"To be totally honest with you guys however I will say that I don't understand why everyone here thanks that we will be so good this year." Football too?? Why shouldn't we be rated at the top? Our starting quarterback played just as well as Mauck, in 2002. He played much better teams than Mauck and we had a terrible defense, due to injuries and DJ's problem. In addition, this year, our OL is better than last years. We have young OLmen that are threatening to surpass the penciled in starters. Unlike last year, we have proven running backs. We probably don't have a replacement for Clayton but Doucet may make us forget all about that by conference time. Reportedly he has great hands and he definitely has better moves than Clayton. Barring injuries I believe this defense will be the most talented ever at LSU. From reading reports, Kuale and Hollis have solidified the linebackers and Dorsey and Alexander are giving great depth on the DL. I like our chances of repeating in the SEC. To win it all you have got to be good and lucky. We were both last year, no injuries, and SC's strength of schedule took a nose dive at the end of the season.
I'm not sour at all, I'm just being cautiously optimistic. Bottomline, I'm looking at it from the standpoint that the offense will struggle at least in the beginning of the year and we have some early games in hostile environments. Everyone will be out to beat us also. I've seen comments that expect us to play in the SEC Championship Game and i do think that is very possible but I think some people are taking it for granted that we will be there. I'm just saying it isn't going to be that easy, our schedule favors our opponents since most of our big games are on the road. Then you have "new" key opponents on offense. Hey, maybe we will be better than I think on offense I don't know. Worse case scenario I hope we can win like Bama did in 93 I believe. I hope you guys understand now where I'm coming from, the expectations around here were to high for basketball and baseball last year IMHO.
