By Hunt Palmer
It’s Saturday morning at Death Valley.
A pair of teams with interim head coaches are playing for pride. And a boot. It’s good on good and bad on bad as Arkansas’ high flying offense meets LSU’s stern defense. The Tiger offense and the Hogs defense, well, they’re not great.
LSU has a question mark at quarterback. It might be Garrett Nussmeier. It might be Michael Van Buren.
Here are the staff picks.
Jacob Hester, Co-host, Off the Bench: You can’t lose to an Arkansas team that hasn’t won in the SEC. Find a way. 28-27, LSU.
Matt Flynn, Co-host, Off the Bench: By god, I think we are going to do it. We are going to score more than 25 minutes with a game winning field goal! Arkansas offense makes some plays but the Tiger defense creates some turnovers to set up some short fields. 28-25, LSU
Taylor Sharp, Video Producer, Off the Bench: I think LSU wins this game. The Tigers have to find some sort of spark, does it come from Michael Van Buren? Does Garrett Nussmeier even Play? Who knows, so many question marks surrounding both teams in the battle of SEC interim coaches. Arkansas can certainly score, but Blake Baker did a nice job game planning for Taylen Green a year ago and the Tigers are at home which is the tiebreaker for me. 28-24, LSU
Alondra Villarreal, Audio Producer, Off the Bench: I’ll take the Tigers. But I don’t feel great about it. 30-28, LSU.
Charles Hanagriff, Co-host, Live at Lunch: The Hogs can score, the Tigers have trouble cashing in on their red zone chances. 31-27, Arkansas.
Hunt Palmer, Host, The Hunt Palmer Show: LSU would have to do something the Tigers haven’t done all year to win. Either stop a good offense or score a bunch. I don’t see it. 31-26 Arkansas.
Matt Moscona, Host, After Further Review: The LSU offense against the Arkansas defense is a bad-on-bad matchup. I don’t trust the LSU offense to finish drives—at least not enough to keep pace with Arkansas. Taylen Green running the ball is a problem for a defense that can’t stop running quarterbacks. There won’t be much of a home field advantage, and this game always means more to Arkansas. LSU’s slide continues. 31-24, Arkansas
Matthew Musso, Audio Producer, After Further Review: It would not surprise me at all if Arkansas won this football game. The instability at quarterback for LSU really bothers me, but I don’t know which Taylen Green is showing up. The really good one or the really bad one? Without knowing that, I’ll take the home team. 29-27, LSU.
Paul O’Neill, Video Producer, After Further Review: This matchup has everything you worry about for a potential upset. An early kickoff, a checked-out fan base, a struggling offense, a defense that can’t stop a running quarterback and an interim head coach. Granted, Arkansas also has their own struggles this season. The main question will be which team wants it more. Will Garrett Nussmeier be effective after tweaking his injury and how well will Michael Van Buren play once he gets into the game? Can Blake Baker’s defense find a solution to stop Taylen Green in the running game? That has been the defense’s biggest issue over the last two seasons. If they can, I believe the Tigers will do enough offensively to get the win on Saturday. 26-24, LSU.
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