Resting our starters the next 2 weeks will be important

I'm glad cupcakes Auburn and Miss St are thrown in between those games

After they lose to LSU they can gel all they want

Never underestimate the opponent..

quote:

---

I'm glad cupcakes Auburn and Miss St are thrown in between those games

---

They could be 0-8 and still give us a fit.

quote:

---

Auburn was abysmal last year and we barely escaped with a win.

---

That was in Auburn. LSU is cursed there anyway

It's September. These are young bucks who need playing time. They can rest when they're old like you and me.

Reps right now, not rest, IMO is what is needed.

quote:

---

5 consecutive SEC games. 3 out of the 5 are road games. 

---

4 of which were bowl teams last year, and Auburn will almost certainly go bowling this year imo, although MSU may not.

I started a thread about this months ago. The main benefit of Alabama and A&Ms schedule is that they never play more than 3 SEC games in a row, and both of their 3 game stretches start with a road game followed by 2 home games, none of which are against Big 6 teams.

There just isn't any point that they can get worn down, whereas LSU is going to be facing the traditional SEC meat grinder for 5 weeks in the middle of the season.

As an example of how difficult this can be to overcome, look no further than Alabama's schedule last season:

Oct. 13 @Missou 42-10
Oct. 20 @Tenn. 44-13
Oct. 27 Miss. St. 38-7
Nov. 3 @LSU 21-17
Nov 10 A&M 24-29


Obviously, LSU and A&M likely would have been tough hard fought games no matter when they were played, but if I were Bama fan, I'd certainly feel like those games could have played out differently if the team wasn't as run down.


The bright spot for LSU is that Ole Miss, who was a popular upset alert coming into the season for LSU, are going to be beat up by that game as well, which could benefit the deeper LSU roster. Here is the Rebs schedule before LSU:

@ Texas
Bye
@ Alabama
@Auburn
A&M
LSU

That is brutal, and OM could be on a 4 game losing streak when LSU rolls in. That game hasn't scared me as much since realizing that. It'll still be a tough and dangerous road game, but at least our tired team won't be facing a fresh team poised to ambush us.

I've always felt Georgia would be our worst matchup of the year. Their strength on offense will likely force us to win a shootout in Athens. We're capable of doing it, but it would be an upset imo.

But the Florida game is the one that I think is positioned to be that game where the grind could cost us a game we would otherwise win.

Florida will play Tennessee, @Kentucky, and Arkansas at home before coming to Baton Rouge. The Gators should be relatively fresh, and are as deep if not even deeper than LSU. The game being in BR helps, but that didn't stop the Ags from ending Bama's undefeated season last year.

Auburn is certainly talented enough to catch us looking ahead to Georgia now that Malzahn is there, and Florida is in that spot like Kentucky was in 07 where we may just be running low on fuel.

Definitely 2 games that I think people may be taking too much for granted, perhaps because they are at home.

Defense needs reps in live games for sure... Not rest. They only played 54 snaps against TCU which further drives the point that the offense is doing what it is supposed to do. We can't expect the offense to run 80 plays every game in the SEC. That just isn't going to happen with some of the defenses we'll see this year. So to me, the defense needs more work and sitting them for the second half of a game that they can work on their issues isn't a good plan.