Ad Disclosure
GAINESVILLE — Florida and LSU week usually means cross-divisional rivals with plenty of NFL-caliber personnel playing physical and fast.
Florida and LSU week usually means national anticipation and SEC and national championship implications. It usually means two teams frothing and chomping at the bit to get after one another.
Not this week.
While there is national television (3:30 p.m., CBS), there’s little buzz outside of Gainesville or Baton Rouge, thanks to Florida’s slumbering offense and LSU’s inauspicious 3-2 start under head coach Ed Orgeron.
Instead, Saturday’s tilt at The Swamp has the feel of something different.
Trap game.
I know: It’s strange to think of a football game between two perennial SEC powers as a trap game for either side. Players shouldn’t have to be coaxed and convinced to play hard against the likes of LSU or Florida.
But that’s what this game feels like for the Gators.
If you just go by the eye test, LSU looks like a sinking ship, rudderless in unnavigable waters with mutiny and resentment setting in and inevitable doom around the corner.
Here’s a good litmus test: When your head coach is running your offensive coordinator over with a bus on Oct. 2 and openly talking about hoping and praying a recruiting class sticks together, things are bad.
Orgeron, of course, was always a risky hire.
LSU athletic director Joe Alleva dispatched national-championship-winning head coach Les Miles early last season, mainly for bland offense and losing to Alabama too much, and Orgeron did a nice job as the interim coach, posting a 6-2 mark. But once you looked past the interim success, Orgeron’s skill as a recruiter and the endearing mouth full-of-jambalaya accent, the hire screamed heart-over-head.
Alleva panicked, and appealed to emotional parochialism after striking out on preferred hires Jimbo Fisher and Tom Herman. And not only did Alleva hand the keys to one of the nation’s best programs to a coach whose only head-coaching experience in the SEC was a 10-25, 3-21 experience at Ole Miss, he saddled LSU with a $12 million buyout and a deal that runs to 2021 in the process, a ridiculous financial gamble.
The early returns on the Orgeron hire have been disastrous. The Tigers suffered a humiliating loss at Mississippi State to open SEC play, and punctuated that misery this past weekend with an unthinkable homecoming loss to Troy. Only a narrow victory over a bad Syracuse team separates the two.
The Troy loss was no fluke either, as the Trojans dominated LSU at the point of attack and exposed the Tigers’ issues in all three phases.
Sure, the Tigers were banged up — missing star running back Derrius Guice, defensive end Rashard Lawrence, tackle Tony Weathersby, defensive tackle Ed Alexander and fullback J.D. Moore — but surely they have enough talent to overcome even a solid Troy team?
Hot take here, but a homecoming loss to Troy isn’t a good way to build good will in the fan base and momentum for the meat of conference play that now faces LSU.
Making matters worse, Alleva’s pony show of a protest to rescheduling last year’s Florida game after Hurricane Matthew narrowly missed hammering the Florida coast means instead of playing the Gators at Tiger Stadium, LSU’s will head to The Swamp, and 90,000 people who have waited over a year for this game. Alleva’s protest didn’t just get LSU chastised by the league commissioner; they cost a wounded football team a home game.
A wounded team in disarray heading into a swamp full of frenzied Gators who have been lying in wait? Sounds like a perfect recipe for a dominant Gator win then, doesn’t it?
Not to me.
Sounds like a big old Gator trap.
In truth, Saturday’s tilt sounds like a role reversal of sorts from last year’s contest, where Florida came out the angrier, more aggressive football team (there was a real, live fight in pregame warmups between LSU All-American Leonard Fournette and Florida coaches) and emerged with a 16-10 victory at Tiger Stadium. The win sealed the SEC East for Florida and prompted a lengthy, somewhat gratuitous celebration of selfies and Gator flag-waving on the Tiger Stadium grass.
Think LSU remembers that? Think Orgeron, who for all his flaws is a fine motivator, forgot about that this summer? Unlikely.
Sometimes an angry, wounded animal is the most dangerous animal. The same is true in sports. When coaches talk about playing desperate, it’s often to create urgency. LSU won’t need to create it. They’re already desperate. A good performance and win are an urgent need.
Then there’s the injuries.
While Florida almost certainly will be without star receiver Tyrie Cleveland, the Tigers are getting key players back.
Guice is questionable, but if you don’t think he’s playing, I’ve got a friend George with ocean front property in Arizona to sell you. The Tigers should get some of the other 15 scholarship players held out against Troy back as well.
Finally, there’s the personnel.
LSU still has talent in spades. They match up just fine with the Gators, and have advantages in key areas.
They rank ahead of Florida in the S&P+ efficiency rankings (21 to Florida’s 25) and at No. 9 in defensive efficiency, will be the third Top 25 defense Florida faces (Michigan, Vanderbilt). The Gators’ results in those games were mixed, and LSU’s defensive personnel, especially in the secondary, looks a lot more like Michigan than Vanderbilt. The Tigers are also likely to show plenty of Dave Aranda’s patented exotic fronts he used at Wisconsin to confuse Feleipe Franks, even if the Tigers don’t blitz a ton.
Further, if Guice plays, the Tigers will have an outstanding chance to run the football against a Gators defense that ranks just 60th nationally against the run and remains near the bottom of the conference in tackling percentage. If the Tigers can run, they’ll open up play-action downfield for Danny Etling against Florida’s young secondary. That type of balance is a good recipe for an upset.
Fortunate to be 3-1, Florida can’t afford to take LSU lightly. They must run out of the south end zone tunnel Saturday expecting a herculean effort from the visitors. They must match LSU’s intensity and physicality.
If they don’t, this time it will be LSU celebrating, waving flags and taking selfies, scoring an unlikely triumph for an embattled coach on Florida’s home field.
Neil Blackmon covers Florida football and the SEC for SaturdayDownSouth.com. An attorney, he is also a member of the Football and Basketball Writers Associations of America. He also coaches basketball.
