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BATON ROUGE, La. — This is supposed to be a cupcake game, right?
However, if you look more closely, there is reason for LSU to worry in its matchup with FCS power Jacksonville State this weekend.
The Gamecocks are pretty good. And it’s not clear that, at its level, LSU is pretty good right now. The Tigers are coming off a 16-14 loss to Wisconsin and, dating back to last season, have lost four of their last six.
So this could be a tough football game on Saturday. Just ask Auburn, which needed overtime to beat the Gamecocks last season.
If you’re not convinced, here are four reasons to take JSU seriously:
John Grass is a good coach
With a 24-4 record in two-plus seasons at JSU, John Grass is one of the hot coaches in the FCS ranks.
He doesn’t have a sexy background, with a long history as a high school coach before getting hired as Bill Clark’s offensive coordinator in Jacksonville in 2013. When Clark left JSU for UAB, Grass was promoted to head coach.
His losses in his two seasons have been to Michigan State and Auburn in the regular season and to Sam Houston State and North Dakota State in the FCS playoffs. The Gamecocks lost to NDSU in the FCS national championship game last season.
You don’t get those results without consistently having a well-prepared, confident and, yes, talented team. This won’t likely be a team that gets overwhelmed by the Tiger Stadium atmosphere.
Eli Jenkins is a dynamic playmaker
When you’re an underdog, it helps to have a player who can individually make things happen, and JSU has that in quarterback Eli Jenkins, a redshirt senior who passed for 2,788 yards and rushed for 1,181 yards last year.
Jenkins — who is 6-foot-2 and 210 pounds with notable speed — has the athleticism to extend plays and create, something that could come in handy when your team might be a little overmatched physically in some spots. And he’s been there before. He was the quarterback for JSU’s playoff run and in the Auburn game.
Again, Jenkins, like JSU, won’t be intimidated by the venue.
The talent level is very un-FCS
Jenkins is one of many JSU players who had offers from bigger programs coming out of high school but opted to play for the Gamecocks. For Jenkins, it was for the opportunity to play quarterback as most of the teams recruiting him wanted him to play in the secondary.
For others on the JSU roster, they originally took the opportunity to play at a higher level but came to JSU for more playing time. JSU has 13 transfers from bowl subdivision programs, including nine from SEC teams. Among those is Auburn transfer Roc Thomas, a former 5-star prospect out of high school who has reunited with his high school coach, Grass, to be the Gamecocks’ starting running back.
Don’t expect JSU to be able to physically match LSU man-for-man, but the talent level with the Gamecocks is good enough where, if JSU executes what it does better than LSU, it could be a competitive matchup.
LSU is not executing at the same level
Sure, LSU has more talent than JSU. But the Tigers have not played as well as the Gamecocks lately.
While JSU was putting together a run to a national championship game last season, LSU was going through a three-game losing streak where not much was going right. And while the Tigers seemed to correct some ills while winning their last two games last season, they popped up again in the Wisconsin loss.
The Tigers get penalized a lot. They miss assignments. The quarterback does not play with the confidence Jenkins plays with.
JSU is a team with all the confidence in the world. LSU is a program with a cloud hanging over it.
It adds up to what could be an interesting evening at Tiger Stadium.
