2012 Pre-season Rankings: #4 LSU Tigers

SportsRatings 2012 College Football Pre-season Top 124

LSU Tigers  (SEC #2; West #2)

#4	2011 Results	Record: 13-1	Strength:#3  Success:#1  Overall:#2
		AP #2  USA #2	Bowl: Lost to Alabama 21-0 (BCS championship)
	2012 Outlook	Record: 10-2	Picks: Lindy's #1; Athlon #2; Steele #2
		AP #3  USA #1	Bowl: Sugar Bowl (Eligibility odds: 99.9%)

LSU is back and as good as ever—but can they win it all without the Honey Badger?

Offense 6 RS	'11 Scoring Offense: #17 (raw) #10 (adjusted for competition)
	'12 Projected Scoring Offense: #6 (adjusted)

LSU will still be a run-based team; if they have better passing, that's good too but not necessary.

Passing Game	'11 Passing Rank: #109 (raw) #104 (adjusted)	'11 Sacks Allowed (adj.): #24
	'12 Projected Passing Rank: #112 (adjusted)	'12 Sacks Allowed (proj.): #20

Jarrett Lee had more yardage (1,306), and more touchdowns (14), but he didn't play a down in the BCS title game. Jordan Jefferson (737 yards, 6 TDs, 2 int) started the last half of the season due to his running and playmaking ability. Their combined 20:5 ratio was quite good. Both are gone, and Zach Mettenberger (8 of 11 for 92 yards, 1 TD last year) will take over. Expectations are pretty high, but then why didn't he see a down in the offensively futile BCS title game either? Top receiver Reuben Randle (917 yards, 8 TDs) is gone. #2 Odell Beckham (475) is back but Russell Shepard (190) is the only other one back who had over 100. The offensive line will protect better and over the summer the team added Penn State transfer Rob Bolden (1,360 yards, 5 TDs in 2010), but we see more of the same in a run-based offense.

Rushing

'11 Rushing Rank: #22 (raw) #15 (adjusted)

'11 Projected Rushing Rank: #4 (adj.)

Michael Ford and Spencer Ware combined for 1,463 yards and 15 touchdowns last year, while Alfred Blue and Kenny Hilliard added 875 and 15. All four are back, so QB Jefferson's 263 net yards is the biggest loss. Ford may have academic issues—particularly the early games—but we treat him as returning. With that caliber of players in the backfield and a stronger offensive line, the running game will be hard to stop. Alex Hurst, Chris Faulk, P.J. Lonergan, and Josh Williford return on the offensive line while Josh Dworaczyk started in 2010 and is back from injury.

'11 Adjusted Stats:	Rush Defense: #3    Pass Defense  per-game: #10   Per-attempt: #4
Defense 4 RS	'11 Scoring Defense: #2 (raw) #2 (adjusted)	'11 sacks: #13	'11 picks: #13
	'12 Projected Scoring Defense: #2 (adjusted)	'12 sacks: #13	'12 picks: #41

The biggest news of the off-season other than the Penn State sanctions was probably the suspension of Tyrann Mathieu. The Honey Badger was the team's co-leading tackler and had 9 pass breakups and 2 interceptions, but more importantly he made several huge plays, seemingly every game, on either defense or special teams and was a first-team All-American corner.

But even without him the defense gets our #2 scoring defense nod, same as last year, and will have a strong pass rush. The secondary still has Eric Reid, co-tackle leader and also an All-American. But they lose Brandon Taylor as well as Morris Claiborne (6 interceptions) so the secondary and pass defense will clearly be weaker. Expect Tharold Simon (10 pass breakups) to step up as he moves into a starting role.

The defensive line will be devastating, however, with Sam Montgomery (9 sacks) and Barkavious Mingo (8 sacks) returning with Bennie Logan. Kevin Minter is the only starter back at linebacker where Ryan Baker is a big loss.

Special Teams/Situations

• Kicking Game:  Drew Alleman made 16 of 18 field goals and essentially won the first game vs. Alabama for the team. He's back along with punter Brad Wing, who averaged a great 44.4 yards per punt.
• Return Game:  LSU had three touchdowns on returns last year; one was by Morris Claiborne who departs, and the other two were by Tyrann Mathieu who is also gone. Paul Turner and Odell Beckham should do a good job in replacement but Claiborne's 25.1 kickoff return average and Mathieu's 15.6 average on punts will be hard to match.
• Turnovers projection:  LSU had a great fumble margin, and that normally reverts back to the mean. Especially without Mathieu to force and/or recover them, that will probably be the case. Lee and Jefferson only threw 5 picks last year and we see that likely to increase. Finally, the defense will have fewer than last year's 18 without Claiborne and Mathieu. In every area, this team loses points from last year on turnovers. If they have the same margin as last year somehow, they would rank as our #1 team.

Coaching/Recruiting      2012 Recruiting Rank: #15          2011 Recruiting Rank: #10
Les Miles brought in another stellar recruiting class. Although the very top names eluded him, there are at least a half-dozen consensus blue chip players in the group. Miles either looks like a genius or an idiot while coaching, sometimes calling brilliant plays and other times mismanaging the clock. He looked brilliant all season until the BCS championship game, where he kept trying everything that didn't work and never once gave a QB other than Jordan Jefferson a chance. Meanwhile Nick Saban had picked out the few things that had worked in game one and did them over and over, nickel and diming the LSU defense while their defense remained dominant. Quite simply, Saban prepared better and outcoached Miles.

2011 Recap
LSU played better than expected from the start, knocking out a strong Oregon team in the opener and continuing to roll over their opponents. First they established that the defense was good; then they started putting up outrageous point totals even when their offense wasn't so fearsome. By the time they met Alabama the first time they'd put up 40+ points five times. They were shut down on offense by the Tide but managed to win the game despite that. They fell behind against Arkansas and Georgia and rallied to win blowouts. They beat Georgia despite passing for just 30 yards, and scored 40 or more in their last four games—the last three of which were arguably their best performances, given the opponents and the final scores (Mississippi 52-3, Arkansas 41-17, and Georgia 42-10).

The Tigers' magic ran out against Alabama in the rematch. They were as inept on offense as the earlier game, but tried nothing new to remedy that. After a 13-0 start, the Tigers were embarrassingly shut out by the Tide 21-0.

2012 Outlook

LSU 2012 schedule & forecast
9/1	Sat	vs.	North Texas	99%	W
9/8	Sat	vs.	Washington	97%	W
9/15	Sat	vs.	Idaho	99%	W
9/22	Sat	@	*Auburn	86%	W
9/29	Sat	vs.	Towson	100%	W
10/6	Sat	@	*Florida	80%	W
10/13	Sat	vs.	*South Carolina	86%	W
10/20	Sat	@	*Texas A&M	78%	W
11/3	Sat	vs.	*Alabama	54%	W
11/10	Sat	vs.	*Mississippi State	95%	W
11/17	Sat	vs.	*Mississippi	99%	W
11/23	Fri	@	*Arkansas	68%	W
Straight up: 12-0  Cume: 10-2  Undefeated: 15%

 

Does losing the Honey Badger put a dent into LSU's national title plans?

Some have claimed Mathieu's loss won't ultimately affect LSU this year, and that he is overrated as a cover man. That could be true, but his game-changing ability (six forced fumbles and five fumble recoveries) show a knack for the ball rarely seen, and that's not considering his punt return skill. The team is clearly worse off without him, and though it's impossible to truly gauge the value of a single player, he was one of their keys to success last year and it's very possible that losing him could be the difference between a national championship and a 1-loss season.

But for the most part we have to consider LSU a team of 85 players, and they are going to have a good season without Mathieu. We still favor them in every game, largely because they get Alabama at home. Other than that game, they also have to face Auburn, Florida, South Carolina, Texas A&M, and Arkansas, all good teams.

Still they have a 15% chance of going undefeated. The most likely outcome is 11-1, but the average outcome leans to 10-2. Game-by-game they would be the SEC West winner and on their way to the BCS championship again, but since we rank them #4—and #2 in the West, we assign them the Sugar Bowl where in our universe they'd play Texas.

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