By Hunt Palmer
A different feeling surrounds LSU’s training camp this August.
No, not the temperature. That’s the same. It’s scalding.
It’s the feeling around the expectations and goals of the LSU football team. Despite some perceived questions regarding the talent at key defensive spots, competing for a championship feels more realistic due to the expansion of the College Football Playoff.
In college football, there are haves and have nots.
The playing field is not level between LSU and Louisiana Tech. It’s not even level between LSU and Missouri. Budgets and geography play such a major part in on-field success. LSU happens to take in north of $200 million in athletic revenue annually and anchor a state which produces more NFL talent per capita than any in America.
That means championships are the standard in Baton Rouge.
Venture up to Purdue, and the standard changes. Winning eight or nine games qualifies as a success. That’s attainable no matter how many teams can qualify for the playoffs.
For the last two decades, LSU has taken to the Charles McClendon Practice Facility each August with an understanding that the only way to meet the standard is to win 11 or 12 games in the regular season. A second loss all but vanquishes the dream…unless Pat White gets hurt, Pittsburgh springs a massive upset, Les Miles decides to stay and Ryan Perrilloux becomes the SEC Championship Game MVP.
But most of the time, the second loss vanquishes the dream.
Since 1970, a run of 53 years, LSU has played a regular season with one or fewer losses four times. Even this 20-year Golden Age of LSU football has only featured three such seasons.
Mathematically speaking, LSU’s odds of reaching the playoff were minute. Until now.
In 2024, the College Football Playoff has expanded to 12 teams. No longer does Labor Day to Thanksgiving feel like a three-month high wire act where one slipup could be the end. Now it’s more like a balance beam routine. Slip, wobble, even fall. You can still hop back up and finish.
The prevailing thought is that a 10-2 regular season should punch an SEC program’s ticket to the playoff.
I’m betting the 10-2 LSU Tigers of 2006 would have liked a chance to compete for a title. Ask Charlie Weis and Brady Quinn about that group. Four future first-round picks helped deck the Irish by 27 in the Sugar Bowl to cap that season.
Yet, that was the end of the line for LSU because of a couple of poor offensive showings before October 10th. I’d suggest Chris Leak, Urban Meyer and Co. were probably just fine taking on Ohio State for a title that year instead a rematch with an LSU team that had finally found its groove.
How about the 2012 team that had its heart ripped out by eventual national champion Alabama? Could they have played their way to another crack at the Tide if given the chance?
That revenge-soaked November night in Death Valley was the beginning of Zach Mettenberger, Odell Beckham, Jarvis Landry and Jeremy Hill becoming a historic offensive quartet. They hardly resembled the unit that couldn’t muster anything an early loss to Florida.
The defense on the other side included Kevin Minter, Bennie Logan, Eric Reid and Barkevious Mingo among other future pros. Instead of preparing for the mass exodus of early entrees to the NFL Draft the following spring, that group could have stayed focused on getting back to a second straight national title game. TJ Yeldon’s scamper into the north end zone robbed them of that.
To some, the playoff expansion has weakened “the best regular season in all of sports”. The do or die nature of a two or four team bracket creates more tension as the season progresses, they say.
Spare me.
If Michigan and Ohio State are both unbeaten entering the season finale, they would be playing for a bye in this new format. Those are some real stakes even if the loser stays in the title hunt.
Meanwhile, LSU would have gone to College Station in 2018 and 2022 playing for a chance to stay alive in the national title picture. Both of those teams were dealt a third loss by the Aggies.
There are other games like those two every November that will take on far more significance in this new era.
It’s still fair to question LSU’s personnel entering Brian Kelly’s third season. It’s just as fair to suggest the Tigers are a playoff contender.
The Associated Press ranked LSU No. 12 in its preseason poll. The Coaches pegged the Tigers 13th. Various sportsbooks have LSU’s win total at 9 or 9.5. All of that, meaningless as it may be in August, puts the Tigers right on the edge of the playoff.
Perhaps a trip to Happy Valley or Eugene in December is on the horizon.
Now THAT would be a different feeling.
