Is LSU a Serious College Football Playoff Contender?
It wasn't always pretty, but LSU improved to 5-0 with a 45-24 win over South Carolina, restating its claim as a serious College Football Playoff contender.
The Tigers look weaker than previous LSU contenders and feel more like dark horses than favorites, but their record, pedigree and potential to improve make them a threat that all opponents must take seriously.
Running back Leonard Fournette has been the best player in the country, continuing his dominance with 158 yards against the Gamecocks, and the passing game showed tangible signs of improvement.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Sophomore quarterback Brandon Harris can't lead LSU to the playoff, but at this point he doesn't really need to.
Performances like Saturday's are enough.
The opponent left much to be desired, but Harris completed 18 of 28 passes for 228 yards and two touchdowns.
Even if he left yards on the field, that's a major improvement on LSU's previous passing numbers, which according to ESPN's Peter Burns ranked last in the FBS among non-triple-option offenses.
"Brandon threw the ball well," head coach Les Miles said after the game, per Jim Kleinpeter of the New Orleans Times-Picayune. He couched that by saying there are "some things we can improve upon," but omitting that would have been dishonest.
And then, of course, there's the running game. The Heisman Trophy is Fournette's to lose, as Bleacher Report's Barrett Sallee wrote Saturday, but he's not alone in making this unit tick.
The offensive line is a snowplow, and true freshman scatback Derrius Guice, a top-50 player on 247Sports' composite rankings, rushed 17 times for 164 yards against the Gamecocks.
One run in particular ranked right up there with Fournette's greatest hits:
LSU is not a slam-dunk favorite, which is true for multiple reasons, especially when you look at its schedule.
The Tigers' best win to date came at Mississippi State—a game they nearly blew in the fourth quarter—but the Bulldogs are worse than each of their remaining six opponents, per Football Outsiders' S&P+ ratings:
| at Mississippi State | 50 | 21-19 (W) | 79% |
| vs. Auburn | 69 | 45-21 (W) | 93% |
| at Syracuse | 49 | 34-24 (W) | 79% |
| vs. Eastern Michigan | 94 | 44-22 (W) | 80% |
| vs. South Carolina* | 73 | TBD | |
| vs. Florida | 5 | 29-28 (W) | 53% |
| vs. Western Kentucky | 28 | 39-26 (W) | 77% |
| at Alabama | 1 | 19-34 (L) | 19% |
| vs. Arkansas | 17 | 38-28 (W) | 73% |
| at Ole Miss | 14 | 30-28 (W) | 56% |
| vs. Texas A&M | 22 | 37-25 (W) | 75% |
Despite that, the pre-Week 6 S&P+ projections had LSU winning 10 of 11 games. Its only projected loss comes at Alabama, the No. 1 team by S&P+ standards, so that's as quality as quality losses come.
And yes, I know there are flaws in that logic. Despite projecting the Tigers to win all but one of their games, the system above calls for toss-ups against Florida and Ole Miss. They're favorites in five of their next six games, but the chances of them winning all five, per the above numbers, land at only 13 percent.
Still, this is one of those cases where the numbers don't relay the whole picture. If you crunched advanced stats after six weeks two seasons ago, where do you think Auburn would have ranked?
Teams with experienced coaches and blue-chip talent have higher ceilings than teams without them. They can (and often do) make drastic improvements as fall ices over to winter.
Like 2013 Auburn, this Tigers team can run the ball on anyone, conjure timely defensive stops and (hopefully) improve in the passing game. Harris showed flashes on Saturday, and receivers Travin Dural and Malachi Dupre—respective current and future NFL draft prospects—combined for 10 catches, 183 yards and two scores.
This roster is oozing with talent, and Miles has taken multiple oozing-with-talent teams to national championship games despite shaky quarterback play.
With a running game that might be his strongest ever, a defense that typically gets the job done and a topsy-turvy conference lacking obvious, established favorites, who's to say he can't take one more?
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
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