Payback time: LSU vs. Auburn preview

Sorry I haven’t written an update about Kentucky. I think Jana said it best during the preview when she said that the LSU receivers need to start catching the fucking ball. That’s why we lost to Kentucky. That and stupid penalties.

In other news…….

Les Miles reported today that Early Doucet is practicing at 100% and that we should be seeing him a lot during the Auburn game. This is good news, seeing as how he has been our best receiver the past 2 years, in my opinion. He’s not as big as Dwayne Bowe, or as fast as Craig Davis, but he catches everything in sight, is extremely agile, and deceptively quick. He’s a game changer. For those of you who haven’t noticed, our offense has been average since he left, and he will bring a spark to this Tiger team, opening up the passing and running lanes as a decoy, and is worth about 2 TD’s in this game, unless we blow the doors off of Auburn early, in which case Miles will save him to keep him healthy.

. …but that’s not likely to happen against Auburn, as they have a better defense than we will have faced all year. Without further audieu, your keys to the game:

Krista Says: Our defense is very, very good at defending the pass, and defending the run. We shut down Darren McFadden last week. We’re a lunchpail defense, and while we don’t allow many points or yards, we also don’t force many turnovers.

On special teams, our punting is very solid, and makes up for our defense’s lack of flair.

On offense, we’ve got to rock out with our cox out, because we can’t run the ball for shit. If we can’t run the ball on South Florida, it’s not like we’re going to do much better against Dorsey & Co.

Hilary Says: True, we haven’t faced a defense like Auburn’s, and it’s not like they’re schedule has been terrible, but we’ve got the advantage on defense. Check it out: they’ve got no running game. This is going to allow our defense to blitz the bejesus out of Cox, and our pass defense to shine. We lead the league in turnover margin, which should give our offense good field position.

On special teams, it looks like Chad Jones is going to be returning punts. But let’s be honest, it’s not like our return game or our punting game has been lighting it up this year. If Auburn can get 2 or 3 first downs on each possession without turning it over, we could be in trouble because we’ll have a much longer field to score than they will.

Offense baby. Offense. Y’all suck for criticizing my boy Matt Flynn after last week’s game. Sure, he made a few mistakes, but the receivers made many more. Early Doucet’s return should cure that. He’ll actually catch the ball this week, and should open up the passing lanes for the other receivers. I actually have a theory about Brandon Lafell — he seems to have more confidence with Early around and seems to catch the ball better. I hope I’m right about this. If not, we should see a little more of Terrence Tolliver who seems to be getting better every week. Ryan Perrilloux will probably pass the ball once or twice, but I believe the coaching staff is bringing him along slowly and allowing him to grow into the system. Sure, he tore it up against Middle Tennessee State, but c’mon folks, Middle Tennessee isn’t a top ranked SEC defense like Auburn or Florida. Hell, he even missed two wide open receivers against Tulane, costing our team 14 points.

We’re probably going to need to mix it up a little bit with the running backs. Hester’s good and reliable, but it’s not like those Auburn punks are good at forcing turnovers. Besides, he looked a little shook up after a TD in overtime last week. I think we’ll see more of Charles Scott and Keiland Williams this weekend. They will look more impressive than they have against other good defenses because Early Doucet will force Will Muschamp to game plan around him, allowing our speed rushers to gain more yardage.

Prediction: Well, after hearing from our two ladies on their respective teams, I think Auburn must play conservative, with short and precise passing, and playing a field position game in order for them to win. If they don’t, LSU will be able to control the tempo of the game and it could be over by halftime.

For LSU to win, we need to pressure Cox, and defend the passing game. They haven’t been able to run the ball all year, and I don’t anticipate this trend to change against our front 7.

In the end, I believe LSU will win this game, 21-14. Despite Early’s return, Auburn has a great defense, and LSU has gotten pounded in hard hitting games in the last 2 weeks against Florida and Kentucky. Our running backs and QB should be fresh, and Early will add some new legs to the receiving corps, but I expect our lines to be tired out and a little bruised from the past few weeks. That being said, if we fire on all cylinders, and Auburn comes out flat (entirely possible for a night game in TS), we could win this game 47-0. I say could because I honestly believe we win this game 21-14.

Around the league:

Ole Miss got robbed by Nick Saban and his referees last week. That call on the Ole Miss receiver running out of bounds was atrocious. That’s the second time that ‘Bama got a call in order to win the game. In a related story, does anybody notice that Nick Saban has the same record as Mike Shula this time last season?

There’s rumors of Tommy Tubberville leaving Auburn to go to Texas A&M. I don’t believe ‘em. Why would he leave Auburn, and why would A&M want another coach from Alabama?

Rutgers upset South Florida last night. It was a good game, but sloppy sloppy sloppy on defense. I really don’t think the Big East teams can hack it against the Pac 10 or the SEC, the two best conferences this year in my opinion. Jim Leavitt thinks he’s still got an outside chance at the BCS championship. That guy’s a fighter, but it ain’t gonna happen.

Boston College and Ohio State ranked higher than LSU, really? C’mon folks, they haven’t played anyone in the top 50. After Auburn we’ll have played 5 of our games against teams in the top 50.

The BCS picture has a long way to go before any definitive picture is made.

Looks like Callahan is going to get canned at Nebraska. What the fuck? Didn’t he restore Nebraska to glory last year by bringing them to the big 12 championship game? Another example of irrational acts by universities and boosters in the NCAA.

No updates on the USC scandal yet. I wonder what’s going on there.

Joe McKnight finally got in the game, and looked pretty solid averaging something like 7 yards a carry. The pro-McKnight case: He’s only a freshman, and USC’s entire offensive line is in shambles. The anti-McKnight case: All his carries have come against shitty teams. We won’t be able to make a definitive ruling on whether or not he’s the best HS prospect of all time until he graduates, so chill out people.

Mark “dirty” Sanchez will start in replace of Booty. Dirty Sanchez, Booty, Mustain, it’s just too easy with SC’s QB’s.

Boston College and Arizona State are idle this week. If LSU and Ohio State both win, we could be ranked #1 by the computers.

How many players are going to leave Notre Dame? Looks like Charlie Weiss is really screwing it up over there, taking a huge steaming shit on the program after Willingham was unfairly forced out.

Games to pay attention to and why:

Tennessee vs. Alabama: Watch the Bama meltdown if Fulmer wins – if he does, the SEC East becomes a very interesting race.

Arkansas vs. Ole Miss: The battle of the hotseat, although I think Nutt probably gets canned at the end of the season (perhaps unfair — got screwed by Mrs. Mustain and a news reporter), and Orgeron keeps his job at the end of the season no matter what. I’m kind of pulling for Ole Miss, even though I hate them when they play us.

Florida vs. Kentucky: Either team winning increases our SOS. I’d like to see Woodson do well, and Tebow cry. Go cats!

Michigan State vs. Ohio State: Tressell decides to play I-A ball finally.

Mississippi State vs. West Virginia: A win for croom increases our SOS, and wins him an extension as well. He is doing good things at Mississippi State.

Southern Cal vs. Notre Dame: Another loss for Charlie Weiss is a good day for us. It will be interesting to see how a decimated Southern Cal O line and a backup QB and third string / fourth string RB do against a terrible Notre Dame team. Honesetly, if I were to tell you that Mcknight and Sanchez were going to play against Notre Dame at the beginning of the season, you’d say….yeah, when it’s 50-0 with 2 minutes to go in the 4th quarter, right?

Michigan vs. Illinios: C’mon Carr — we’re rooting for you to keep the maize and blue hands off miles.

Penn State vs. Indiana: Just kidding, but why is this game on TV?

I’m out……

Rating the 2004 recruiting Class based on performance, not stars and 40 times. All SEC coaches should go on the Fulmer diet.

Last month, Dennis Dodd wrote an article on Joe McKnight documenting the problem the young man has encountered ever since he committed to USC in February. The article had one very interesting tidbit: Joe and his family always wanted him to leave Louisiana, and never actually intended for him to go to LSU. While Dodd criticized LSU fans for the their criticism of McKnight, his article’s glaring omission that young Joe strung along LSU, Ole Miss, and Alabama during the entire recruiting process, presumably to enjoy his status in the limelight and take any benefits that may come his way during the recruiting process.

 

Hey, just because you’re Joe-Fucking-McKnight doesn’t mean that you won’t pay the consequences for acting like a prima donna. Welcome to the real world, where honesty usually means less reward while dishonesty, when discovered, means severe social scorn.

 

Between the McKnight saga and reading message board posters rant and rave about PJ Smith’s moves, reasons why Sam McGuffie will ultimately fail, or whether or not Dayne Christ is ready for prime-time, I wonder we (myself included) college football fans care so much what is in some 18 year old kid’s head. As fans, we go nuts debating each other of a 4 or 5 star recruit, but what if that same recruit’s training tactics includes armed burglary and never makes the squad?

 

Dorian Capers – 4 star recruit that “lifted too much” – too many goods that weren’t his, that is. Say goodbye to your scholarship son.

To be sure, recruiting is an integral part of a college football program’s success (I’m looking at you, UCONN), but why should we judge a coach’s recruiting prowess on the basis of an arbitrary star rating or a 40 time, when all we need to do is look at today’s talent and measure it against how the kid was ranked coming out of high school? From now on, I will no longer devote time and discussion to current recruiting; instead, it’s time to look back and rank the class of 2004 to see which coaches came out on top. It’s against my best interests to do so, since that would mean that I would have to give Saban some props, but I really do think you need to wait a few years to judge a recruiting class. The most productive Defensive Tackle (Jamaal Anderson), Defensive Back (Jon Haefney) , Wide Receiver (Sidney Rice) and Running Back (Rafael Little) for the class of 2004 are all 3 stars — except for the most productive Defensive tackle, who was a 2 star. Note that Phil Fulmer was after every single one of these kids, which is why Phil gets our golden star award for recruiting.

Fulmer can out-recruit, and outfox the average donut.

 

Here’s why we need to judge recruiting classes based on performance:

1. It takes a while for a kid to mature to the college level. If a 5 star recruit hasn’t made any impact by the end of his junior or redshirt sophmore season, he probably isn’t as good as advertised. This also allows for teams that are in a reloading phase to be judged equally.
2. We will be able to judge a coach based on real impact his recruits make, instead of some ranking service that has no idea if the recruit will make the grades, get out of shape, change sports, or go to prison. A truly good recruiter needs to have a feel for these things overall. It’s okay to take a risk once in a while, but not all the time.

 

For the purposes of this site’s ranking, class members will be judged on their on the field production vs. the top recruit for that position in their class in the SEC. We included our Les Miles 2004 Okie State Cowboys recruiting class just for shits and giggles. Each player is assigned a point value similar to Yahoo! Fantasy football on offense (yards, touchdowns) and defense (tackles, turnovers). So if the top wide receiver got 1000 points, and the second-best got 950 points, the top wide receiver would get a 10 and the 2nd best would get a 9.5.

 

Offensive linemen get points just for games played, so the offensive lineman with the most games played gets the most points.

 

Here are the SEC Standings for 2004:

Rank Rivals  Coach  School  Points
1 4 Phil Fulmer Tennessee 76.74783637
2 1 Nick Saban LSU  57.33278849
3 7 Houston Nutt Arkansas 56.74357949
4 10 Les Miles Okie State 53.96502279
5 13 Bobby Johnson Vanderbilt 50.30394309
6 5 Mike Shula Alabama  49.33438585
7 2 Mark Richt Georgia  49.212921
8 3 Ron Zook Florida  46.73287342
9 11 Rich Brooks Kentucky 39.59715198
10 9 Steve Spurrier USC  35.13913419
11 6 Tommy TubervilleAuburn  31.88745247
12 14 Jackie Sherrill Miss State 27.95517214
13 8 David Cutcliffe Ole Miss 27.89125118
 

 Three things stand out right away:

1.  Phil Fulmer has an amazing recruiting staff. He is almost 20 points ahead of Nick Saban. It may not seem entirely fair since Nick left LSU, but Les Miles has done a great job with the talent so far.
2. Houston Nutt ain’t so bad after all, and this doesn’t include the springdale debacle that was his 2006 recruiting class.
3. Tuberville should not be on the panel of “america’s got talent”. 

 

Amazingly enough, Bobby Johnson has gotten some good mileage out of his recruits, and Les Miles’ Okie State Cowboys didn’t do so bad after he left. The point remains the same: until a recruit proves he can be the best of his class on the college level, he’s just a statistic from high school.

 

 

Does the rest of the sports world suck so badly that we need to discuss spring games?

Amidst the awesomeness of the NBA and NHL playoffs, the MLB regular season, and ESPN’s insistance that we discuss the draft for 30 minutes a day for a month before the draft, I saw way too many highlights of spring football games. My stance on spring games has always been to ignore them; it’s not a real game. The contact is limited, especially for the quarterbacks, and for every great play that is made, it means that someone on the other side of the ball fucked up. Someone must care about it, which is why over 93,000 people attended the game in Tuscaloosa, and over 60,000 attended the game in South Bend. There must be something to it.

This is the number of games I need to win to make $4 Million next year. And the spring game counts! Whoopeeeeeee!

Then I saw the highlights on ESPN, and two things caught my eye:

1) Jimmy Claussen went 3 for 7 for 23 yards. The newest pickle from the Claussen brand is looking more like this year’s versioon of Mitch Mustain than Joe Montana. Promising this time last year that he would win 4 championships at Notre Dame (I guess the independent conference is really tough with Buffalo, Army, Navy, and Temple) is probably not even the best quarterback at the school. My worry for Irish fans is that his prima-donna attitude may cause him to pull a Mustain and implode the entire Notre Dame program.

I’m not even going to bash the offenses for only scoring a total of 16 points against the Notre Dame defenses, because…..well, it’s just spring ball right? Still it’s a little concerning.

2) John Parker Wilson threw for 240 yards and two touchdowns. It looks like it was pretty much the first team vs. the first team on offense and the reverse on defense, with Stover and Hall being on JPW’s team. Alabama had the 3rd best pass defense in the SEC last year, and 9th best amongst major conferences. Alabama is returning all of their starting defensive backs from last year. Is John Parker Wilson the next big thing or is the Alabama secondary having issues adjusting to Saban’s defense?  I guess it would be a little of both.