Not going to say you are wrong but can you give a rationally insightful preview of each team. Or is the ranking based on what you can read, or have heard about the teams.

I can make a list of top 25 based on what I have read, heard, or can look up. Like LSU I know the more about the program than other schools. That is one reason they are easier to break down.

I do not know USC, Penn State, Utah, TCU, or Texas schedule off top of my head. I do not know who their backup DE is or that matter some of their back up QB's. With LSU I can tell you pretty much entire 3 deep rotation, their 40 times, and what high school they attended.

All I am saying is we can each make a top 10 list with what we know or have heard about teams. Yet I (and I am assuming you) do not follow those teams close enough to know each detail about the program. What if there was a minor change on coaching staff we do not know about, what if the back up is out for season.

Understand where I am coming from?

This post was edited on 8/22/09 at 12:40 pm

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Posted by Dignan

Member since Sep 2005

13265 posts

Posted on 8/22/09 at 12:41 pm to LSU Yellow Cab

I fully understand where you're coming from and I can appreciate your perspective.

I hate to sound like a total message board loser, but I do consider myself to know much more than the average college football fan. I have the ESPN Gameplan and watch just about everything I possibly can. For my job, I cover Central Texas and listen to just about anything college football related on XM. I'm not trying to be a jerk, but I follow college football (nationally) a little closer than you.

I think its a lot easier to simply say LSU has too many question marks to be a top 10 team, but you haven't offered any other teams that belong ahead of the Tigers.

Consider 2007. When LSU lost to Arkansas and had two losses, would you have said they deserved to play for the national title? Of course not. But then you have to look at who should have gotten in. When you put everything on the table, LSU was, in fact, the most deserving two loss team.

I'm not trying to be a pest, but tell me who should be ranked ahead of LSU at this point, if LSU is not a top 10 team.

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Posted by King Joey

Just south of the DC/US border

Member since Mar 2004

12513 posts

Posted on 8/23/09 at 4:33 am to LSU Yellow Cab

quote:
Yet I (and I am assuming you) do not follow those teams close enough to know each detail about the program. What if there was a minor change on coaching staff we do not know about, what if the back up is out for season.

If that is the case, it seems that you are filling in the blanks for other teams with optimistic presumptions (like Bama's QBs with 16 pass attempts between them managing key plays vs. SEC defenses, and them coming up with 3 top flight SEC-caliber offensive linemen when 8 months ago they couldn't come up with one and a quality backup). From what I can tell, if you fill in the questionmarks for LSU with speculation as optimistic as that used to fill in the question marks for other teams, we come out very close to the Tide. They were better last year, but they also have more (and more significant) holes to fill. Remember, with their intact OL, 5th year veteran QB and great defense, and with our struggling freshman QB and keystone kops defense, we still took them to OT last year. So it's not like there's some huge gulf in talent or ability, or even the teams in general. And, unlike Bama, we have hugely upgraded our coaching staff over last years.

I'm not usually the type to get all worried about whether I'm being "a homer" or whether my predictions are "realistic (i.e.; negative) enough". But even when I try and get pessimistic about this I just can't see much reason to believe Bama will be any better than LSU this year.