Paul Finebaum assesses his confidence in LSU after Week 8
Paul Finebaum isn’t bailing on LSU yet. During an appearance on “McElroy and Cubelic in the Morning,” the SEC Network analyst weighed in on the Tigers’ season following their 62-0 blowout win over Army this weekend.
“A game like that gives you confidence,” Finebaum said. “Anybody that’s ever been on a defensive side of anything [knows] when you throw a shutout, it doesn’t matter who it’s against, you feel good. I think that’s a great feeling.
“You don’t want to go into a bye week beat up and battered. Instead, the schedule makers were kind to LSU, giving them a confidence builder and I feel good about this LSU team. I have all along.”
Saturday’s matchup was certainly kind to the Tigers. LSU marched over top of Army, exploding for 570 total yards while forcing the Black Knights to commit four turnovers. The win is LSU’s third-straight victory.
LSU overcomes early stumbles this season
Despite the team’s recent success, LSU already has two losses this season. The team’s first fall came in a narrow 55-49 loss to Ole Miss. LSU’s other loss was in the season opener when they fell 45-24 to Florida State. Despite the two tallies in the Tigers’ loss column, Finebaum is confident in LSU.
“The FSU game was just you’re up against one of the top four teams in the country and you probably didn’t even realize it,” Finebaum said. “Ole Miss was a game that they could have won. Listen, that was just a high-scoring shootout and it’s a matter of making one last play, but I still feel pretty confident about LSU.”
After a week to recover, LSU will face another massive test: Alabama. Since falling to Texas in Week 2, the Crimson Tide have won six games in a row, most recently defeating Tennessee in convincing fashion. Although Finebaum likes LSU, he isn’t taking it over Alabama.
“I favor Alabama because I just really like what I’m seeing on the Alabama side,” Finebaum said. “In a game like this at night, it is going to give Alabama a little more of an edge from the intangibles than they even had in the first half against Tennessee.”
Only time will tell if Finebaum is correct. With both teams on bye weeks, Alabama and LSU will square off on Nov. 4. Tigers head coach Brian Kelly will do everything he can to have his team prepared.
“We’ll look at some things that we think that are important for us to address in practice before we start to look at Alabama,” Kelly said after LSU’s win over Army. “There’s some things individually that we want to get some players to look at it and then some some scheme things and we’ll do that on Tuesday and Wednesday.”