The only certainty going into this game was both teams had great defenses. That part stays true. When either offense gained a decent chunk of yards, I thought they were going to tie a few plays together and produce a successful drive. That never happened, partially because of both defenses playing to their lofty skill levels, but also because both offenses are closers to being bad than good. Trent Richardson was the best player on the offensive side of the ball for either team and seemed to be able to somewhat figure out the LSU defense and played the role of the receiving safety blanket for his quarterback. But the talent really stopped their for the offense on Saturday.
LSU won this game because of Alabama's special teams shortcomings. I know special teams are part of the game and if a team does not execute on teams they can lose, but when big games are decided by mistakes on special teams, it does not make for games of the century, or decade, year or even a Saturday in November.
In this battle of elite defenses, Alabama was better than LSU for almost all of the games. Michael Ford's 15 yard run in OT was the longest rush by an LSU running back given up by the Tide all game. Bama forced two INTs by the Tiger's quarterback Jarrett Lee and that is no small task this season. They held the LSU runners to 148 yards on 41 carries and both Tiger's QBs to only 91 yards through the air.
Looking at game as a whole, Alabama was the better team, mainly because their defense is slightly better than LSU's. The one big problem for the Crimson Tide was that Cade Foster and Jeremy Shelley play for them, and they play the position of place kicker. For those of you that watched the game Saturday know that was a terrible thing for Alabama. Foster went 1-4 and Shelley 1-2 (his miss was a block).
On the LSU side, Brad Wing was the best special teams player on the field, and maybe the best player period. The Tiger's punter put five punts on the 20 yard line or better, including his first two on the five and four respectively and a 73 yard punt to the 18.
Last week, I was under the full belief that the loser of this game (as long as it wasn't a blowout) deserved a rematch in the National Title game. This week, I have switched my stance, both Oklahoma St. and Stanford deserve to put their big time offenses up against LSU's defense.
There are two more huge games left before the conference championship weekend. Stanford-Oregon on Saturday and Oklahoma-Oklahoma St. the last week of the season. Hopefully for us college football and sports fans out there, these games will be better games.
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