As fans have learned over the years Les Miles and the LSU Tigers are anything but the norm in the college football world.
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| Tiger Stadium will look like this for the rest of September. |
That means the Tigers will have played three ranked opponents (one an SEC West foe in MSU) in the first four weeks of the season. On top of that all three of the games will have been away from Tiger Stadium. If they are 4-0 come the morning of September 25 I don't know how anyone could argue against them being the #1 team in the nation.
The good news is that the schedule seems them playing 5 of their final 8 games in Tiger Stadium, including matchups with Florida, Auburn, and Arkansas. One of the three games away from Baton Rouge is a November showdown with Alabama in Tuscaloosa. The hope is that this tough early stretch will pay dividends for that game as it very well could determine the SEC West champion and a spot in Atlanta a month later.
The Tigers will be dealing with an angry Mississippi State team tomorrow night and cannot afford to look ahead. The Bulldogs were hoping to stake their claim as a legitimate contender in the West this season but saw their SEC campaign get off to a rocky start Saturday at Auburn. MSU was stopped at the goal line in the final seconds and suffered a disappointing 41-34 defeat. Dan Mullen and his team know that another loss would most likely eliminate them from contention in the West and will most likely pull out all the stops against the Tigers.
The game should be a strength vs strength affair. Mississippi State has rushed for 642 in its first two games of the season while LSU has only allowed a total of 91 yards in its pair of victories. Mullen will look to attack with his spread option led by quarterback Chris Relf and tailback Vick Ballard. The pair combined for 241 yards rushing against Auburn last weekend.
The Bulldogs should be aware that things are about to get much tougher though. LSU has already held Oregon's vaunted attack to less than 100 yards rushing and made the Ducks one dimensional. They shut down LaMichael James and forced Darron Thomas to throw the ball 54 times. If they can do something similar to Mississippi State then LSU could be looking at another impressive victory.
Of course the Tigers would like to see their offense continue to develop under the leadership of Jarrett Lee. Lee is coming off of a 9-10 performance against Northwestern State that saw him throw for 133 yards and a touchdown. Rueben Randle continued to impress hauling in 5 passes for 121 yards, while Michael Ford and Spencer Ware combined for 4 touchdown runs in the rout. If they can get through MSU things should continue to look up as Russell Shepard returns from suspension for the West Virginia matchup.
Les Miles and company have a tough opening month of the season but hope that it will aid them as they get into the meat of their SEC schedule. If they can continue to navigate their murderer's row schedule successfully they could be looking at a potential BCS knockout game in Tuscaloosa in November. A trip to Alabama is a daunting task for most teams, but LSU should be used to hostile environments by then.
An undefeated season in the SEC is hard enough with a cupcake non-conference schedule, but leave it to Les Miles to add some degree of difficulty to the task. Something tells me the Mad Hatter and his Tigers may just be up to the task.
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