LSU fits no definition of a sleeper. From 2001 through 2011, it won two national titles, played for a third and took four SEC championships. This is — to invoke a word Les Miles deployed six times in his 1,398-word opening statement Wednesday — a “quality” program.
The Tigers find themselves in an unusual but not unpleasant position: They’ll enter the 2014 season not as the defending SEC champion or the team that will be picked to win it. (Auburn is the former; Alabama will be the latter.) The Tigers have won 10 or more games four seasons running — heck, they’ve averaged 10.6 wins over Miles’ nine seasons in Baton Rouge — but they’re not the SEC’s flavor of the month. We shouldn’t, however, be shocked if they become its team of the year.
“We believe as a team,” said La’El Collins, who’s among the nation’s best offensive linemen. “We have a vision. We’re not going to win a national championship because of our (preseason) rating, but if we take care of business, we’ll be right where we want to be.”
Not many teams could have absorbed the hits LSU took the past two winters — 11 Tigers left early for the NFL after the 2012 season; seven more departed after 2013 — and kept dreaming such sweet dreams. “That’s because of the guys we recruit,” Collins said, and here we pause to clarify.
The Tigers occupy the same division as Alabama, which has finished No. 1 in Rivals’ recruiting rankings six of the past seven years. But LSU has ranked among the top 11 every year save one since 2006, and for top-end talent they can stand with any program. In February the Tigers ranked No. 2 behind Bama, and they could get a bigger immediate bang for their recruiting buck.
Leonard Fournette was considered the best running back of his class. Malachi Dupre was rated the nation’s second-best receiver and should start. Quarterback Brandon Harris could start. That’s three freshmen at difference-making positions.
Of Fournette, Collins said: “He can bring everything we need. As a running back, he can do it all.”
It’s not as if the Tigers need all that much. Of their six losses since they were beaten by Alabama in the 2011 BCS title game, five have been by one-score margins. They let a lead slip in the final minute in 2012 against Bama, which would win the national championship, and last year they claimed a two-touchdown victory over Auburn, which played for the crystal football. LSU has been very close. If you’re LSU, though, close doesn’t count.
“We’re a very capable team,” Collins said. “Each and every year, we want to be fighting for championships. We just need to refocus, to find the team that will put us back where we need to be.”
Could this be that team? Talent-wise, yes. Schedule-wise, maybe. The Tigers will open against Wisconsin in Houston’s Reliant Stadium. They don’t play either Georgia or South Carolina from the SEC East. They’ll face Auburn at Jordan-Hare on Oct. 4. The annual lollapalooza with Alabama will be staged in Death Valley. LSU will be tested, but there’s no game that appears unwinnable.
Like Alabama and Texas A&M and Georgia and South Carolina, LSU must find a new quarterback, but the Tigers are bit different in that they’re not so quarterback-dependent. (If they were, they couldn’t have gone 13-1 in 2011 behind Jordan Jefferson and Jarrett Lee.) Auburn has to prove it has a defense, something LSU has never lacked. Ole Miss has to prove it belongs on the SEC’s top shelf. Florida has to prove it’s still Florida. With the SEC as unsettled as the SEC ever gets, why not LSU?
As Miles told the assembled masses at Media Days: “We’re a team that’s really on the cusp of an opportunity to win championships.”
Maybe Alabama will prove too good, which Alabama can be. Maybe Auburn’s Gus Malzahn will again outflank everybody. Maybe it’s finally Georgia’s year, or South Carolina’s. But LSU, which never really went away, appears poised to break upward. A program of such pedigree can’t be deemed a long shot, but if you’re tired of everyone picking Nick Saban and his crew to win everything … well, here’s your alternative.
That 1,398-word opening statement? Miles closed it by saying: “I like us. I like us in every game. Any questions?”
None from here, no. Just this factoid, from which the cocksure coach can draw even greater sustenance. The last time his Tigers entered a season in which Auburn was the reigning conference champ and Alabama the preseason pick was in 2011. Sure enough, LSU won the SEC.
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