The SEC Forum at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

bama is on bye, so who cares, amiright?

but seriously...

lsu vs ut st - lsu should sleep walk a win in this one, and they just might with it being the early game. ut st has a decent offense though, so expect some points from them on an lsu d still figuring out how to cope with a competent counterpart offense of their own. hint for lsu d, just cause your offense scores doesn't mean you have to let the other team score some too.

au @ florida - now this is a game. i'm not sure what to think here. i think au is a better team, but not by a whole lot. they've also gone through a tough schedule so far, and it's only getting tougher down the road. uf has had some time to work out quite a few kinks since miami. but have they? i'm leaning auburn, which means i should pick florida because i've been bad at picking au games so far. i'll go with au anyway in a great game.

mizz vs troy - troy, like ut st, can also put up some points, but not enough vs mizz who is playing well after a poor opening game.

uga @ tenn - have you said your last rites yet, tenn? might wanna think about it and updating those wills.

vandy @ ole miss - one of them has to win, right? i'll take ole miss. got a good young qb, look for him to grow.

Near as I can tell, the LSU defense is giving up 1.59 points per drive, off the top of my head not that bad compared to some of our better defenses.  Not as good as Bama and several of the Big Ten teams, but not objectively bad.  

One thing I noticed when looking at this is the crazy number of drives opponents are getting.  GSU-13, Texas-12, NWSt.-13, Vandy-16 (SIXTEEN!!!)  That's new for us and that stat may not change.  We're (you're) used to seeing LSU possess the ball and opponents be in that 7-8ish possessions per game.  That's not how it's been working so far with the offense averaging 1:48 per drive.  So the scores theoretically go up with a greater number of possessions.  

Obviously it's skewed because Texas accounts for the majority of those points (they averaged like 7 points per possession, off the top of my head, maybe more like 10, don't ask how, I'm just telling you what I saw), and that's the only good offense LSU has played.  This also doesn't factor in garbage time, one, because I'm lazy and two, I'm not sure if there's a consensus definition of garbage time.  Giving up 24 points to Vandy certainly isn't what we hoped for, but that's still 12 possessions that Vandy punted, was intercepted, turned over on downs, fumbled, or the half ran out on them.  

At any rate, some of this could just be the new norm with greater # of poss. allowed.  

Some could potentially get better if tackling sharpens up and/or guys get healthy.  Or not.  

It's uglier than we're used to on the scoreboard against a team like Vandy, but I can't tell if it's worrisome or just unpalatable.  


fwiw, B. Fremeau makes some kind of adjustment for garbage time, and has us slightly worse at 1.91 ppd.  According to his stats:

UGA - 0.79
Bama - 1.02
Barn - 1.39
Gator - 1.42
LSU - 1.91

ooc:
Buckeyes - 0.53
Wisconsin - 0.59
Clemson - 0.72
Penn St. - 0.72
Mich. St. - 1.04
Oregon - 1.11

I don't know what any of that means 4-5 games in against dissimilar schedules.  

good info, @MikeDeTiger and what i said was mostly tongue in cheek, especially because bama is in similar position.

blowing people out and putting up huge numbers quickly will also get the first teamers out of the game much quicker than normal, as well. and the 2nd/3rd stringers are usually the ones conceding the garbage scores that make it look worse than it really is.

also need to account for offense and special teams mishaps that hurt the d stats.

bama's adjusted d rankings are #2 in FEI, #8 in sp+ and #9 in espn's def efficiency. according to reddit bama site, anyway. i'm guessing lsu's is similar.

blowing people out and putting up huge numbers quickly will also get the first teamers out of the game much quicker than normal, as well. and the 2nd/3rd stringers are usually the ones conceding the garbage scores that make it look worse than it really is.



bama's adjusted d rankings are #2 in FEI, #8 in sp+ and #9 in espn's def efficiency. according to reddit bama site, anyway. i'm guessing lsu's is similar.

I don't think we have many first-teamers left in the front 7 since Texas 

I can't find FEI right now, so I don't know where you're getting that, but LSU is way down at 35 in SP+ defensively.  Obviously those numbers don't mean as much as they will a month from now, but for whatever they're worth at the moment, LSU is not up in the category with Bama/UGA/UF/AU/Big Ten teams listed, on a per play basis.  iirc, that's what SP+ is, whereas FEI is per drive basis, so I wonder if we fare any better there or not.  

Just quickly looking at Alabama and OSU for comparison's sake:

Our % 3rd down conversion allowed and drives ending in punt/turnover on downs is right there with Alabama and OSU.  LSU is well below those two teams in drives ending in INT/Fumble recover (also forced fumbles).  LSU is also 7% higher (bad) than Alabama and 13% higher than OSU in drives ending in something other than turnover, turnover on downs, or punt (not my research, I'm assuming the guy means "drives ending in points" ?).

We know the tackling needs to get better, but what jumps out at me from that list is LSU is not capitalizing on it's excellent number of passes defended, turning only 2 out of 27 into INTs.  You would almost expect some reversion to the mean there, but just eyeballing it the DBs have butterfingered a few notable should-be INTs.  Contrast that to Alabama who has 6 INTs out of 19 passes defended (a rate that may also revert down to norms).  LSU is 10th in the country at passes defended but 85th in INT/game.  Also middle of the pack forcing only 3 fumbles.  Basically LSU needs to tackle better, do better in all phases of turnover opportunities, and get healthy if possible.  

It could amount to the same thing, but it "feels" different than say, 2013 or 2017 when LSU's defense disappointed, mainly because the horses just weren't there.  It seems like there's hope for a top unit here, although I doubt the pass rush will ever be elite with this group.  

They're still going to get blown out, but Tennessee's players are trying harder tonight.  They're not sleep-walking.  Amazing to see that changing the QB can do that.