http://theadvocate.com/sports/lsu/4582413-123/rabalais-lsu-tigers-get-no But LSU deserved the SEC’s fourth-best pick. That’s the Cotton or the Outback. They’re on the same line of the SEC bowl hierarchy. But instead, the teams in those bowls, Texas A&M and South Carolina, are the teams that LSU beat. They are teams that LSU is still ranked ahead of (A&M is No. 9, South Carolina No. 10). In a way, LSU can blame itself. Not because it didn’t lobby hard to get into the Cotton or Outback (it really did), but because the Tigers have no flashy marquee player like Johnny Football, having been forced to punt the Honey Badger in August. They have no flashy end-of-season wins, having closed after the Alabama loss by beating Mississippi State by 20 (it could have been much closer), Ole Miss by six and Arkansas by seven. Still, LSU deserved better. As long as the SEC is pulling strings and calling in markers, the Tigers deserved to have the SEC say, “Hey, Aggies, you’re the new kids here. You’re going to the Chick-fil-A. LSU has been at the adults’ table for 80 years. We’re going to take care of them first.” Instead, LSU was the only one of the six top-10 BCS schools from the SEC that didn’t get any of what it wanted. Really, is this unexpected? This is the same SEC that when knocking together its slip-shod 2013 football schedule stuck LSU with a road trip to Georgia on top of its permanent SEC East game against Florida. Meanwhile, Alabama kept its permanent SEC East game with Tennessee and added a road trip to Kentucky. UK’s football program is in such bad shape the SEC should have sent the Red Cross instead. Tennessee isn’t much better. They went a combined 1-15 in SEC play this year. Georgia and Florida were 14-2. Anyone care to guess who will be favored to win the SEC West?
I do feel like we got shafted. But we had our chances to be at the big game, instead--and blew it in 1 minute and 30 seconds. It is what it is.
Brett - quick question. Are you suggesting that the SEC could have stepped in and suggested that the Cotton/Outback select LSU? It is my understanding that the bowls can select whoever they want.
Do you think those lack luster wins had anything to do with that? Not a hidden question, I'm laying some blame at your boy's feet.
I'm sure they can but the SEC can certainly advocate for matchups and positions. I don't know what happened but I do know that LSU seems to get the shaft on a regular basis from the SEC, scheduling being most obvious. Damn shame considering it's one of the big reasons for the SEC's success.
I don't think they helped. The biggest thing that screwed us over was the very thing that made us happy at the time--A & M upsetting Bama. Even though we beat A & M (and made Manziel look fairly bad doing it), the Aggies and Manziel became media darlings with that win. And we were lost in the shuffle.
"But who protects LSU?" says Rabalais. I say, LSU had ample opportunity to protect itself.....against Auburn, Ole Miss, Arkansas, Florida. I just named four nationally televised games where - granted, LSU was 3-1 in those - the Tigers offered tremendously uninspiring performances. LSU played down to the level of its competition entirely too much this season. The result was a 10-2 record that was impressive in its numbers only. We are still a top-tier, marquee program, but we only played to that level a couple of times this season. The bowls want a team that will give them an exciting game. Too many times this year, the excitement the Tigers generated was in fact anxiety that we might blow a game we should have won easily. The only thing to do at this point is to kick the living shit out of Clemson, and carry that momentum into 2013.
We aren't going to kick the living shit out of Clemson. We will never again kick the living shit out of anyone until our defense and special teams start scoring touchdowns and continually shorten the field for our offense.
This is it! This goes back to Miles..............his BS we got to play better and execute comments at EVERY HALFTIME speech to a reporter when barely beating one worthless team after another finally caught up to him. You can say what you want about defensive football but LSU was REALLY boring this year on offense and Miles did almost nothing about it and will not next year either. If I was the Cotton Bowl Committee I would take A&M THIS YEAR, 1000 times out of 1000 times over a VERY BORING LSU offensive football team. A&M is a fun team to watch with JM at QB..........at least this year.
