The 2020 SEC football season is underway, and it started with a bang. The reigning 2019 National Champion LSU Tigers, who entered their first game ranked No. 6, lost their season-opening matchup against Mississippi State at home. It marks the first time a National Championship-winning team has lost their first game of the season in the following season since Notre Dame in 1978.
That 1977 Notre Dame team that won the National Championship only suffered one loss in the season, unlike LSU’s perfect season in 2019. The following year, however, Notre Dame finished the 1978 season with a final record of 9-3, a Cotton Bowl win and a final ranking in the AP Poll of No.7.
Is the 2020 LSU squad on it’s way to becoming the next Notre Dame of the late-1970’s? Too many questions left unanswered after Week 1 of SEC play to say.
The 44-34 loss to Mississippi State definitely shakes up the SEC West and leads to a slew of confusion as to how the conference will look at the end of the 10-game, conference-only season.
To start, LSU’s offense was no where close to what it was in their historical 2019 season. It is just the first game, but some things require acknowledgement.
The Joe Burrow-led offense saw an average of 569 yards of offense per game (402 passing, 167 rushing), an average of four passing touchdowns and 2 rushing touchdowns per game and a 75% completion percentage.
With Myles Brennan taking the snaps to kickoff the 2020 LSU offense, they were unable to come close to any of the averages from the previous season. The stats from the loss show signs of a team that might not be able to live up to their predecessor. In Week 1, LSU had 425 total yards (345 passing, 80 rushing), three passing touchdowns and not a single rushing touchdown with a completion percentage of only 59%. Brennan also turned the ball over twice, both interceptions.
The LSU defense, commonly referred to by some as ‘DBU’ for their infamous secondary, allowed 623 passing yards (an SEC single-game passing record), five passing touchdowns, and had three opposing receivers eclipse 100 yards. However, they did bring in two interceptions.
So, you may now be asking yourself, ‘what does this mean?’
Is LSU done for in the SEC? Is Mike Leach’s Mississippi State a contender for the SEC Championship? Who is Alabama’s biggest threat in the West?
Well, let’s slow down.
LSU’s season isn’t done, but things aren’t looking good in Baton Rouge. They should not be counted out, but can’t be seen as the unstoppable force they were in 2019.
Mike Leach is, like he always has been, outspoken. A day after taking down the reigning champions, he is already inviting fans to join the Mississipi State “bandwagon.”
Are the Bulldogs from Mississippi a team that could challenge Alabama, or the rest of the SEC? If you would have asked anybody two weeks ago, the answer would be a definite no.
The official SEC media predictions for the final conference standings had Mississippi State finshing second to last in the West, right above Arkansas.
Leach is known as an offensive-heavy coach, especially in the air. As previously mentioned, his quarterback K.J. Costello set the SEC single-game passing record in Leach’s first game within the conference.
In recent years, the SEC West has always had the same three or four teams own the top few spots with a chance to contend for an SEC Title: Alabama, LSU, Auburn and Texas A&M, though their chances usually seem to diminish after each season’s first few games.
Auburn had a win over a promising Kentucky team, Alabama got the win over Missouri and Texas A&M squeaked passed Vanderbilt with a five-point win at home. Then there’s LSU, whose season has already been tarnished by Leach’s Mississippi State.
Nick Saban and the No. 2 Crimson Tide will face off against the No. 16 Bulldogs in late-October in Tuscaloosa. By then, many questions will have received their answers. For now, though, there’s no telling what can and will happen in the weeks leading up to the contest that could be a battle for the West.