Don’t forget that the strength of opponents that we have played is significantly higher. If we traded Florida for Duke and Texas for Arkansas, our scoring defense might look at little bit different.

I’m not saying LSU wins, but in terms of tangible arguments, your WRs have not demonstrated strong contested ball skills. They rely on catching with space and running, or just outrunning the opponent deep altogether. Delpit, Stevens, and Stingley all have above average to superb ball skills, and our DBs should win those 50-50 balls, although I don’t expect Sark to call for many of those for that reason. Additionally, Stingley is not infallible, but he has been the best cover corner in the country so far, and Fulton’s no slouch. You’re going to have to rely on the slots for a bulk of completions and maybe hope to catch Stingley and Fulton on sluggos. I’m comfortable with those matchups for the most part if we can give Tua a clock. If not, you can only cover for so long.

dang....you mean they’re actually practicing against the LSU offense??? please tell me more!

Your supposition is the bama d is as good as last year?

maybe, just maybe, LSU has been preparing for bama as well?

somehow I just not overly impressed that the gumps have been preparing for the LSU offense

try again

I am not going to say we are definitely beating Bama. That's foolhardy. We can and we should beat them, however, Saban always has his players especially ready for us when we play them. It's anyone's game. I hope we prevail this year and we certainly can, but there are a lot of factors in play that could go either way.

Its gump hate week, you get no quarter

See, not so confident when you put it in those terms. Run along now, before you end up in timeout until the 10th

Well, that would be no fun. Hard to have a gump hate period without any gumps. I ask that he invites more. Let's feast

He knows I wouldn't toss him

We'll see, but LSU's current offense is a complicated version of KISS. Only 4 in the box on second down? Well, I guess we should run. Lining up 5 yards away from receivers? I guess we'll take the 4 yard pass. There are obviously details I'm glossing over hard, but that's the essence of the levels concept. On any given pass play you have a checkdown, short route, and medium route so that you can beat any coverage scheme with reasonable blocking. On runs you typically do an RPO to force them to either not sell out against the run post once they see the o-line doing run blocking or get smoked. Basically, the name of the game is always having options every single play and taking what the defense gives you. That's why Burrow has been able to have a 78% completion rate, he's basically never forced to take an unfavorable throw.

Ah yes, "Just pressure Joe Burrow while only rushing 4". This definitely isn't John Madden level football analysis. Never mind that there are only like 3 or 4 teams in the country who can do this, and Bama isn't one of them. Our o-line is relatively soft, but they're not that soft and are better at pass blocking than run blocking. Also never mind that Joe Burrow is really, really good at playing in a collapsing pocket and extending plays.

Edit: Forgot to finish my thoughts

I'm just glad that for the first time in years I actually feel like we can legitimately win. Our team is getting better, we are taking the steps to get back to Bama's level.

If we get back to playing disciplined ball we have a great opportunity here. Our D is getting healthy and improving, it's not what we're accustomed to, but it's getting better. I'd have Stingley shadow Jeudy and Fulton shadow Smith. The problem is Vincent playing Waddle. I'd rather see Flott in there.

perhaps no other team matches up vs.bama as well on the back as LSU.....having said that, i think the whole ballgame is how well 5 plays