BATON ROUGE – Brian Kelly enters his third year as LSU football’s head coach.
At his three previous coaching stops, Year 3 was when his programs took a major step forward, winning a conference championship at Central Michigan, making New Year’s Six bowls at Cincinnati and appearing in a national title game in 2012 with Notre Dame.
LSU, who is ranked No. 12 in the LMB Coaches preseason poll, has won 10 games each of the first two seasons under Kelly. Could the Tigers, now led by Garrett Nussmeier at quarterback, breakthrough a stacked Southeastern Conference and make a run at the newly expanded, 12-team College Football Playoff?
Here are our game-by-game predictions:
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Sept. 1: LSU football vs USC (Las Vegas)
LSU’s opening game will be an ugly one. Both teams are breaking in new QBs, who’ll throw interceptions but it’ll be Nussmeier that guides the Tigers down the field a late, go ahead score.
Prediction: LSU 28, USC 24
Sept. 7: Nicholls State
The Tigers are bigger, faster, stronger than Nicholls and that’s all you need to know.
Prediction: LSU 54, Nicholls 6
Sept. 14: at South Carolina
This game has special teams written all over it. Shane Beamer, much like his dad Frank, specializes in coming up with positive plays on special teams and South Carolina upsets LSU at home behind it.
Prediction: South Carolina 23, LSU 17
Sept. 21: UCLA
UCLA is breaking in a new head coach this season in DeShaun Foster and the near cross-country trip to Baton Rouge will just be the Bruins third game. LSU bounces back from the loss at South Carolina as it rarely loses nonconference games at home.
Prediction: LSU 31, UCLA 20
Sept. 28: South…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/lsu-football-college-football-playoff-091303209.html
Author : The Daily Advertiser
Publish date : 2024-08-26 09:13:03
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