re: Would we have beaten Stanford this year?

As I posted in another thread on the MSB, and a poster above also posted, VT's defensive scheme and lack of adjustments along with poor execution by the safties due to confusion made Stanford look really good. Stanford can be stopped as Arizona State showed. Additionally the VT O line seemed to have real difficuties seeing folds and stunts and were essentially unable to block/partially block more than one defender at a time. Tyrods continued reluctance to get rid of the ball casused some very long yardage situations.

I think the LSU front on both sides of the line is signifigantly better than VT's and Chavis would have made better adjustments. Our safties likely would have still given up a big play or two due to confusion but it would have been rare. The advantage of having PP on the corner especially if you play him a little deep is that with his speed those 60 and 70 yrd runs through big holes up the middle would have been reduced to 10-15 yards at most.

Luck is a MUCH better QB than anything we have but he made a few mental mistakes that I think LSU would have capitalized on. Additionally I dont think it would have been as easy for him to find open targets agaisnt LSU. Everytime he got hit he really seemed to get up slowly and Stanford went run for the next several plays. Im not sure the abuse he would recieved from Nevis, Matheiu, PP, Shep would have allowed a 4th qtr rally.

Offensively, LSU has a stable full of powerful running backs that out perform VT's rushers with the exception of Tyrod.

I think LSU would have beaten Stanford by 10 (28-18)after being ahead 21-3 at the half.