quote:
Now Mike go look up Haskell's starting lineup vs Nebraska vs Carlisle and then do every match up. Give the offensive plays, hind Carlisle and LSU are the two known throwing teams

I’m not exactly sure what point you are trying to make about Haskell’s starting lineup vs Nebraska. If they didn’t play their best players in that game, then it’s even less of a relevant gauge of anything and renders any other ties to the power regions useless. Looking at all their other results, there’s nothing to suggest the outcome vs Nebraska was an outlier other than the fact that they might have been expected to lose by more. You’ve been somewhat cryptic in your responses, so I’ll ask you directly. What results in 1908 (not another year) suggest to you that Haskell was a high caliber team? They had a loss and a tie against non-major teams. Their only major win was over A&M and I already walked through the unimpressive and closed loop of A&M’s results. Haskell may have played Nebraska who has ties to big time programs, but they lost. That’s a dead end for trying to establish LSU’s relative stature.

As to Carlisle, they were very good that year, but they still finished with 2 losses and a tie. Their style of play may have made them competitive, but Harvard, Minnesota and Penn all held their offense in check. The tie with Penn was still awfully impressive, but the Midwest and East powers still found a way to match their style. As good as they were, we know they weren’t national champions. They fall short relative to Penn, Harvard and Chicago (29-0 victors over Minnesota) at a minimum.

That being the case, style of play alone does not establish LSU’s claim to a national title. You have to somehow show LSU was even better at it than Carlisle. The problem is that Carlisle actually went toe-to-toe with the best LSU did not. Haskell was the second best team LSU played and LSU beat them handily. The problem is that Haskell did not play anyone else of high caliber. Nebraska played a tough schedule but did not fare well apart from the Minnesota tie.

The problem I see with trying to equate LSU with Carlisle (much less better than them) was the Auburn result. Your basic claim is that LSU’s style of play was unstoppable, but they only managed 10 against Auburn. Auburn was a good team, but they weren’t Harvard, Penn or Chicago. Auburn shutout their other opponents, but Sewanee scored only 18 points in 5 games against major opponents and Georgia only 16 in 5. Georgia Tech was their only other major opponent that showed any offensive prowess at all that season. They scored 30 against a Clemson team that went 1-6 and surrendered 41 to Vandy and even 13 to Davidson. They put up 23 on a Miss St team that gave up 50 to LSU and 23 to Tulane. They were also held to 5 by Tennessee and shutout by Sewanee. All that is to say that Auburn’s defense was good, but not really tested by anyone but LSU. There’s just not enough there to conclude that LSU’s offense could put up points on teams like Harvard (shut out Carlisle and only gave up 8 points all year), Penn (held Carlisle to 6 points and gave up only 14 in 8 games against major opponents), or Chicago (gave up 30 in 6 games).

I’m not saying there’s no way LSU could have competed with those teams. I’m just saying their results just are not robust enough to prove that they could. They beat Auburn 10-2 and Haskell 33-0. Those are their only relevant results. Chicago, Penn and Harvard all had ties on their resume, but against much tougher competition. Chicago breezed through the Western Conference include win margins comparable to LSU over Haskell. Penn tied Carlisle but beat the Cornell team that tied Chicago (17-4) and smashed Michigan 29-0. Harvard tied Navy but beat the Carlisle team who tied Penn (17-0) and Yale who went 7-1-1. Those are more impressive resumes.