LSU to be ranked top 10 next preseason poll

my diet starts when i stop drinking tonight. not quite sure when it will start yet as there is still a ton of beer here

 

I was going to say top fifteen, possibly just inside the top 20. There's no way pollsters will forget this season so soon without making us earn it. Something else to consider will be the fact that if Tebow comes back, we'll be predicted as third or maybe even fourth in the SEC, and I just don't see that many teams from one conference in the top ten...they tend to spread the preseason love out among the conferences.

 

I agreezle

 

Florida lost four, we lost five. Florida had (to the best of my memory) one blow out loss compared to our three. Florida returned the reigning Heisman trophy winner in Tim Tebow.

We don't have that kind of stuff working for us. Plus, we still have a BIT of a question mark surrounding our defense with a new coordinator coming in. No matter how good a coach is, there is almost always a transition period to be expected.

I'll say this...if I am right and we come in at number 17-18 and look strong in our first few games, we'll rocket up the ranks and - if we happen to be undefeated - be in the top 7 after the first weekend in October.

 

Renewed sense of urgency at LSU
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
By James Varney
BATON ROUGE -- LSU began bowl practices Monday, flashing a spirit sharply contrasting to what some players described as a slacker attitude prevalent during the regular season.

Senior offensive lineman Herman Johnson was particularly vocal about what he saw as a shifting dynamic. For some time, LSU (7-5) has sleep-walked through practices and displayed none of the fire required of a championship outfit, according to him.
On Monday, however, that changed.

"Before we'd come out to practice, I mean it was just lackadaisical, people were walking around and stuff," Johnson said. "Today, it was more intense. Guys were running around at drills. Coaches were getting in players' faces, it was something I liked. I'm tired of seeing, you know, the people just walking around being lazy, but today the coach got on people -- and it was real exciting today."

Bad attitude tendrils have sprouted from a handful of LSU players during his career in Baton Rouge, but those isolated cases became more widespread in 2008 on a team some thought would contend for the Southeastern Conference Western Division crown, said Johnson, whom the coaches and the writers voted first-team All-SEC.
"You didn't see it as much," he said of his sophomore and junior teams that won the Sugar Bowl and a national championship. "But this year, I don't know why, but for some apparent reason, I've seen it a lot -- and I don't like it."

Coach Les Miles used less precise language than Johnson but referred once again to a necessary "attitude adjustment" the team requires. It was a change in attitude that he was most specifically referring to two weeks ago when he said "adjustments" must be made "before the bowl," Miles said after an extended practice Monday that left him hoarse.

Junior tight end Richard Dickson described the practice as one of the Tigers' most physical of the season. LSU is preparing to face No. 14 Georgia Tech (9-3) in the Chick-fil-A Bowl on Dec. 31, a New Year's Eve game at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta in which LSU is uncharacteristically an underdog.

"That's what we want to do -- get three weeks of hard practice in -- and today we really got after it," Dickson said.

When asked in rather coarse terms Monday evening if he had jumped on the team, Miles smiled but refrained from using the same phrases to characterize the approach taken by him and his staff. The entire program seems to have been surrounded by a funk since the team unraveled at Arkansas, blowing a 30-14 second-half lead to lose 31-30 and end the regular season on a horrific note Nov. 28.

That game also saw some defensive players openly chiding teammates, and senior linebacker Darry Beckwith, tears rolling down his cheeks, accusing some players of quitting during the game. Beckwith said Monday he has no regrets about questioning the guts of some unnamed Tigers but said that was an emotional outburst that is behind him. He insisted there is no lingering cloud from the Little Rock meltdown.
Johnson did not name names, either, but he made it clear the daily approach of some players at LSU has been of poor caliber at times in 2008.

"The older guys, we don't walk around. We've been taught that since our freshman year, and it's been ingrained all throughout these years," he said. "If I see someone walking around I'm going to get in their face and say, you know, you've got to pick it up. Or even in sprints today, I mean, if you can't run, get off. You're hurting the team.

"Basically, if you can't play, if you're physically unable or you're a hurt to this team, just leave. If you have one bad apple, everybody's going to see that -- and they feed off that. We don't need negativity on this team; we need everything to be positive for the next couple of weeks."

Johnson said he, senior center Brett Helms or senior defensive end Tyson Jackson has confronted players about their blasé approach, but the message repeatedly failed to hold. Now the team has no fallback position, Johnson said, and a bowl victory has to be pursued not just for individual satisfaction but for "the program and the state."

Some of the team's top players met Sunday and resolved to move beyond what happened at Arkansas, Johnson and Beckwith said.

Sophomore cornerback Jai Eugene said that "nobody likes to lose five games," and he chalked up the ragged emotions in Little Rock to the unwelcome result.
Junior wide receiver Brandon LaFell said "that stuff" was left in Arkansas when the team got on the plane to come home, but his classmate, junior defensive end Rahim Alem, said the time off was a necessary respite.

"We needed those two weeks," Alem said with a laugh. "It would have been nice to have a win to reflect on those two weeks, but we needed it."

Alem was guilty of a mental error at Arkansas when he kicked the ball after Jackson had batted down a pass. The penalty gave the Razorbacks another first down on a second-half drive, and Alem, also chosen All-SEC by the coaches, said Monday he still can't explain his actions. "It was just stupid," he said.

That sort of mistake, though one that has dogged this team this season, can become a thing of the past prior to the Georgia Tech game, players insisted. Now, the team can push aside the laziness and fuzziness Johnson lamented and refocus attention on the game, LaFell said.

"We've got to play LSU football," he said. "There's a lot of guys that make a play or two here, maybe they're celebrating or just doing all this other stuff. (Miles) wants us to stay focused throughout the whole game."

James Varney can be reached at [email protected] or 504.717.1156.

 

Good points. Honestly, I'm not EXPECTING to come in that low, but I wouldn't be totally surprised. I personally think LSU will be back in a big way and either way you look at it, I expect LSU to be a solid top-ten pick when the only poll that counts comes around.

 

Leadership by the players counts! I love the story from Austin about the summer of 2005, team was doing weighlifting workouts during the day, and Vince Young told them "Everyone who wants to win the national championship, show up on the practice field every night at 7 PM." Young was so respected, everyone showed up and they ran practice, just the players.

The coaches at LSU bear responsibility for allowing the lacksidasical attitude to exist. They should have benched some kids and put in guys who worked harder and showed they wanted to play. Maybe more experienced D coordinators would have handled the situation differently. That's a danger of elevating a position coach to a coord., the inexperience to handle that kind of challenge.

 

I'd like to close that chapter and never speak of it again. It's officially a skeleton in LSU's closet.