Through seven weeks of the college football season, there are a few certainties we’ve come to accept. We’ve come to accept that by the end of the year, Alabama’s defense may end up hospitalizing more people than the flu. We’ve come to accept that after every offensive series, Florida offensive coordinator Charlie Weis will need to take a seat on the bench to catch his breath. We’ve come to accept that by the end of the season, Stanford still might not play one team who ends up bowl eligible.
Oh, and we’ve come to accept that regardless of the date, venue or opponent, LSU is going to win and win convincingly. It might be boring, but it will be methodical, with the Tigers always coming out on the right end of a one-sided margin.
Saturday was no exception. This week’s victim….err, opponent was the Tennessee Volunteers, although really, you could’ve traded out Tennessee with about 115 other FBS teams and the result would’ve been the same. LSU was the better team. The Tigers were more skilled, more athletic and more fundamentally sound. And they won in dominating fashion, taking Tennessee out of their element in a 38-7 win on Rocky Top that was about as one-sided as a shouting match between Will Muschamp and an innocent SEC referee.
Like every LSU win this season, there was no true star of the game for the Tigers, no star beyond the entire LSU roster themselves.
On offense, Jarrett Lee and Jordan Jefferson alternated at quarterback like a guy alternate’s dress shirts before a big first date. The one notable difference was that regardless of whom the Tigers switched under center, both quarterbacks fit, and looked fantastic. Lee finished the day 10 of 14 passing for 115 yards, two touchdowns and zero interceptions, the latter stat which was one of the most important of the game. For a guy once known as “Pick-Six Lee,” Jarrett has now thrown for 10 touchdowns and just one interception this year, his sole mistake a harmless one, in an otherwise mundane 19-6 win at Mississippi State. As for Jefferson, he threw the ball just three times, but did run for 73 yards and a touchdown.
On defense, LSU’s unit did what does, making Tennessee – and quarterback Matt Simms, in particular – uncomfortable all day, limiting the Volunteers to just 239 yards of total offense and two turnovers. One of those turnovers was probably the game-changer, when, after Tennessee picked up a big conversion from Simms to Rajion McNeal, Morris Claiborne intercepted Simms’ next pass, returning it 89 yards to the Tennessee five. A few plays later, Lee hit Ruben Randle for a touchdown, and the rout was on.
If anything, though, the one player that stood out above all others was running back Spencer Ware, who not only defined this game with his play, but, really, defined LSU’s season too. He finished Saturday with 80 yards on 23 carries, including four touches on a 12-play, 66-yard drive to open the second half with an LSU score. Ware punched the ball in the endzone on that 12th play, making the score 24-7 LSU, and the Tigers never looked back.
And really, that drive was a synopsis of LSU’s season right there. Les Miles learned his coaching pimp-game from Bo Schembechler, and the way that his team has played this year is truly Schembechler-ian. LSU isn’t always pretty and isn’t always fun, but the Tigers are efficient. The Tigers play great defense and run the ball, and keep doing those two things over and over, until they wear you down and make you quit. Then they do it some more.
Actually, maybe the greatest compliment you can give LSU is this: By the beginning of the fourth quarter yesterday, I had basically turned off the Tennessee game, and moved on to a few others. It wasn’t that I was bored per se, just accepting of how the final 15 minutes would play out. LSU was the better team, and was simply exerting its will on the opponent, just like it had six times already this year. There was no need to watch and worry about a comeback, since the game was over just as soon as Ware punched the ball in to make the score 24-7 in the middle of the third.
So now, of course, we get to sit back, spend a week around the water cooler and discuss what is coming in three weeks. First is a home date against Auburn next week, but really, I can’t envision the LSU-Auburn game taking on less significance than in it is this year. Not simply because Auburn isn’t very good (the Tigers are improving), but just because of what’s ahead on November 5 when the Tigers go to Tuscaloosa to take on Alabama. The Auburn game is a mere formality, an appetizer, before a week off, before the main course that is “LSU-Alabama.”
Gary Danielson mentioned something yesterday that I agreed with. He doesn’t believe there’ll be a letdown before November 5 for either side, if only because each knows they’ve got each other to look forward to. Neither wants to disappoint college football fans, and most of all, each other, by not showing up on that date undefeated.
And neither will.
There are two weeks between now and November 5. But that date is all anyone is talking about.
Follow Aaron Torres on Twitter @Aaron_Torres.
