5 BOROUGH SPORTS

Well here we are, finally the long awaited matchup of LSU v. Alabama is upon us. This is a true battle of titans, two teams that have done nothing but steamroll through College Football in 2011. Both are hard-nosed teams that rely on running the football, and play completely shutdown defense. Although that much is similar, the way they get there is a quite different. LSU runs more unconventional schemes on both offense and defense.

The Tiger defense is led by longtime legendary defensive coordinator John Chavis, who led the Tennessee defense until two seasons ago. He runs a scheme that is designed to create lots of confusion for the offense. Pre-snap the defense rarely comes to set and has lots of movement to create uncertainty about blitzes and coverages. Either way the Tigers have an amazing amount of talent and speed, making it hard to score on these guys. They pride themselves on creating turnovers and that could be the difference in the game. On offense LSU is also very multiple, showing many different looks, but still relying on trying to establish the ground game, before making play-action attacks deep.

On the other side of the field you will see a much more conventional style of football from Alabama. Although relying on much less deception on both sides of the ball, the Tide have just as much, if not more talent and speed as LSU. On defense they run a very typical 4-3 defense that appears to have its holes, but once the ball is shaped the scheme and speed to the point of attack is simply amazing. On offense Alabama loves to line up and just stuff the ball down your throat in the I-formation. They will often bring in so many blockers that they have 10 players in the box. This creates a similar look from the defense, with also as many as 10 in the box, but somehow Alabama still manages to squeeze Trent Richardson through for solid yardage again and again.

This game has all the hype in the world, and we can only hope that it lives up to the billing. In the end I think the game is so evenly matched that it will simply come down to one thing, turnovers. Without LSU creating crucial turnovers, I think Alabama will win the game, but with them LSU wins. It’s impossible to really predict how that will happen, but I have to give some sort of prediction.

Although there are other exciting games in College Football this weekend, this is really all that we want. I might be able to attend this epic matchup, but it all depends on a friend of mine, and he is flaking out right now. Very upsetting, but if I do go, I promise to report back extensively.

Now it’s time to look at this week’s top 25 and as always the predictions:

1. Alabama

2. LSU

3. Stanford

4. Oklahoma

5. Oklahoma State

6. Oregon

7. Clemson

8. Boise State

9. Arkansas

10. Virginia Tech

11. South Carolina

12. Nebraska

13. Wisconsin

14. Michigan

15. Michigan State

16. Georgia Tech

17. West Virginia

18. Florida State

19. Penn State

20. Texas

21. Houston

22. Kansas State

23. Auburn

24. Georgia

25. Arizona State

and now the predictions…

Florida State 31, Boston College 10

Oklahoma 42, Texas A&M 24

Arkansas 27, South Carolina 20

Oklahoma State 45, Kansas State 21

Notre Dame 34, Wake Forest 20

Alabama 20, LSU 17

This entry was posted on November 3, 2011 at 2:06 pm and is filed under College Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.