Don't overlook West Virginia. They are a very good team. The way I look at it, UNC will test our offense, WVU will test our defense. And yes, we need to beat Florida, simply because 1/4 of my facebook page is Florida fans.
On the little somewhat unreliable data base I have my overpaid, underworked staff keep up, Florida should be okay post Tebow. Using Rivals on recruiting classes for the four years from 2006-2009 (not counting this fall's incoming classes), Florida has 69 four or five star recruits... LSU has 63... both outstanding numbers. On the other hand, in the same time period, Notre Dame has brought in 57 compared to 52 at Bama... even Georgia brought in 58...which speaks to the value (or not) of recruiting numbers... My guess is the Florida game will come down to whether JJ or their new qb has a better day.....
That will rely almost solely on the Oline. Them, the TE, and the FB. They do their jobs and JJ may leap exponentially this year. I am cautiously optimistic.
See that's what they say about every team that reloads, but you cannot replace experience right off the bat. Brantley may be a really good starter, but what is Florida going to do on 3rd and 4th and short when they don't have a big bull headed monster to pick those yards up? Demps? Rainey? Speed kills speed and LSU has just as much speed as they do. What i am looking at is that defense. You lose Spikes, Dunlap, Haden, Wright, you cannot just replace all of those guys with kids who haven't seen much action and expect to be right where you left off, it just doesn't happen, regardless of what * they were coming out of high school, you just cannot simulate game speed in practice.
Does Florida have to be "right where they left off" to get their big wins? Given your matchup is the 6th game of the season, how many games does it take to finally "simulate game speed"? I do think it's safe to assume Florida may be slightly down from last year. Is it also safe to assume LSU will be much better? I expect a hellava game, that's all.
defense aside, can we outscore florida? brantley is (by most accounts) a decent QB and they do have athletes.
i hate to admit it, but they seem to do a better job of getting players ready than LSU does... i think that you need a stout defense top be tops in the SEC, but they still have the real possibility of putting up absolutely superb numbers on offense. call me naive or blind (or dumb,) but i am not worried at all about our defense this season, just the offense -- until they show me something to have faith in.
LSU doesn't play Florida until midseason. If we don't have a solid offense rolling by that time, then it's probably not going to happen at all.
that was what i was alluding to in my earlier post. but it doesn't erase the fact that we can still have a decent season if we only lose to bama and florida -- yet again -- even without a solid offense. but say we get a decent bowl game and win handsomely? i'd be pretty excited with that scenario. but the topic of this thread is about the BCS. we are going to have to beat either bama or florida to have that chance. period.
i agree, but they are going to start a ton of guys who only saw special teams action last year or the year before. I think the guy that has seen the most action coming back is either Ahmad Black or Justin Trattou and Janoris Jenkins. All of the their defenders are undersized, well not all but quite a few, we should be able to push them off the line of scrimmage, plus new defensive coordinator coming in, on offense they lose Tebow, Hernandez, one of the Pouncey guys, Cooper, and Billy Gonzales. I understand that they recruit the lights out and everything, but damn, that is a whole hell of alot to lose.
