As Alabama prepares to face off against LSU, public perception is largely that the Tigers will get dominated on Saturday.
ESPN’s betting spread favors Alabama by 10.5 points, a margin that would have looked shockingly wide in the preseason when LSU was ranked as the No. 9 team in the country by the AP poll.
While pessimism around the Tigers is natural, given their 24-point loss at home to Texas A&M and subsequent firing of then-head coach Brian Kelly, the fact that LSU has hit the reset button could make it a trap game for the Crimson Tide.
The firing of both Kelly and offensive coordinator Joe Sloan means that LSU is coming into its first post-Kelly matchup with an entirely new offense under interim head coach Frank Wilson. A new set of coaches leading the charge for an offense can make scouting and preparing on defense a challenge.
With tight ends coach Alex Atkins taking over Sloan’s place as offensive coordinator, Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer and his staff will have to rely on older film from Atkins’ coordinating at Florida State to scout out his offense.
DeBoer said on the SEC coaches teleconference that with the Tigers having a new offensive coordinator, the team understands it might get “some different looks.”
If Alabama treats this game as a scheduled win against a beat-down opponent, a revitalized LSU team that’s been sparked by new leadership could easily take advantage and pull off an upset.
“You look at the things you’ve done well,” Wilson said on the SEC coaches teleconference. “All of those things that would allow an opponent to prepare for you best, and you try to position your football team to be able to counter that so that you’re not predictable.”
Just this season, UCLA fired coach DeShaun Foster after starting its season 0-4, only to upset 24.5-point favorite Penn State the next game. Penn State’s loss was a major factor in its own firing of head coach James Franklin later in the year.
UAB similarly fired coach Trent Dilfer and won its next game against Memphis as a 23.5-point underdog.
Not only is LSU not nearly as much of an underdog as those two teams were in their first games after firing their coaches, but it is a drastically more talented team than either UCLA or UAB.
With a top 10 recruiting class in each of the past three years per the On3 Industry rankings, the Tigers come into this game loaded with top-end talent that can compete to win any game they play in, regardless of the coaching situation.
“Those players are out there, and we understand how talented they are,” DeBoer said. “They’ve got a lot of juice, a lot of speed, a lot of playmakers, so we’ve got to be at our best.”
