Hello Tiger fans! It is Saturday and I am ready for some LSU football. Troy is our last game to clean everything up before a daunting stretch of seven consecutive conference games.
Once again, the opposing quarterback will be the most dangerous athlete on the field. Brandon Silvers is not a threat with his legs with only 30 yards rushing on the season. However, he threw for 300+ yards vs Akron last Saturday with no interceptions. Those are Drew Brees-esque type numbers. He also showed his ability to make plays in life or death situations vs Akron, the aspect of a quarterback that can’t be measured by stats. They were down by one with two minutes to go when Silvers marched his team 97 yards down the field. He then threw a beautiful touchdown pass to the corner of the end zone to win the game. We’ll see if he can do the same while Death Valley roars on a Saturday night.
I expect our Tiger run defense to be an impenetrable wall tonight. Running is not Troy’s strength, although their leading rusher, Jordan Chunn, is a big boy at 6’1” and 236 pounds and runs fast. Nevertheless, I think LSU will stop up the middle, use their team speed to hold the edge and ultimately force Troy to rely on the pass as Syracuse was forced to do last week. And when this happens, we will see that the Troy wide receivers are not comparable to the NFL talent Syracuse had at that position. I think that our DBU we will disable their pass game. This should be a strong showing for Dave Aranda’s defensive crew.
Even with our recent troubles in the trenches, I expect LSU will give Etling the time he needs to pick apart the Troy secondary. Troy does not have a defensive line that can compete with SEC big boys. Ladies and gentlemen, if I am wrong on this one and our offensive line proves inconsistent yet again against a lower tier opponent, then LSU’s problems are even bigger than I imagined. Nevertheless, I am confident that 300+ yards on the ground is very possible. If our run game clicks, I would still like to see Etling use his time in the pocket to pick apart the defense with his arm since this aspect of our offense desperately needs a tune up before conference play. And we will see Myles Brennan in the game, Orgeron has said so in no uncertain terms. I’m curious, as all Tiger fans are, to see him air it out as well.
This is a last chance to pick up the slack for the road ahead. Let’s see what the purple and gold can do before we begin a long and dangerous conference journey.
Geaux Tigers!
Let’s go LSU Tigers.