There are not many teams more difficult to preview than the Tigers. This team went 6-7 last season and has a number of scary positional situations, especially along the offensive line.
Still, the decision to hire [autotag]Brian Kelly[/autotag] as the next head coach brought an influx of both coaching and on-field talent. With a solid haul in the transfer portal and a respectable transition class that included five-star linebacker [autotag]Harold Perkins[/autotag], an in-state prospect Kelly flipped from Texas A&M, this team has some potential.
Bud Elliott and Brad Crawford from 247Sports previewed the entire SEC, with Elliott projecting a win total and Crawford giving his take on that number. For the Tigers, neither was particularly confident.
Elliott pegged LSU at seven wins in 2022, and Crawford said the best bet would be for the Tigers to hit exactly that number. Here’s his full take.
Even; the win total is 6.5 for LSU, take the over as an official play, but that’s not going to happen. Brian Kelly inspires confidence as a head coach, even during his first season with the “big boys” in the SEC, but the back end of the slate is treacherous and there’s a chance the Tigers could lose their final three SEC games in November (Alabama, at Arkansas, at Texas A&M). If this helps, LSU is closer to an 8-4 finish than 6-6 if you want to sprinkle a few bucks on the over total.
Playing in the SEC West is certainly brutal for a first-year head coach, even one with Kelly’s credentials. Still, the winningest coach in Notre Dame history and third-winningest active FBS coach will be far from out of his depth in Baton Rouge.
This team has a lot of questions to answer, namely at the quarterback spot. But there are intriguing options there in veteran [autotag]Myles Brennan[/autotag], who has shown some promise when healthy, which has been rare. There’s also [autotag]Jayden Daniels[/autotag], a transfer from Arizona State who started three seasons for the Sun Devils.
If one of those two is the guy, this team could have a pretty high ceiling. There’s talent at the skill positions, and while the defense suffered a lot of losses this offseason, the transfer portal helped mitigate them. Given the schedule, finishing much better than 8-4 could be tough, but that seems like a realistic if slightly underwhelming goal to set in Year 1.
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