Their strength is QB Nick Fitzgerald. Good runner, can be a good passer in the right circumstances. I haven't watched any of their games because their schedule has been worse than ours so far, so I don't know much else of value either. There's reason to think their defensive front is very good.
The main reason I have a hard time taking this game seriously is LSU has lost this game twice in the last 25 years. And really, if instant replay had been a thing in 1999, LSU would've won that one also. The Fighting Daks whacked us in 2014, with a senior laden team and us with a(nother) very young team. That's basically it for the entire span of my life I've paid attention to LSU football. I've seen years where LSU played like utter turd, and Clanga was determined to play worse. I've seen games where Moo State was legitimately the better team, and we still found ways to win. Mostly I've seen an uncanny uniformity between the ratio of talent and wins in this series. Law of averages almost demands that the less talented team win sometime....in this series, they just haven't.
So in 2014 when they won, it was very surreal. It's like it didn't register. It had been a decade and a half since we'd seen it, and nearly a decade before THAT. And like I said, under today's replay rules, LSU would've won the '99 game as well. I don't know anybody who really cared. We get mad and call for the coach's head when we lose to Florida, Alabama, Ole Miss, heck, even Arkansas sometimes. There wasn't even any anger attached to losing to Hail Steak. More like "Huh. Well I'll be. Okay, what's on next?"
Of course this is a terrible reason to assume anything about THIS year. And in my brain, I don't. But honestly, LSU fans have forgotten how to worry about this game. It's just not in us.
I really do suspect LSU is the better team and will win an ugly game. I predict Clanga will land some early shots, our defense will adjust, Fitzgerald will stay penned up and won't be able to win the game from the pocket. Our offense will struggle against their front, but will eventually do just enough. We're favored by 7, and that sounds about right to me.
