I don’t do grave dancing, and LSU is no different.
Sometimes, you lose a fight on decision. Sometimes, there’s no referee and you get your backside kicked outside the rear door of the bar and left to bleed on the concrete.
The reality is that LSU is not done because the Tigers are in the SEC, and as long as you play for the title in that conference, you’ve probably got a shot, albeit an outside one.
All the analytics and statistical bull-crap aside, the reality is that LSU got it butt kicked. Coming in, the Tigers had as good an offensive line as you were going to get. Star running back Leonard Fournette was averaging around 8 yards per carry. So was his backup.
The Tide flat out beat them up, and hard. Alabama’s scheme was Belichickian. Take away the one thing the opposing team wants to do, even at the point of potential peril, and see if they can get it done.
In the first half, they couldn’t. Brandon Harris was as good as you can imagine after looking like a cute blonde walking through a horror movie scene within the first 20 minutes. His touchdown pass to Travin Doral under duress with six minutes left before halftime made it look like he’d figured out what needed to be figured out.
The thing about Alabama is, though, that the Tide do their best work after they’ve had a chance to see the materials.
Forget what Leonard Fournette did or did not do versus Derrick Henry. Alabama held the Tigers to 182 yards overall. The entire game.
The long-term result of this game is the little-known fact people don’t always acknowledge: Teams get better within the season. We saw it last year with Ohio State after an early loss to Virginia Tech. We may be seeing it this year with Alabama.
It doesn’t absolve the loss itself, but does lend a lot of credence to the idea that what we think we know after one game should be pliable.
When it comes to LSU, however, this is close to the endgame. The reality we’ve learned from the playoff committee is that it takes what happens after the original 12-game schedule into serious account. If you don’t have a conference title game for that 13th poker chip, God help you in the Big 12 or at Notre Dame.
If you don’t even qualify for a conference title game … well … more than God help you, I guess. If that’s possible.
The upside for LSU is that this was, in spite of all the outside expectations, a reasonable building year. Fournette will be back in 2016. Harris will as well. While questions will marinate about if, when, and how Les Miles will find a quarterback capable of removing the ability of great coaches like Nick Saban to hone in on Fournette, the talent will forever exist to figure it out.
LSU, though — seemingly forever — has failed to develop a consistent threat throwing the ball in spite of the almost obnoxious talent available to catch it, as well as deceive with the running game.
Harris was awful in the second half. Alabama played man coverage all night long, daring LSU to complete a pass of consequence. Sometimes, the Tide got burned, as on the touchdown in the first half when they sent a corner blitz … the most risky of blitzes … and left a safety to cover a wide receiver assuming the pass wouldn’t be on point.
It was, but only once. Football, more than ever, is about quarterback play, repeatedly throwing the ball as opposed to striking gold in a single situation. LSU needs to be better in that department, however it comes about.
The end result of Saturday night is this: The Tigers are dead to rights unless Alabama decides to fold, either at Mississippi State or Auburn. Neither are likely. Both are possible. That’s not the position they intended to occupy when the evening started.
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