Preview Podcast: Can LSU make one last stand vs. Texas A&M?

LSU takes on the No. 3 team in the country on Saturday night in Tiger Stadium in desperate need of a win coming off of the road loss to Vanderbilt. Brian Kelly and the Tigers are slight underdogs in this game, but on Friday morning, Shea Dixon and Matthew Brune previewed the game and discussed why LSU has a chance to win this game and pull off the upset.

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On the pod

Matthew Brune: “Look, this game in my opinion is going to be similar to that Ole Miss game last year where you’re like, “This game doesn’t make a lot of sense.” But then you say, “All right, it’s Tiger Stadium at night.” The thing that throws a wrench into previewing this game is the weather. It could rain and there could be delays. In my head, I don’t know how to quantify any of that.

But on paper, A&M is the better football team to this point in the year. A&M is ranked No. 3 in the country. I don’t personally think they’re the third-best team, but in college football today, who really knows who the third-best team is, right? They’re a very good football team and undefeated at this point.

Defensively, they’ve had some blips—42 points allowed to Arkansas, 40 to Notre Dame. So I don’t thin”k they’re as dominant defensively as Mike Elko would like them to be. But on the other side, they actually have an offense this year. Marcel Reed is throwing the ball better, and when you add Conception and Craver, they finally have real talent at receiver to go with a run game that is going to be the focal point for A&M.”

Like I said, on paper, on a neutral field with no other factors, I think A&M is the better team. I just think there are more factors in this particular game than simply “who’s better.” We see it every year. Ole Miss last year was better than LSU at LSU. They were probably the better team for three quarters. But some games at Tiger Stadium just don’t make sense, and LSU-A&M games always seem to fall into that category.”

Shea Dixon: “Yeah. In our preview predictions piece, I literally wrote in the first sentence: “Just so you don’t have to read any further, I’m predicting against the reality of what we’ve seen all year.” Because on paper, on film—by every metric you want to look at—A&M has been better than LSU.

It’s only a 2.5-point spread, but A&M is the favorite going into Tiger Stadium. LSU doesn’t lose at home very often. We’ve talked about their road issues, but the flip side is that they’ve played really well at home—even with worse defenses in the Brian Kelly era. A&M has a lot of good players on defense. They’re still on the journey from individual talent to complete unit, but you can see where Elko wants to take them.

Offensively, it’s year two for Marcel Reed as the starter. He’s clearly grown. He can still run if needed—we saw that last year—but he’s progressed as a passer. They have a good play caller, and it’s one of those top-down, well-run operations. It’s no surprise they’re 7–0. They beat a good Notre Dame team and did it on the road. They complement each other well across offense, defense, special teams, coaching—everything. And on offense, their balance between run and pass is about as good as LSU has seen this year.”