LSU Tigers: Is Their Offense Good Enough To Win a National Championship?

The LSU Tigers have moved into the top spot of the AP rankings. Their defense has been labeled by Urban Meyer as one of the best he's ever seen. The only question people have about the Tigers is whether they have the offense to win it all. 

They opened the season suspending their starting quarterback, Jordan Jefferson. Their backup quarterback, Jarrett Lee, has caused people to question whether there's enough quarterback there to win a national championship.

It's not so much because of what he has done this year, or not this year, it's because he had a bad game a couple of years ago. Folks, Jarrett Lee has grown up. 

It's not that Lee's present season begs any questions. His quarterback rating is sixth-best in the SEC in spite of the fact the Tigers have played the toughest schedule of any team in the nation. Sure, he's only throwing for 156 yards per game, but he's also thrown for six touchdowns to only one interception. 

LSU doesn't have the likes of Marcus Lattimore in the backfield, but they do have a pair of backs that in combination equal his production.

Spencer Ware has 309 yards and three touchdowns. Michael Ford has 296 yards and six touchdowns. The national championship game doesn't recognize how many names are carrying the ball. 

No, LSU doesn't have the greatest offensive names. They don't have a Heisman candidate carrying the ball or throwing it. What they do have though is a consistent offense that scores points. The only SEC team that has scored more points is Florida, who has played four unranked opponents and only one of them on the road. 

In spite of that overwhelming scheduling advantage they have, Florida has only averaged 1.5 points more per game than LSU. The bottom line of offense is scoring and LSU does score and they've done so against quality opponents. 

It's ironic that people will contend that LSU's offense is "going" to struggle when they start coming up against the better defenses in the league. The fact is that they have been playing good defenses; they just haven't looked that good against LSU's offense. 

I loathe to let facts get in the way of perfectly good rhetoric and all but sometimes it's a good idea to step back and give reality the full wide-screen shot. LSU's opponents, when not facing LSU have given up just 270.2 yards and 15.8 points per game, the rough equivalent of Ohio State. Both numbers are those of a top-20 defense.

The reality is that they have been playing good, but not great defenses. Oregon has given up 320 yards and 14.5 points when not playing LSU. Mississippi State has yielded 18.8 points and 266 yards. West Virginia has yielded only 14 points and 191 yards.

In fact is LSU has gained on average 43 percent more yards and scored 146 percent more points against their opponents than their opponents have given up against other teams.  

So why is there this notion that LSU's offense isn't good enough? Well there are a few reasons. First, they aren't the prettiest offense in the league. You don't see this wide open, heavy-throwing, downfield passing, spread offense that some of the elite offenses run. 

In fact, you could say their offense is somewhere between plain and ugly. That doesn't mean it's not good or effective though. Their strategy is simple: beat on you until you can't take it anymore and throw when necessary.

That's why they've outscored their opponents 43-14 in the fourth quarter (and one of those TDs was a garbage-time TD). They've scored 88 of their 153 points in the second half. They wear teams down. They physically dominate them. They don't turn the ball over. They keep the defense on the field. 

Then, if they score or punt, their defense comes out and shuts the offense down, and the offense gets back out there and starts punishing again. Their line starts to dominate the game. Ware is almost abusive in his running style. Ford is elusive. Combined, the two create headaches. 

When the defense tries to key on the run, Lee drops back and completes 64 percent of his passes. 

The team just moves forward. They convert 48.2 percent of their 3rd-down opportunities. They've scored on 25 of 46 of their possessions. That might not equate to pretty but it sure does equate to effective. The Tigers move the ball downfield; they just take more plays to do it.

They have had the ball more than nine minutes longer than their opponents on average. This is once again in spite of the fact that their opponents have kept the ball longer than their opponents when not facing LSU. 

Even when they punt it, it ends up pinning the other team back more times than not. In fact, LSU opponents have started with the ball inside their own 15-yard line on 17 occasions. 

Bear in mind that the LSU offense takes care of the ball too. They've only turned it over three times in four games. 

All these things add up. The Tigers just keep moving the ball down the field. They keep the opponent on the field. They wear them down. By the time the game is over, they haven't just won—they've literally beaten their opponent. 

And if we're being honest here, a straightforward, smash-mouth offense is the type that wins when you have a shutdown defense. The LSU offense keeps the LSU defense fresh and the LSU defense keeps the opponent's offense tired. 

I'm not trying to hype up LSU as the greatest offense outside of Oregon—they aren't. That doesn't mean they aren't a championship-caliber offense though. In fact, we can argue that their offense is more of a championship-caliber than Oregon's. We know that Oregon's can be stopped. 

No one's done that to LSU's yet.