Alabama against LSU is the kind of black and blue game that
football fans can’t help but get all hyped up for. Sometimes though, that hype results in one giant
letdown as it did on November 5, 2011 when Alabama visited LSU and lost in OT
9-6. Fast forward one year and we were
treated to a very competitive game that Alabama had to pull out late with a
28-yard screen pass for a TD to TJ Yeldon with 51 seconds remaining.
TJ Yeldon has taken over as the starter this year but continues
to share carries, mostly with sophomore Kenyan Drake who averages 7.8 yards per
carry with 491 yards gained on the ground.
Yeldon has held his own with 115
carries for 729 yards, but Alabama has a very balanced run/pass ratio and AJ
McCarron has done the bulk of the heavy lifting, completing 69.4% of his passes
for 1862 yards on 209 attempts.
Of course, when talking about Alabama it all starts with the
defense, which is #1 overall in points allowed this year at a miniscule
9.8. The defense is led by future first
round pick C.J. Mosley at inside linebacker and potential top ten pick HaHa
Clinton-Dix at safety. The one game that
exposed Alabama was at Texas A&M where Johnny Manziel put up 464 yards and
5 TDs in a 42-49 loss as Nick Saban had his revenge from a year ago. In last year’s contest Texas A&M put up
29 points against the Alabama defense, again the most points they gave up all
season long.
Can LSU put up any kind of offensive attack against Alabama? They did a year ago, as LSU was in charge for
most of the game, led by Zach Mettenberger who was 24/35 for 298 yards, 1 TD
and 0 INT. Running back Jeremy Hill also
ground up 107 yards on 29 carries in the game.
Mettenberger is vastly improved this year, completing 65.4% of his
passes compared to 58.8% in 2012 and spiking his yards per attempt all the way
up to 10.79 from 7.41 a year ago. Jeremy
Hill is also back and better than a year ago, already matching his TD total from a year ago with 12 and increasing his yards per carry from 5.3 to 7.2.
While LSU’s offense is humming along at 40.2 points per
game, their defense has lost a bit of its luster as they rank #31 overall in points allowed at 21.9. The games they had trouble with were at Ole Miss, where they lost 27-24, and at
Georgia in a 44-41 loss. LSU’s
impact player on defense is 6’ 3” 305 pound defensive tackle Anthony
Johnson who is just another in the long line of elite defensive tackle prospects to come out of LSU. Beyond Johnson though, LSU does
not have another player projected to go in the first round of the 2014 NFL
draft.
The Spread: Alabama
opened as 9 point favorites and the line steadily rose up to -13 before falling to Alabama -12.5 points. 13 points seems like an awful lot in this
game, as Alabama was only favored by 10 in the National Championship game
against Notre Dame. For a rivalry
game like this, I think double digit points is too much to give up. It’s hard to go against Alabama, especially
as they have established themselves as the no-question best team in college
football, but I think LSU will score enough to make this a single digit
loss.
The Pick: Take
the points, but wait and see if the line goes back to +13. LSU’s offense is better than a year ago when
they played Alabama and very easily could have won the game. Alabama has a clear advantage on defense, but
they were exposed to give up 40+ points against Texas A&M and LSU should be
able to score enough points to keep this one in reach.
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