From another board --- dandydon.com -- LSU will be entertaining Western Illinois this Staurday. Western Illinois is ranked No. 1 in the nation in 1-AA this week after defeating division 1-A Eastern Michigan last Saturday on the road. Western Illinois has several transfer players on the team from 1-A schools and will be the best team LSU has played this season.
If they expect to beat LSU they better have a few "transfers" from the Tampa Bay Bucs or the Oakland Raiders.
As long as LSU comes out to play like they have so far this season I don't see a problem. If they are overlooking this team because of Georgia it might be a sloppy game. I think coach Saban will have them fired up to play...................
We are ranked #1 in 1AA and our best WR has not played yet. Sure hope this is the week, he gets some playing time, we will need it. If he doesn't get any playing time LSU wins big. If he plays the game is on!! His presents makes the "O" COMPLETE. great board... best to both teams! but...... GO NECKS
I'm thinking we'll hang with you guys for a half and can only hope that you beat yourselves with TOs and penalties. A lot of our starters are 1-A talents, but that talent doesn't run through our entire depth chart and usually its depth that prevails in these type of games. Don't take us lightly though, we're ranked #1 for a reason. Still, I'll say 40-17 LSU and hope we dont' have any serious injuries. Also, after this game I never want to see that much purple on a football field.
Some people think Division 1-AA schools are patently inferior to Division 1-A schools because, well, they are Division 1-AA schools. This belief is mistaken. Division 1-AA teams routinely beat 1-A teams. Granted most of those so-called 1-A teams are Sun Belt and MAC bottom feeders. But every now and then, a well-established, winning 1-A program gets hit in the mouth by a 1-AA team. 2002 Western Illinois 29, Northern Illinois 26, NIU went on to finish 8-4 2001 Northwestern St. 27, TCU 24, TCU finished 6-6 and lost to Texas A&M in the Houston Bowl 2000 Appalachian St. 20, Wake Forest 16, Wake Forest did finish 2-9 that year, but were only temporarily down and have otherwise been successful in the last five years 1993 Weber St. 47, Nevada 30, Nevada finishes 7-4 1992 Weber St. 23, Nevada 21, Nevada finished 7-5 and Big West champs, lost to Bowling Green in the Las Vegas Bowl I've got a friend doing in-depth research to come up with more. There have also been several close calls, such as Oregon St. leading off their 11-1 Fiesta Bowl season by barely escaping Eastern Washington 21-19 and Pittsburgh surviving Villanova 48-41 back in 98. Bottom line: if we take WIU lightly, we may regret it. If both LSU and WIU play to the best of their ability, LSU wins handily. If LSU plays sharp and WIU plays average or horribly, LSU wins in a blowout. If both teams play horribly, LSU wins because of pure talent. If both teams play average, LSU wins because of pure talent. If WIU plays in top form and LSU plays horribly, look out. This is a game we should win, no question. But we need to approach it with the right frame of mind. WIU will not just lay down for us because we are big, bad LSU. We had better strap it on tight and come ready. This is football, after all.
That is an excellent post Jetstorm, any team can win a football game no matter the difference in talent. The point is that LSU should win, but could have a game on our hands if things just don't go our way. The very good teams are able to overcome these kinds of "bad games" and still win. I feel our program is at that point now. When we lost to UAB, our team clearly wasn't ready. LSU has been playing with confidence ever since Rohan became the starter, and things haven't changed since he left.
I think that infamous UAB loss, as painful as it was, was definitely THE turning point for this program under Coach Saban's leadership. The team had two choices after that game: fold their tents, go to the house, and mail in the rest of the season just like they had done the two years prior, or dig deep, suck it up, and come out fighting the next week. Josh Booty was put on the bench after that final interception and given two choices by Saban and Fisher; get with the freakin' program or go home. He got another chance when Rohan got hurt and went 4-1 as a starter after that game. We have been climbing upward ever since. We've stumbled a few times along the way (getting blown out by Florida at home, losing to Ole Miss, the late collapse last season) but we are definitely on our way. There's no reason we should lose this Saturday. Good teams take every game seriously. So if we do, and if we play well, that's a good sign. All I'm saying is that we need to take care of business every week.
