Post Spring: Sporting News - 1 CBS - 1 College Football News (Scout) - 1 Sports Illustrated - 3 Rivals - 4 ESPN - 4 The expectations are back, and I like it. This team is incredibly talented. The past 3 recruiting classes are top 5 classes and 2008 was top 10. Les is off to another good start in recruiting; on the way to another top 5 rating. It's the way it should be at LSU. If LSU gets efficient QB play, this season could be special. Geaux Tigers!
It's time to see an LSU team play to these kind of expectations. I'm personally sick and tired of this defensive mentality about us needing to be the underdog and somehow sneak into a championship game. It's time for LSU to play dominant football, something that has often proved elusive for us during Les' tenure.
Name a team that went 75-0 during that period and I'll concede your argument. By the way, we won those games.
Simply winning isn't my point. Playing like a Top 5 team is. That involves controlling a game from start to finish and showing the killer instinct to put inferior teams away early instead of continually allowing them to hang around. These things eventually come back to bite you against top teams, particularly with this schedule and this slim of a margin of error to go all the way. The attitude that I see from a lot of people about flying under the radar is somewhat troubling, because it implies that we can't (and worse, shouldn't try) to do better. Let me put it another way. If Les was a boxer he'd have a 62-17 record with only about 15-20 KOs and a lot of split decisions against much worse fighters. An outstanding record, but a cause for concern when you face equally talented fighters and have little knockout power.
I am 45 years old and cannot remember ever getting into a championship game without "sneaking" in. Even with Saban we were ranked #3 and "sneacked" into the championship game against Oklahoma in 2003.
Exactly. It's not fair for me to single out Les here, because this did happen under Saban. I tend to look at the 2007 circumstances in a worse light since LSU dropped 2 games and never held on to the #1 spot for longer than 2 weeks. As wonderful as those seasons were, that kind of luck is going to run out. I'm simply in favor of creating as much of our own luck as possible. This isn't intended as a shot at Les, but a shot at this whole underdog mentality that so many of our fans seem to embrace.
