re: Is Georgia a must win or are we in a regional regardless of outcome?

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It's absolutely a must-win. You need to differentiate yourself from the other 13-17 teams in the league because a blind resume puts LSU at the end of that pecking order

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A blind resume if you only look at Q1 record and RPI ranking. If you dig a little deeper that’s not at all true. The Q1 designation is completely arbitrary and excludes LSU going 4-0 against La Tech and Ole Miss who otherwise would be Q1. It excludes Florida getting swept by Missouri. Now suddenly LSU is 11-13 and Florida 13-20. Florida is rewarded by RPI for playing harder teams and losing. Florida did play one more tough SEC series, but LSU went 5-1 non-conference against RPI Top 40 teams with only 2 other losses, while Florida went 0-2 with 7 other losses, including 3 in weekend games. LSU is 18-18 vs Q1/2 vs 15-23 for Florida. LSU has a better resume and I fully expect the committee to hold Florida’s 28-26 record against them.

If you look at SC and Vanderbilt, the conclusions are similar. They played tougher conference schedules (Vandy only slightly), but LSU had better non-conference results. SC went 0-2 against Clemson with no quality wins. Vandy beat ULL and Texas like LSU, but can’t match LSU’s series win over Xavier. Honestly, there’s very little to separate those 3. I don’t see the committee excluding any of them just to arbitrarily cap the number of SEC schools.