in a few weeks. Georgia may be more of a defensive-minded team than anything, but if Ole Miss can run the ball down Ed Orgeron’s defense’s throat, who’s to say the Dawgs won’t be able to gouge them for close to 200 in a neutral-site affair?
As long as the Tigers defeat the Hogs and Aggies at home, it doesn’t matter what happens in Atlanta vs. the Dawgs. A 12-0 (8-0) LSU team could afford a neutral-site loss to Georgia and still make the College Football Playoff as an at-large, one-loss, non-champion. However, LSU may be further exposed when facing elite offenses.
LSU will face the best teams in college football should the Tigers qualify for the Playoff. Teams like the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Clemson Tigers will almost certainly be there. Teams like Georgia, Alabama, the Oregon Ducks and the Oklahoma Sooners could make up the Playoff party this holiday season. Every one of those teams is well-coached and could dominate this LSU defense.
Seeing an LSU team be led by its passing game is something no college football fanatic ever expected, but here we are. We’ve seen it before and we’ll see it again, at any level of the sport, you can only as far as your defense and your offensive line can take you. If the offense dries up for a bit and the defense continues to hemorrhage points, you’re screwed.
Can LSU beat Georgia and get to the Playoff unscathed at 13-0? Yes, and that’s what most of us expect to happen. Could LSU win its national semifinal game in either the Peach Bowl or possibly the Fiesta Bowl with this porous of a defense? Sure, as long as Burrow plays like the Heisman winner he’s sure to be.
However, LSU won’t likely win the SEC and two Playoff games with a bad defense. Good teams like Georgia, Clemson, Ohio State, Oregon, Oklahoma or Alabama could expose them before the early part of January. If LSU plans to be the second team in college football history to go 15-0, the Tigers will need to tighten up defensively. Otherwise, their season will end in tears.
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