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……

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.

Florida Wins! Once again, my prediction didn’t work out. Florida, in the words of Les Miles, “played thier asses off” against ohio state and sent the Big 10 homers in the national media into reality. Here’s what we learned at the end of the season:

1) The SEC is by far the best conference in the country. The PAC 10 is second, followed by the Big East, the Big 10, and the Big 12.

2) Troy Smith is not the best player in college football, and Brady Quinn isn’t even in the top 10.  If I had to pick the best player in college football this year, I would have to choose between Run-DMC (Darren McFadden), Jamarcus Russell, Jeff Samardizdfakfjalkjfa, Dwayne Jarrett, and Pat White. I think in the end I would pick Run DMC.

3) ESPN is terrible we had 3 “games of the century” in 2006. Honestly, do you think we’re that stupid? First was USC-Texas. That was a fantastic game, but USC was not “like, OMG the best team evar!”. Next they had us believe that Ohio State – Texas was the “game of the century”. Yeah, a freshman quarterback is going to win the National Championship. They then admitted they were wrong, because Ohio State – Michigan was the “game of the century”. Omitted from this discussion was Miami-Florida state, which was only “game of the year” at the beginning of the year.

They have a contract with the Big 10, which is why they rank the midwest teams so highly, and it’s also why they hype these teams so much.

4) Notre Dame sucks. End of story.

5) Back to point #1, the Big East ain’t that bad.

6) Over-rated: head coaches, under-rated: coordinators. See David Cutcliffe.

7) We need more instant replay for officiating review. These guys can’t get it done on the field.

Tyrannical coaches that bully the press do well, which is why there needs to be rules to limit their bullying. Do you hear me Charlie Weiss?

9) There are too many bowls.

10) We need a playoff.

LSU rocks Notre Dame

Darry Beckwith and Jamarcus Russell own a pair of brand new catholics…..along with the rest of the LSU football team.

I almost went back on my prediction due to all the media noise surrounding the preseason #3 / #4 Notre Dame.  Could my analysis really be better than Kirk Herbstreit? He has studied Notre Dame much more than I have. He gets paid, and I don’t.  In the middle of the season, when Notre Dame only had one loss, I remember watching a documentary on Charlie Wiess when he mentioned his recruiting formula of only needing a few marquee players and a handful of stars.

Sorry Charlie, you’re going to need a little more than that to beat ole Leslie Miles. Nice fake punt deep in your own territory by the way.

In the game of college football, the coach matters. Charlie Weiss is supposed to be better than Les Miles. Yet somehow Les outsmarted, outcoached, and had his team fired up to beat the Fighting Irish.

Les is an awesome coach. He’s still learning a bit, but he’s better than he was at the beginning of the season, and he’s only going to get better.

But this isn’t about what an average (and a waste of money) coach Charlie Weiss is, or how Brady Quinn is the second coming of Ron Powlus. This is about the greatness of Jamarcus Russell, Early Doucet, Kieland Williams, Glenn Dorsey, LaRon Landry, and the rest of the LSU football team from the marquee players all the way down to James Welker. They beat the #11 team in the country.

First let’s take a look at Jamarcus Russell.  In my initial prediction for the game, I came out and said that with Jamarcus as our QB, Brady Quinn would not start for LSU. Based on the performances of both quarterbacks, who would rather have?

Brady Quinn: 15-35, 148 yards, 9.6 YPC, 2TD’s, 2 INT’s (should have been more).

Jamarcus Russell: 21-34, 332, 15.80 YPC, 3 TD’s, 1 INT

Remember, Notre Dame has great receivers too, and that LSU faced much stronger pass defenses all year long (according to average YPG rankings on SI.com).  Yeah, we thought you’d pick Jamarcus too. By the way, Jamarcus has a ton of strong come from behind clutch performances too.

Also remember that Jamarcus’ statistics would be much better if Dwayne Bowe could catch a few more balls. I know he’s LSU’s leading reciever, but he’s responsible for at least half of Jamarcus’ interceptions this year, and Jamarcus would have had over 400 yards passing if he caught a few more passes against ND. I know I’ve been hammering Dwayne Bowe all year, and I want you to know that I love the kid as a father would love an underachieving son. GROW SOME HANDS AND CATCH THE F$#^#(@$^%#@*#^#ING BALL.

The other star performances I would like to acknowledge is that of Jonathan Zenon, and Early  Doucet. Early blocked the punt and then caught a touchdown pass seconds later, creating momentum for the big win. Zenon’s interception gets overturned by some bullshit penalty, and on the next play, he intercepts Quinn again.

Glenn Dorsey is not mentioned at all because I don’t want him to know how good he is so that he stays next year.

As for Notre Dame. I have to give the star to Jeff Smardiasdlkfaja. Like a half-star. Notre Dame is a good team; but they don’t deserve the credit they get from the media. In my estimation, they are about as good as Kentucky. They’ve got a fantastic quarterback, and one other star player, and the rest of the players are average.

By the way, if I hear one more espn radio commercial with brent musberger jerking off talking about the Notre Dame comeback against Michigan State, I am going to throw my laptop through a wall.So yes, the Tigers dominated, and yes, they were supposed to win. But for all of you that know a Notre Dame fan out there, wasn’t it fun to watch Charlie Weiss eat shit for the second half?

Yes! LSU fans finally like me now that Nick Saban is at Alabama!

Stay tuned. I have lots more material, including an article next week about the total over-ratedness of Notre Dame, how the preseason top 10 teams in the country stacked up at the end of the season, and a brand new column updated at least twice a week, about what an absolute weak and soul-less person Nick Saban is.

By the way Nick, I know you took credit for the Sugar Bowl win on Wednesday during your press conference on Thursday, but the only thing you’re responsible for this year is the complete destruction of the Miami Dolphins team, the ruining of the 21 lives on your coaching staff that you made a commitment to, and the theft of $32,000,000 from Alabama Taxpayers.

Les Miles is responsible for this win, period. He’s the guy that has developed Jamarcus Russell, he’s the guy that brought in Bo Pelini, and he’s the guy that brought us to two back-to-back 10 win seasons.

Cheers!

New Orleans Shootout: The High White Hat vs. The Bulge

vs.
Greetings! It’s been a while since our last update, and that’s because there hasn’t been much football to speak of. Before I get started with my predictions, I want to say that Charlie Weiss is a very good coach, and Brady Quinn is a phenomenal quarterback…….

……….the only thing is, Quinn wouldn’t start at LSU. I don’t want to re-hash everything that’s being said in the media, which is either how LSU is going to smack the shit out of Notre Dame, or how LSU will be caught off-gaurd, and Notre Dame is going to fight until the last whistle because Charlie Weiss is a good coach. Instead, I want to point out a few facts:

• The winner of this game is going to be the team that can score more points.
• Brady Quinn has had a monster year….but has only played 2 teams ranked in the top 50 pass defenses in the nation.
• LSU’s pass Defense is rated in the top 15, higher than anyone else Notre Dame has played.
• Darius Walker won’t be running the ball much, either.
• Notre Dame’s Defense is ranked around 50th.

Let’s look at how the two offenses have done against top ranked defenses, in rushing and passing respectively:

Notre Dame

Led by Brady Quinn, Notre Dame has a pretty stellar offense. I don’t think Darius Walker is too shabby as a running back, either. Here’s how their offense has performed this year.

Notre Dame has played two teams in the top 50 of passing defense. Know who they are? Ahh, Michigan and USC. Nope. Not even close. The two teams in the top 50 pass defense that Notre Dame has played are Stanford and Army. In both of those games, Quinn had a solid game, passing for just over 200 in both, and throwing 6 TD’s and 1 Interception. In both of those games, the opponent couldn’t score on Notre Dame’s defense (ranked in the middle of the pack: 50 for both pass and run defense), and in both of those games, Notre Dame was able to open up the passing attack with a solid running game. I don’t think they’ll be able to rush as well as they would like against the LSU front, but given Brady’s performance against top ranked defenses, I think he’ll do well enough, but the stat sheet won’t show it. I think he’ll put up around 180 yards, but definately not 200 or higher.

Notre Dame has faced 6 opponents in the top 50 in rush defense, which is probably the biggest reason why you haven’t heard Darius Walker’s name mentioned much this year. LSU opponents are averaging 95 yards a game, and I think that’s about how many yards Notre Dame will be able to rush the ball. Not bad, but not great either.

LSU

LSU has actually played some good teams this year, and they blow the fucking roof off when they play a poor opponent, and play reasonably well against upper echelon teams. The special teams errors and mistakes by Jamarcus Russell haven’t been seen in months, so I think we’re good there.

For all the Notre Dame fans out there, I hope he has a terrible game so that he comes back next year. It’s just that he won’t.

Jamarcus is a stud, there’s no question about that. It’s funny to think what he would do if he had Hawaii’s schedule, or if he played in the Big 10. That is neither here nor there, however, because he’s at LSU and that’s the way we like it. Notre Dame’s passing D is ranked at 50, which is not as good as the pass defense put up by Alabama, Auburn, or Arkansas. In those games, he averaged 253 yards a game, which sounds about right. I think he throws about 4 or 5 touchdowns in this contest if he stays in the whole game.

On the running side of the ball, LSU’s comittee has put up an average of 136 yards/game against teams with better running defenses such as: Florida, Mississippi State, Arizona, Arkansas, and Auburn. We all know that Miles likes to use the run to open up the pass, and I think we get an additional 2 touchdowns from our running backs.

Notre Dame is a very good football team. I think they’re about as good as Kentucky or possibly even Arkansas. Anything can happen. At the end of the day, I think Notre Dame just won’t be able to score as many points as LSU. The Bayou Bengals win this contest 44-17 as the Matt Flynn era begins.

Oh yeah, one more thing. I know Notre Dame is practicing at John Curtis highschool, where Joe McKnight plays, but it’s going to be hard for Notre Dame to recruit him when they get their ass kicked.